What’s Up Idaho Youth Ranch
January 2019
Meet Scott Curtis, Idaho Youth Ranch CEO
“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou We all have examples of this quote ringing true in our own lives. We can think of those special people who, regardless of what they said, made us feel good. It’s the little things more than the words. It’s the way they talk with us, the smile on their faces, and the real interest in their eyes. Thank you. To the dozens of individuals that I have interacted with this first week, from the distribution center and stores to the program staff and the youth receiving IYR services, I have been made to feel awesome. You, the extended Idaho Youth Ranch team, have made me feel welcomed and inspired this week. Just like the quote above, I can’t remember exactly what you have said or too many specific things that you did. I just know how I’ve felt. It is an absolute privilege to join this team. Thanks for the countless way you have welcomed me onto the team, given me input, and challenged me to help our organization continue to expand on our commitment to serve the most vulnerable youth and families in Idaho. Please keep doing that. I have been welcomed into an incredible mission. If I kept a journal, here is what I would have written after my first day: Tuesday the 8th of January. Bookends. First day
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I was simultaneously impressed by the compassion and skill of the staff...
Meet Scott with IYR. In the morning I witnessed a diverse staff in our warehouse, efficiently sorting items donated for use in our thrift stores. They smiled as they worked, surrounded by images of the youth that we serve. They told me our mission as well as how to watch out for the forklifts! I ended my day at Hays House, sharing dinner with the youth and staff of our short-term residential treatment facility. I heard their stories. I was inspired by the courage these youth show in addressing challenges. I was simultaneously impressed by the compassion and skill of the staff, gently guiding the youth in their behaviors and interactions, trying to help them recognize their own control in their lives and the cause and effects of their own What a great end to an inspirwords and actions. ing day of seeing our mission in What a great end to an inspiring day of seeing our misaction at every level! sion in action at every level! In between those bookends I got to meet with the senior leadership team, the director team, and the program staff at Emerald. It was a full day that left me inspired and challenged. I have many more of you to meet, and I look forward to making that happen over the next three weeks, as I travel to all our sites. I’m not sure what I will say and do at each of those stops, but I hope that I am able to help you feel appreciated for your great contribution to our mission. And I know that I will be inspired by you!
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Thank you, again, for the privilege of being able to come and serve this great organization with you. I’m writing to share a bit about my first week as the CEO of the Idaho Youth Ranch. Wednesday. Opportunity. The meat of the day was a team meeting about the ranch. This group has been down in a lot of details and is rolling up its sleeves, digging into a complex plan, drafting a proforma, and working to make sure that the plan for the ranch is bold, aspirational, and something that will be sustainable for the long-term.
of efforts to improve the workforce culture and retention. Friday. Gratitude. The highlight of Friday was a staff goodbye for Jason. The team shared thoughts, memories, and photos as they gave Jason a great farewell. It even included the “IYR Shuffle,” a rap involving dozens of staff and highlighting the great work of the past 18 months. The event itself spoke loudly, both Thursday. Culture. We started for the appreciation and love everythe day rolling out a new program one has for Jason and for a culture partnership for our distribution that encourages gratitude and celecenter staff. Leaders from Cath- bration. olic Charities of Idaho (CCI) and ICON Credit Union met with the Saturday. History. I was honored staff and rolled out a plan to sup- to attend Neil Howard’s funeral, port their financial education. This hear the stories of his life (many of is a pilot, and we are eager to see which involved the youth ranch), how much it is embraced and the and talk with the attendees after the impact it could have on our front- ceremony. Neil worked as CEO of line workers. This is one example the Idaho Youth Ranch for almost
two decades (1974-1992), served on the Board for many years, and saw incredible growth during his tenure. Current and former IYR employees had lots of stories to share! Sunday. Support Have you ever seen a “cart sale”? It’s simple. $10 per shopping cart. Shoppers get to try their engineering, spatial relations, and physics skills by piling as much as they can fit into a shopping cart. The folks were lined up before opening, and we had 350 sales in just four hours. That’s 350 shopping carts packed with goods! The store was a sea of people, and staff were awesome in keeping things moving. The best part? All of this increases the amount that our stores are supporting work we do with the youth and families who need it the most.
Programs Adoptions Success Story
By Donna Euler, Program Supervisor Lawrence and Carol contacted the Adoption program to have an international home study done in hopes of adopting a child that they had hosted through a program that allows children from Ukraine spend time with US families. The home study was completed as well as a home study update which was required four months later by the adoption center in Kyiv for submission of the family’s dossier. Nine months after submission of the home study, the family was advised that the child they had hoped to adopt, had been adopted by a Russian family. Because they were committed to adopting internationally, they traveled to Ukraine to meet another child listed on the adoption registry and decided she was a good match for their family. Because this child presented significant medical needs that were not addressed in the initial home study’s recommendation, they asked that their home study be amended to reflect the community resources available in Northern Idaho/Eastern Washington to serve this child and that the home study recommendation be expanded so the court in Ukraine could approve them for her adoption. The requested changes were promptly made and the Adoptions staff facilitated the apostilling of the report by the Secretary of State and delivery of the home study and supporting documents to the family in Ukraine. Once the family was able to return to the US, the Adop-
tions staff provided post placement support to them as they dealt with the adjustment issues inherent with international placements. In addition, we have provided support to the family as they obtained professional assistance for the bonding and attachment issues the child carried with her as a result of spending nearly eight years in an orphange setting. Lawrence and Carol were able to grow their family through adoption and their home now has a sense of normacy, thanks to the family’s unwaivering commitment to this child and IYR’s commitment to “Finishing the Job”.
“Last night I had really bad memories come up and I felt heavy and nauseous from it and I used the Mindful Coloring Skill. I printed off a kindergarten coloring page and tried to distract my painful thoughts and it wasn’t really working at first, but then I added the Encouragement part of the IMPROVE skill and I wrote positive thoughts around the shapes and filled the page and it helped me get to sleep. It was like one of the first times I’ve actually thought to use a skill by myself and it worked!” –DBT client sharing a success with her therapist.
Programs NORTH IDAHO SUCCESS STORY
Due to the trauma of surviving domestic violence in her home growing up, Riley has become afraid of anything and everything. She reports her fear level as being a “10” almost always. Her fear, anxiety, and insecurities have negatively impacted every area of her life-school, work, friendships, family life, probation, etc. And while as a little girl she used to love horses, she is currently TERRIFIED of horses, but willing to give equine therapy a shot. At the beginning of treatment Riley attempted to take her life by overdosing on medication. The therapist worked with her, the family, and the hospital throughout this ordeal. She was also caught shoplifting, and spent a few weeks detained in jail. Again, the therapist worked with her in the jail setting and coordinated services with her mom and probation officer. Riley showed up to equine therapy, but would rarely leave the side of the facilitators, tried to avoid any physical contact with the horses, and reported a fear level between 7-10 along with negative physical sensations most appointments. But Riley never quit and she kept challenging herself to step outside of her comfort zone and show up to session. Riley now goes into a pasture with 10 horses and is surrounded by them, petting them and showing them affection. She has I learned her favorites, the black horses. She gained employment. that I She traveled to the Midwest alone to visit extended family. She’s made some difficult decisions about what friendships are need to get healthy and unhealthy. She’s set goals to pass her GED and begin to know nursing school. She’s agreed to the aftercare recommendations of others beattending family counseling and DBT group. In her own words on her last day of equine therapy: “I look for fore being the positives in myself and focus on what I like about myself. I afraid of want to try new things. I help others. I learned that I need to get them. I to know others before being afraid of them. I don’t have to live in fear. I am now stepping outside of my comfort zone. My old self don’t have was boxed in by my insecurities. Now I am free and open and to live in pushing my insecurities away. I don’t have as many insecurities fear. now.”
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Programs Holiday Fun & Graduation
By Brianna Woolsey, Next Steps Program Manager
What a great Holiday season! YOUTHWORKS! completed a few community workshops and set up lots more for the New Year! YW! also met with the Department of Labor Apprenticeship Department to collaborate on providing our clients apprenticeship opportunities! More to come on this! At the beginning of December three Hands of Promise alums officially graduated from the program. It was a great celebration with over 30 family and friends in attendance to support the graduates! On December 23rd, eleven alums took part in the JC Penney shopping spree! They were so ecstaic to be able to get christmas gifts for themselves and their families!
Programs
Marco started at Hands of Promise as a kid who struggled to communicate. When he got mad he shut down, was quite, and usually ended up in his room under a blanket or hiding his head in his hands. He wouldn’t respond to anyone and would stay this way for hours sometimes stuck and unable to communicate his needs and feelings. He had a rough start at Hands where his immaturity and problems with compulsion were evident. He couldn’t sit through a movie without being distracting and making loud noises throughout. His relationships with his parents needed mending and he had to prove his maturity and trustworthiness. His goals of having a car and being more independent were nowhere in sight. Marco worked hard at Hands of Promise, connected with staff, made friends of his peers, and began working with therapists and his family. Marco really connected with the horses and did well in equine therapy and horsemanship. By the end of his time at Hands he had matured a lot. He learned DBT skills to help him through the times when he was sad and angry. He no longer hid his face and became mute when over-
whelmed but was able to take a moment and tell staff how he was feeling and communicate his needs. He was able to resolve issues with his peers independent of staff. He could sit through a movie or an event without being disruptive and was able to control himself and his response to triggering events. He took responsibility for his actions and took the necessary steps to make things right with those he had wronged. He earned the trust of staff and his family. He offered to run DBT skills groups. He was a role model for new kids at Hands; showing them around and teaching them the rules of the program. Marco also put in a lot of work to mend the relationship with his parents and prove his trustworthiness. At Marco’s graduation he showed appreciation for staff, therapists, and his family. He talked about earning enough trust to enroll in drivers ed. His parents allowed him to start saving for a car. He had worked a part time job and participated in soccer, earning his letter in varsity. His new goals are to buy a car, to participate in more sports, and to find a college he will attend after senior year.
Programs Luke’s Success Story By Jennifer Guzman, Therapist
Luke was a self-referral for counseling services. He stated felt that he would benefit from having someone to talk to while he navigated the relationships in his family. Luke reported that he and his mother did not always see eye-to-eye and that he felt he could learn to respond differently and more appropriately to their conflicts. Luke was very engaged in outpatient therapy. He had some great insight regarding his own values, his behavior, and the conflict that sometimes occurred between his behaviors and values. Luke was very responsive to DBT interventions. He quickly picked up many of the skills and reported using the skills at home to improve the communication between him and his mother. Luke stated that he began to express his needs without anger and as a result his relationship with his mother improved. He also stated that because of the improvement in their relationship he could be more honest and open with his mother. Luke has completed his treatment plan goals. He has learned to improve his interpersonal effectiveness skills and is better at regulating his emotions now. He and his mother agree that he has made great improvements in his willingness and ability to express himself. Luke is preparing to discharge from services with a renewed sense of confidence. And we could not be more happy for him and his family!
Programs Bear, The Therapy Dog
By Bear (with the help typing from Emily Reinecke Watson) Hi, I’m Bear the Therapy Dog and I am a very good boy! I live and work at Hays House. I am an 8 year old chocolate lab and golden retriever mix- and I have a really important job! My main responsibility to make the kids at Hays House smile and laugh and play like kids are supposed to play. Sometimes that means playing fetch in the yard! But sometimes my kids seem really sad and I don’t always understand why but its my job to lay my head in their laps and be their buddy until they feel better. Additionally, I have been tasked with keeping squirrels out of the yard at Hays House. Well, no one told me I have to do that, but I’m just a real go-getter so I took it upon myself to chase the squirrels. Let’s just say that my job is ruff, but rewarding! One very intersting and cool fact about me is that I was specially trained through the Inmate Dog Alliance Project of Idaho (IDAPI), which is a program that is a community partnership between the Idaho Humane Society and Idaho Department of Corrections. I was a just shelter dog when I was specially picked for the IDAPI program. As part of the program, I spent two months getting very fun and really important training in an Idaho correctional facility, where nice inmates cared for me and trained me on my super special skills. My super special skills include sitting, laying down, crawling, shaking paws, and a lot more skills that I can’t remember right now. My favorite things to do includes making my kids smile real big, doing tail wiggles, chasing fuzzy tennis balLs, getting belly rubs, laying with my fun rope, laying in my cozy bed, going outside, coming back inside, and eating treats, dog food, dog bones, and people food that my kids drop (shh.. don’t tell). OH, also I have a Twitter now, which is a pretty big deal for me. You can see photos of me and get updates on the fun things I do. If you know how to do Twitter then pretty please follow me! My Twitter handle is @BearTherapyDog.
Photos by Eric Budd
Programs Hays Happenings
By Kahn Borge, Director of Program Operations Hays House just wrapped up an amazing holiday season and is kicking off an exciting 2019! The holidays at Hays have been amazing. The support of our community has been humbling to say the least. One example of this was the incredible Christmas dinner where Chef Lou from the Westside DriveIn volunteered to feed our residents, their families, and our staff a delicious dinner. It was such a fun experience. We also had an incredibly generous amount of gift donations this year thanks to our giving tree initiative and many private donors. I am excited about all of the opportunities 2019 brings for Hays House. We were honored to have our new CEO Scott Curtis join the Hays House youth and staff for dinner during his first official day with the organization. We also are welcoming our new Program Manager David McDaniel to the team. David is joining us with many years of experience leading multiple treatment programs with the Salvation Army. We are looking forward to having his leadership and friendship at Hays. Our incredible team continues to find ways to build relationships with our residents and improve upon our services. I can’t wait for all of the success stories and accomplishments that we will see this year.
Human Resources David Stech Joins Volunteer Services as VISTA, plus holiday fun! By Leslie Morthland, Volunteer Services Manager
Volunteer Services started December by welcoming David Stech to our team as the new Volunteer Services Specialist VISTA. David will be serving with us for a year, and will be focused on designing training tools for volunteers in our agency. David is from the Boise area, and decided to take a year to serve his community. As you can see, he fits in great with the HR/VOL team! We ended the year on a high note. We helped collect and wrap a bundle of gifts for the kids at Hays House with help from volunteers from Wells Fargo. As we enter the New Year, please reach out to us with any of your volunteer needs at volunteers@youthranch.org.
Training New Year’s Resolutions & Self-Efficacy
By Teresa Uhlenkott, Director of Training and Career Development
Did you make any resolutions for the New Year?
Some people say, “What’s the point by the last week of January most resolutions have failed.” Is there value in setting goals or resolutions? YES! When we set goals we utilize a very important concept called self-efficacy; which is your belief in your own ability to succeed at something. When we have a strong sense of efficacy we are more likely to challenge ourselves with difficult tasks and be more naturally motivated. The question becomes, how do we gain a stron-
ger self-efficacy and follow-through with those resolutions and goals? Happy New Year!
Training is excited to announce a new member has joined our team through the AmeriCorps VISTA program. Please join me in welcoming G’Tobia Washington to the Idaho Youth Ranch. G’Tobia will be serving for 6 months at IYR and focusing on creating a sustainable training process for Programs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies, with a minor in Leadership Studies, Textile Merchandise, and Design from the University of Rhode Island. We are so excited to have G’Tobia with us for the next 6 months! Please help welcome her to the Idaho Youth Ranch family. What is AmeriCorps? AmeriCorps VISTA is the national service program that works to eliminate poverty. Our impact is reflected in the hundreds of programs that VISTAs helped launch over the decades, including Head Start, Upward Bound, the credit union system, Habitat for Humanity, and Neighborhood Watch. There are four areas under the VISTA program: Economic Opportunity, Education, Healthy Futures, and Veterans and Military Families.
Sometimes all that is needed is to understand your WHY. First, define your goal and then list out the WHY behind it. You want to lose weight? WHY? You want to go to bed earlier? WHY? You want to go back to school? WHY? You want to quit smoking? WHY?
When we focus on the WHY it helps us to move our resolutions from a “To Do List” to the driving factor that leads to the accomplishment.
Challenge:
Go back to any failed resolutions you set and think about the WHY. Let your WHY be the reason you keep pushing towards your accomplishment. If you didn’t make any resolutions, maybe think about adding one or two. Hopefully we are always striving for more.
Thrift Idaho Youth Ranch is the Best (and Everyone Knows It!) By Rich Cline, Sr. Director of Social Enterprise
IYR was voted BEST THRIFT STORE in Best in Treasure Valley Magazine! WE knew that, but our customers are also saying it!! Thanks to every store, distribution and administration employee who has made this possible!! Stores sales in December ended up at 14% over prior year which is an OUTSTANDING JOB by the entire thrift retail and distribution team!! Christmas sales were up over 20% vs prior year, so we made quite a few people happy this year! Clothing sales were up over 8%, Shoe sales were up over 30% and hardline sales were up over 13%! What a job by the store teams!! Sarah Ator and her team in Cd’A had another terrific Christmas tree sale this year. They sold almost 200 trees and made a nice tidy $5,000 profit for the agency! This team puts their heart and soul into this sale every year and our customers continue to come and buy! Our new IYR calendar sales picked up steam in December and now we ave sold 3,500 calendars and have 25% left to sell in January! Please tell your friends and family about it and have them buy one to help our mission! Gift card sales were 2.5 times stronger than last year bolstered by the sale that offered a free calendar with $30 in gift card purchase. Round-up continued strong in December with almost 51.74% of transactions having a round-up in it. Thanks to all of our great store team members who are making this happen!! Our Caldwell team received a check for $10,000 from a donor…..Congrats to their team because they are the face of our agency to our Caldwell population…and this donor felt so good about the store and our mission, that she gave us this generous check! Congratulations to the Cd’A team for getting a $1,000 donation from a local donor! They love Sarah and her team!! Our end of year donation push was very successful again this year. Our donation growth over prior year for the last week of December was +12.86% and we handled 15,600 back door donations! Thanks to our store teams for doing a great job in handling the large volume of donor traffic that hit between Christmas and New Years.
Thrift Round Up donations contributed over $24,600 to helping Idaho’s most vulnerable kids in December of 2018! STORES ABOVE 50% ROUND UPS Ontario 66.77% Post Falls Outlet 66.37% Post Falls 63.88% Broadway 61.75% Orchard 58.98% Eagle 57.13% Lewiston 56.89% Rupert 56.85% Fairview 54.16% Caldwell 53.72% 5 Mile 53.34% Main Street 53.04% Idaho Falls 52.57% Middleton 51.73% Jerome 50.93% Mountain Home 50.10%
TOP DYLAN SMITH Ontario 76.28% VAL WERLY Post Falls Outlet 75.99% JAMES FINKBEINER Broadway 74.16% LOLA GEREN Post Falls Outlet 74.11% MAYRA BAEZ Burley 73.33% EMILY RUSSELL Ontario 71.58% SARAH ATOR Coeur d’Alene 71.57% JULIUS PEKAR Post Falls 70.23% JOLEEN CLONINGER Eagle 69.63% MARK ALLEN Orchard 68.98%