In reading any book about building a great business or company you will hear about “Core Values” but I’m not sure if the core values of YGB are intentionally defined or are there because each person who Pat hires already had these values as a part of who they are.
Each of us has core values: Bart and I, for example, have some core values: our faith and the need for that to be lived out through worshiping with others, the importance of having the family together once a day to sit down and connect, and the priority we place on friendship with others. There are many more that govern our lives. But there are other core values that some of our kids have. For example, it is a core value that Kyle see movies when they come out almost immediately. It is a core value of some of our children that their friends come before anything else, including logic, reason and their parents rules.
So we all have core values. What happens in a great agency is either that everyone who joins the agency already has a set of core values that match the agencies OR that the leadership of the agency is able to infuse those core values into every staff and board member. And eventually in an agency like YGB, they must impart those values to the parents who are adopting as well.
In my observation, there were several core values that I observed:
1) No kid is unadoptable. Maybe a child needs psychiatric care or can’t even live full time in a family setting, but every kid deserves at least one parent that is committed to him/her for life.
2) It’s not about the match. Any parent can parent any child if they are trained well and have the right support. I even heard one person go so far as to say, “If you as an adult decide you can’t parent a child, you need to look inside yourself instead of saying ”it’s not the right kid“ to find out why you can’t keep your commitment.”
3) There is only one purpose. The mission, as I mentioned in a previous chapter, is all there is. Getting kids either morally or legally adopted before they age out is the only point and everyone buys into it.
4) It’s not about me. Believing this as professionals and teaching it to parents keeps everyone working hard and committed. It’s about the kids, not about the parents or the professionals.
5) The system as it stands is faulty. Teaching people to be “temporary” parents is doing a great disservice to kids and the foster care system has done nothing else. There are many horror stories about teenagers bouncing from home to home because of their behavior. An entire paradigm shift is required.
6) The sky is the limit. When I returned from my week in NYC, I felt like I had been to youth camp. Pat is more like an evangelist with a message to preach than a social worker running an agency. The message is that the way we deal with teens in foster care must be changed so that we stop the perpetual re-abandonment of hurt children. As I have mentioned, the name of the agency includes the word movement and it is obvious that the staff is committed not only to doing all they can in the future to place as many NYC kids as possible in permanent homes, but also to influence the rest of us in any country where there is “foster care” to rethink the way we do things and make a difference.
Each of us has core values: Bart and I, for example, have some core values: our faith and the need for that to be lived out through worshiping with others, the importance of having the family together once a day to sit down and connect, and the priority we place on friendship with others. There are many more that govern our lives. But there are other core values that some of our kids have. For example, it is a core value that Kyle see movies when they come out almost immediately. It is a core value of some of our children that their friends come before anything else, including logic, reason and their parents rules.
So we all have core values. What happens in a great agency is either that everyone who joins the agency already has a set of core values that match the agencies OR that the leadership of the agency is able to infuse those core values into every staff and board member. And eventually in an agency like YGB, they must impart those values to the parents who are adopting as well.
In my observation, there were several core values that I observed:
1) No kid is unadoptable. Maybe a child needs psychiatric care or can’t even live full time in a family setting, but every kid deserves at least one parent that is committed to him/her for life.
2) It’s not about the match. Any parent can parent any child if they are trained well and have the right support. I even heard one person go so far as to say, “If you as an adult decide you can’t parent a child, you need to look inside yourself instead of saying ”it’s not the right kid“ to find out why you can’t keep your commitment.”
3) There is only one purpose. The mission, as I mentioned in a previous chapter, is all there is. Getting kids either morally or legally adopted before they age out is the only point and everyone buys into it.
4) It’s not about me. Believing this as professionals and teaching it to parents keeps everyone working hard and committed. It’s about the kids, not about the parents or the professionals.
5) The system as it stands is faulty. Teaching people to be “temporary” parents is doing a great disservice to kids and the foster care system has done nothing else. There are many horror stories about teenagers bouncing from home to home because of their behavior. An entire paradigm shift is required.
6) The sky is the limit. When I returned from my week in NYC, I felt like I had been to youth camp. Pat is more like an evangelist with a message to preach than a social worker running an agency. The message is that the way we deal with teens in foster care must be changed so that we stop the perpetual re-abandonment of hurt children. As I have mentioned, the name of the agency includes the word movement and it is obvious that the staff is committed not only to doing all they can in the future to place as many NYC kids as possible in permanent homes, but also to influence the rest of us in any country where there is “foster care” to rethink the way we do things and make a difference.
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