- We're now joined by Douglas Eagles, who's Chief Executive Officer of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Monmouth County.

Douglas, good to see you.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

- Doug, we're gonna put up the website.

This is part of our ongoing conversation about youth mental health, related issues as well.

Describe the Boys and Girls Clubs of Monmouth County, please.

- Yeah, of course.

So, you know, the Boys and Girls Clubs in Monmouth County is focused on providing a safe place for our members.

But beyond providing just a safe place, we really are about equipping them to succeed and thrive in life through a host of different programs and services that we provide.

- Talk about the programming.

Let me try this before I even get into programming.

The perception on the part of some is, well, Monmouth County, it's a very wealthy county, but then again, you also have communities like Asbury Park, Neptune, Long Branch, Red Bank, some communities that are not as wealthy or sections of those communities not as wealthy as some folks think, correct?

- Yeah, that is correct.

- Talk about more specifically, the initiatives at the Boys and Girls Clubs around youth mental health, please.

- Yeah, of course.

So, for several years now, have been focused on what we call trauma-informed care.

I think for us here at the club, we recognize early on in the work that we do that a lot of the kids that we serve come from parts of the community where they're exposed to different levels of trauma, whether that's abuse, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, violent crime, and these things have long-term mental health impacts on our young people, if left unaddressed.

So, knowing that as an organization, we decided that we were in a unique position really to be able to meet these kids where they're at.

And so, we went through a pretty significant paradigm shift in terms of the work that we do and how we do it to ensure that we could be there for them as they understand the trauma in their own lives and help navigate them through that trauma to a successful and thriving outcome.

- You talk about a mental health journey, if you will, trauma-informed practices.

Connect this for us.

Poverty in and of itself, trauma?

- Well, the original study around adverse childhood experiences didn't include poverty per se, but numerous studies since then have included looking at poverty and in seeing the ways in which poverty.

- Adverse childhood experiences, otherwise known as ACEs, please.

- Correct, yes.

Numerous studies since then though have grounded various levels of trauma being rooted in socioeconomic disparities.

- And describe what the young men and young women at the Boys and Girls Clubs are facing.

Be more specific about this trauma.

What are they facing, violence?

- Yeah.

Well, I think the best way to explain that would be to share a story with you.

- Please.

- One of our staff members who grew up as a club kid here in Asbury Park several years ago, he was shot standing on his front porch and he showed up at the club to come to work the next day with a bullet literally, lodged in his arm.

And I was talking to this young man I could not believe he showed up to work and I was trying to understand what happened to him and he said, "Mr. Doug, relax."

He said, "This is something that the common experience where I grew up.

Hearing gunshot is like hearing the birds chirp."

And that really blew me away, because what that spoke to me was that the kids growing up in this community feel like that violence is the background noise of their life.

And we wanted to do something to change that and to create a space where they could come and feel safe away from that.

- Wow.

How's that young man doing right now?

- He is doing fine.

He is an employee at the club and, you know, giving back in key and strategic ways from lessons that he learned growing up in the community.

- You're a not-for-profit leader, we're a not-for-profit, and every time we have a not-for-profit leader, it's important that we ask about the money part of it, the fundraising part of it.

Your resources, your support comes from where?

- So, from a really diversified stream of funding, from government grants to family foundations and individual donors and special events.

We're also school-aged childcare centers.

So, we get some subsidies from the state to provide afterschool care for kids who are eligible.

- And also there's a mutual funder in the Horizon Foundation to be clear- - Yes.

- for you folks and for us.

Go back to the government funding piece.

Support from Washington, you've argued that our national leaders, you told our producers, our national leaders have to have a more visceral understanding of how the budgetary items and the budget issues that they address impact local communities like yours.

Describe that, what do you mean by that?

- Well, I think, you know, oftentimes when decisions are being made in Washington DC there can oftentimes be either a real disconnect or a perceived disconnect between the reality on the ground in the local communities and what's happening in Washington.

I think we've been lucky enough in our district with Congressman Palone to have a really strong relationship with him.

- Congressman Frank Palone.

- Yes.

And he's seen and recognized the impact that trauma has in our communities and through congressionally-directed spending has supported our trauma-informed initiative with a $500,000 grant that's been paid out over a three-year period.

- That's federal money?

- Yes.

- What is Project LEAD, L-E-A-D?

- So, that's of our Youth Workforce Development Program.

It's an acronym for Learning Earning and Advancing Dreams.

You know, you talked a little bit earlier in the segment here about poverty, and one of the things that we recognized was that we had a unique opportunity to build and equip our young people with the skills that they need to actually thrive in what is arguably a growing economy here on the Jersey Shore.

A lot of our kids just haven't been positioned well to take advantage of those opportunities and our project LEAD does that.

Positions them to take advantage of different job opportunities here on the Jersey Shore.

- Before I let you go, Doug.

How did you find your way to this work?

- Well, I've been doing youth development work for about 20 years, but I think from a very young age, I've had a lot of opportunities that my parents gave me and I think growing up I realized that I wanted to go into communities where those opportunities weren't as prevalent and do my best to make sure that those kids would have access to the same opportunities that I had growing up.

- Important work being done by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Monmouth County.

We've had a whole range of interviews with other leaders in the Boys and Girls Clubs across the state and also national leaders as well.

Doug Eagles is the Chief Executive Officer at the Boys and Girls Club in Monmouth County.

Doug, thanks so much.

Keep up the important work you and your colleagues do every day, thanks.

- Great, thanks, Steve.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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