"Supporting Parents" with Margie Durkin (LSW) & Lori Chaffers (MSW)

 Meet Lori Chaffers, M.S.W., is the new Executive Director for Outreach – Center for Community Resources. Previously, Lori served as the Program Director of the Office of Social Service Research & Development at Lackawanna County Office of Youth and Family Services. Lori was one of the founding co-chairs for the Lackawanna County System of Care, and served on a number of community coalitions and task forces addressing needs in the areas of housing, substance use/abuse, services for older youth, and others.  Lori also teaches when her schedule allows as an adjunct instructor at the Marywood University the School of Social Work.  Lori has over fifteen years of child welfare experience including working with families in their own homes, working with children in placement, working with transitioning youth, and most recently cross-systems collaboration and evaluating practice. Lori also has five years of experience in community-building and community organizing within low-income and at-risk populations in Camden, New Jersey and believes that building community and concern for our neighbor is key to addressing social issues. Lori is happy to return to non-profit work at Outreach and is excited for the next chapter in the organization’s history of moving today’s families forward.

Margy Durkin graduated from Wilkes University with a BA degree in Psychology. She was hired in 1989 by BBVS, a state agency serving blind and visual impaired individuals. For the next 25 years, she worked as a social worker with children covering eight counties throughout the Commonwealth. Along with her counterpart in Altoona, she developed the BBVS children’s program which is currently being utilized throughout the state.  After her early retirement in 2014, she returned to the State to work part time as an annuitant. As an annuitant, she was asked to return to train new staff, develop a handbook, and provide counseling to students attending a summer transition program at Penn State University. After the annuitant positions were dissolved during the pandemic, she was then hired as a Community/ School Liaison for Outreach. Margy is also working part time as social worker for the Hanover Area School district. Margy attributes her initial passion for social work to her parents who were a powerful example of service to others.  She reports being beyond grateful for the daily inspiration and opportunity to have a positive impact on those less fortunate. 
In 1995, Margy received an award from The American Council for the Blind for her work with visually impaired children. This past May, eight years after her retirement, she traveled to Harrisburg to be awarded Educator of the Year from the Penn/ Del Chapter of AER(Association and Rehabilitation of Blind and Visually impaired Individuals. Margy was the first social worker to receive this award since its inception in 1975.

Margy attributes any success she has had to her 12 step program, the loving support of family and friends, and most importantly  divine intervention and guidance.

Today we discuss over a dozen new programs Outreach has launched to support parents. 

Evidence-Based Parent-Child Programs

Outreach’s evidence-based programs focus on promoting the social, emotional, and academic competence of children, working with parents and caregivers to ensure kids are ready to succeed in school and life.

Please visit the link below
https://outreachworks.org/

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Transcript

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Joe Van Wie  0:03  
Hello and thanks again for listening to another episode of all better. I'm your host, Joe van wie Today's guests are Laurie chafers and Margie Durkin. Lori chafers is the new executive director of the Outreach Center for Community Resources. Previously, Lori served as the program director of the Office of Social Service Research and Development at Lackawanna County Office of Youth and Family Services. Or he was one of the founding co-chairs for the Lackawanna County system of care and served on a number of community coalitions and Task Forces addressing needs in the areas of housing, substance use, and abuse services for older youth and others. Laurie also teaches when her schedule allows as an adjunct instructor at the Marywood University School of Social Work. Laurie has over 15 years of child welfare experience, including working with families in their own homes, working with children in placement, working with transitioning youth, and most recently, across systems collaboration, and evaluating practice. Laurie has also served five years of experience in community building and community organizing within low-income and at-risk populations in Camden, New Jersey and believes that building community and concern for our neighbor is key to addressing social issues. Laurie is happy to return to nonprofit work at Outreach and is excited for the new chapter in this organization's history of moving today's families. Margie Durkin. Margie is a graduate from Wilkes University with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology. She was hired in 1989 by BB vs. a state agency serving blind visually impaired individuals. For the next 25 years. She worked as a social worker with children during eight counties throughout the Commonwealth. Along with her counterpart in Altoona, she developed BB vs. Children's Program, which is currently being utilized throughout the state. After her early retirement in 2014, she returned to the state to work part time as an annual. As an annual she asked to return to juice she was asked to return to train new staff develop a handbook and provide counseling to students attending a summer transition program at Penn State University. After these positions were dissolved during the pandemic, she was then hired as a community school liaison for outreach. Margie is also working part time as a social worker with the Hanover Area School District. Margie attributes her initial passion for social work to her parents were powerful examples of service to others. She reports being beyond grateful for the daily inspiration and opportunity to have a positive impact on those less fortunate. In 1995, Margie received an award from the American Council for the Blind for her work with visually impaired children. This past May, eight years after her retirement, she traveled to Harrisburg to be awarded Educator of the Year. The pen del chapter, a E are the association of rehabilitation of blind and visually impaired individuals. Margie was the first social worker to receive this award since its inception in 1975. So today we talk about all the new programs outreach is rolling out this year. And I can't wait for you to meet Margie, and Lori. We just finished some headphone adjustments, but I'd like to welcome to Studio. My two friends. Would you like to introduce yourself? Thanks for coming.

Margie Durkin  4:24  
Hi, I'm Margie Durkin, and I am the Community School Liaison for Outreach Center for Community Resources. I've been working there for a couple of years. And I think that's what we're going to talk about today, Joe, and thank you so much for having us and given us the opportunity to educate the public about these wonderful free programs. It's very well kept secret.

Lori Chaffers  4:49  
And I'm Laurie chapters I am the still new I give myself I'm getting given myself 18 months. I'll be a year in January, the still new Executive Director of Outreach Center for Community Resources in spring And

Joe Van Wie  5:01  
I'm glad to have you and how this came about was about two weeks ago, I'm friends with Margie. For a long time. She was telling me about these programs. And I was kind of taken aback because it was services, a that I think everyone is looking for doulas, babysitters, and we'll get into it, we'll unpack it. But I was blown away. I was like, these are real services in need, they're funded to get the word out for, you know, not only an at risk or distress population, anyone who can't afford these services, which because they're expensive, you could work full time and not have access to any of these. So I think that was key and how I wanted to describe them. That this is here. It's it's running. It's up. So Laurie, can you give me a little summary of your background, until you were you are now in this new position? What?

Lori Chaffers  6:02  
Sure. I'm sorry.

Joe Van Wie  6:05  
Take your time, we have an hour.

Lori Chaffers  6:09  
I grew up here in northeastern Pennsylvania actually went to North Pocono, and then went to college at a small school outside of Philadelphia Eastern University, and spent about 10 years living in the Philadelphia area working in Camden, New Jersey. I'm a social worker by training. And both my I have a master's and bachelor's in social work. And I really just love systems work and identifying kind of root causes of challenges. And I think we'll talk about this more later. But that's what one of the things I really love about outreach. But so I worked in Philadelphia for about 10 years or in in the area surrounding Philadelphia. And then found my way back here, because we were starting a family and my husband's grandmother needed some care, she had dementia. And so we moved back here, we live in Dixon city, we've got two kids, a dog, all of those fun things. And I worked at the county for about 10 years in child welfare. Yeah, I worked with older youth in foster care, and really understood that while we were doing some really great work with those older kids, so much of what was going on their lives at 16 1718 really started when they were little. And so when this position for outreach became available last year, I wasn't even sure I was ready to leave the county. But the more I interviewed, the more I fell in love with, with the agency with the work that we do with the impact we have in the community. And so I went through the interview process, and and now I'm here.

Joe Van Wie  7:42  
So what draws someone to not only human services to be a social worker, like, when did you know this is, this is your calling, because it's more of a vocation. It's, I know, it's described as a profession. But it's a very unique profession that you have to have not only an aptitude, a certain personality, to go to work, and have empathy, but also have kind of standards that will keep keep it professional. And I guess that's what the training is school. When did you know that was the direction you were going?

Lori Chaffers  8:22  
Yeah, so I grew up in such challenging circumstances, I have a wonderful family, but we had our stuff. And I used to work with Jen wildermann, over at the office of Youth and Family Services. And she would say no one comes to this field without having their own stuff thrown baggage that they need to unpack, right. So I always kind of knew I was gonna go into a helping profession, I didn't know that it would be social work. So I went to school, I studied psychology. And then I took a social work course, which really is about people in, in a system. So like psychology is is often about the individual or kind of pathology or what's going on with that person. And I think that's important and needed. But I really loved understanding that people thrive, in systems, in family systems, in social systems in our governmental system and our education system. And how the interplay of those things really impacts the trajectory of people's lives. And so that for me is what caused me to social work is that it was really learning about how all of those things interact together, and how we help people become the best version of themselves or their reach their fullest potential, by helping understand the systems around them and really impacting the systems for change. Right? We have to do so much to create systems that support people's livelihood and not just playing people all the time because people are don't live in a vacuum people live in the systems around them. In terms of the empathy piece of this sorry, I have a little little cough,

Unknown Speaker  9:53  
no

Joe Van Wie  9:54  
part of the show.

Lori Chaffers  9:57  
But the empathy piece of this I really think You know, people say there but for the grace of God go I, you know, or, you know walking a mile in someone else's shoes, and I think any one of us is one, one tragedy, one disease, one, addiction, one last job away from not knowing what to do next, you know, and I think when we can see the humanity in each other, and understand that, at the end of the day, we, we are much more alike than we are different. Yeah, then we can really come alongside people and help them make better choices or help them maybe it's not even about a better choice, maybe it's about understanding that they never learned how to do X, Y, or Z thing. And for me, that's where I kind of live, I hope I live my whole life there that, that everyone's just trying to do their best. And they might not know what looks different, or how to do it differently, or they might not know. Or their best might look different for them than I think right. And so just seeing the world from someone else's eyes, I think is an important. An important way to live, really, for all of us, whether that's in social services, or not really, whether you're a business person or an attorney, or a doctor, I think seeing the world through someone else's eyes helps you be better at what you're doing.

Joe Van Wie  11:18  
Yeah, that's, that's a pretty perfect description, I don't think people always have the clear line in separation of psychiatric work. Even therapeutic, like individual work in the way you describe social work is almost it's a generalist kind of approach. But it's, you said, but for the grace of God, this is a beautiful way to say, I'm not judging, because there's non separation, the same scenario I'm helping, can absolutely be a condition I can experience or have, like, we've, that's how I come to this, I was broken. Someone helped me, I didn't fix myself. And I felt called to it. But that description you gave to meet people where they're at, in a position and non judgement, requires the empathy of knowing how similar you are to someone than any distinction of why you're separate. It seems to be the best description of why someone's drawn to social work, which is you have to be like a little expert at everything across the field when you're saying systems. You know, psychology doesn't always dig into that the culture you came from the landscape it did a manufacturing plant, take take off from this area, this is this part of the defining stress. Right, that is the landscape of the people that you're meeting and serving. That's a great description. And I don't think it's clear all the time to the general population, that distinctions of Social Work, and individual therapy and services. Before we do a deep dive, Mark, your social worker? How did this come out of this arise in your life?

Margie Durkin  13:00  
Well, you know, I like to attribute this from day one, my, both my parents were very service oriented. My mother, this is funny, because my mother actually took care of my husband when he was a baby. Because his father had issues. And his mom had issues. And she used to see them walking down the street. And one day she said, you know, do you need some help? And he said, Yeah, I need I need somebody to watch my child. And she took him in, she took my, my future husband, it and so that was what was my life was like, the door was always open. My mother was always feeding all the neighbors, I was always running to this, you know, elderly person's house or, you know, and, you know, I mean, that's just the way that I grew up. And then my father, you know, my father was a colonel in the military, so his service is in a different area. But when I say that we're both service oriented, I kind of grew up with that whole idea. You know, it was like, became a part of me really early on so. And then, as was mentioned, you know, as my life went on, I had some trauma. I'm, I'm an, you know, I'm an individual in recovery, I had some family that I have family, you know, in recovery. So, you know, I experienced a lot, and I really liked what was brought out about that, because, you know, it does help you to be less judgmental when you've gone through this stuff. And, you know, I mean, I ended up in from a social work standpoint in places that I never thought I would be. But once again, most of my life once I entered recovery was really about being in the right place at the right time. You know, and so I graduated from wells college, I never completed a graduate degree. So I had two little children at the time, and I wasn't single parents, so I never completed a graduate degree, but the way that my life went, I went to, I answered a box ad and I went to the local blind Association and which was paying me,

Joe Van Wie  15:02  
I think you need to reference what a box ad is.

Margie Durkin  15:05  
Okay. That's right. About that, though, right? It was actually in the paper where it said p o box. Yeah. Such and such that you didn't know what it was, you know, and even gave you the as of the time, right? Yeah. So I went there didn't even know what it was. And I thought, Oh, my God, the blind Association. Well, I don't know anything about this. But they hired me. And I have a great story about that. Because honestly, they hired me in the first client I saw was an elderly woman who was blind. And I went into her house. And we sat down, and I said, well, where's the person here? That's going to take care of you. And she was highly insulted. I mean, I had no idea. I had, I mean, what did I know about blindness? I didn't, you know, I didn't realize how you know, how independent and how much, you know, how their lives were very much like ours, as long as they had the appropriate tools, you know, so I learned about that. And at that time, I became very close to the people that worked for the state. And I ran into somebody downtown one day, and he said, You better take, you should take a civil service exam. And I did, and I did well, and when the state job opened, they, they knew me, because I had worked in conjunction with them with some clients. And I interviewed and they hired me. And at that time, people weren't leaving state positions. This, this woman that left was a woman that was working with children. And she was having some problems, some, you know, issues, and she decided to go on a retreat and not come back. And so that's how I ended up in that position. Because, you know, as I said, people didn't leave the state positions in those days. Anyway, when I got there, the money for a children's program got there. And so we were told myself and this other woman in Altoona to go out and create the program. So I had all this autonomy, I could use my creativity. It was awesome. You know, because I, we really, were creating the program. And so there was no policy to hold us back. We were creating the policy, or creating all the rules right up my alley, because I was never good following rules. I love I can make them. I don't want to follow somebody else. And so yes, so I did that for 25 years. And I learned a lot, because what happened there was every day, I was inspired by the parents of the children, the blind children, by the children themselves. I mean, I watched children from the time they were born until the time they went to college. You know, so I saw them grow and change and, you know, succeed in ways that like, I mean, after a while, it became pretty apparent that, you know, that's what was gonna happen. But initially, it was like, Oh, my God, you know, but every day, it was inspiring, because they had so many challenges that they were meeting now. Suffice it to say, I wasn't just dealing with vision issues, I was dealing with all kinds of issues, because many of My children had other issues, like physical issues. And then of course, the family social issues, you know, socioeconomic

Joe Van Wie  18:26  
blindness. I think of it often. And because I'm gonna take a lot with my eyes closed. Yeah. And to have a conscious life and experience. So you were blind from Earth? Where do you feel you're living? I always have this feeling stuck in my head. I mean, we're getting to know some of these people that were receiving help from the services, as you get to know them. Did you ever wonder like, where are they experiencing their center of gravity? Like? Well, it's always I mean, just so curious. Well, they must be, there must be a weird liberation and not feeling. You're stuck in your head. Cognitively like all right, maybe your centers in your core, your belly, your legs, you're more in tune. They say how the senses rise? Is there. Did you have any experiences of any?

Margie Durkin  19:20  
Well, I mean, that from day one, they learned orientation and mobility skills. These are highly trained people called para pathologists. And these people go out and rifle in the beginning, right from the time that they're, you know, before they walk, because they need all those foundational skills before they walk, the, you know, the kinesthetic sense, all of that stuff. So, you know, once they start walking, you have to see them when the tiny little canes, you know, walking down the street, but I mean, they, they and that's what I'm talking about, like all of their life. They are learning different ways of doing the things that we do normally. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's well Yeah, and yeah,

Joe Van Wie  20:01  
well, the pivot real quick. You said something when you first started. And it was about your husband Dennis. You got your your mom took care of him before you met him. Yeah, I'm destined to married. Yeah, very romantic story. And I love, love Dennis, he was such a wonderful guy. But that that idea that his dad is walking down the street, he has some distressing situation. And I think the whole town was drunk for about such

Margie Durkin  20:33  
decades, especially West granted, like we had a, but even

Joe Van Wie  20:37  
in the midst of these like unresolved traumas, a different culture, things we couldn't articulate how alcohol was this elixir to anxiety, trauma, poverty. Maybe even social cruelty as socioeconomic status seemed to unescapable for some. He's walking on the streets, someone from the porch says, Do you need help? That porch wasn't the Outreach Center? Like there was? I'm not saying like, Oh, let's there was a romantic thing missing. But community was the first line of defense to what we're going to talk about these programs of childcare, babysitting. So your mother reached out to a neighbor, who she really didn't know him that she initiated to? Yeah, yeah. So for how connected we are, like digitally, in a society, social media, there is a disconnection that we all have to take care of our own problems, sometimes maybe because we're, you know, overwhelmed, there could be this view of that. And a lot of these services are needed. And they need to be kind of packaged as, hey, we're a community. This isn't a stigma service. And I see you guys doing that. And Laurie, I kind of would pivot that like, tell me first to start, I guess dial back. What is Outreach? Well,

Lori Chaffers  22:01  
let me come to your right where you're at with the our shared community. So interestingly, our drive this year, so we do any annual fundraising, appeal and are in the appeal. This year, we're talking about our shared community. And last week, I went to the screen Area Community Foundation in the city of springs listening sessions, and we had to talk about some specific subject areas. But the one that's that I wanted to talk about, or the thing that I think was important is that there's a ton of social programs and and the programs and outreach are outstanding and evidence based, and we're doing a really good job. But I do think that the social programs alone will never be enough. And that we really need to focus on what it means to be your neighbor, what it means to be a member of your community, right? Who is my neighbor? Well, my neighbor is actually my neighbor. And the couple of sugar that you can can lend or the ride to work that someone might need, or teaching someone how to fix something in their house or letting them borrow your lawnmower. So they don't have to go out and buy a new one. Yeah. Those things matter and are the first line of defense, right rebuilding community in a way that is tangible, and caring for each other's kids. You know, the childcare issues, caring for someone's kid, oh, you need to go to work, and you have no one watch that kid? Well, I'm home during that time. So I can watch that kid, you know, and we've really gotten away from that in a lot of ways. And I think that that's an important part of what we do. And as we continue to build an outreach, I believe that will be something we really teaching to people again, and we're already seeing it in art. So we have a lot of evidence based home visiting programs. And they are programs where we go into people's homes, and we teach them about child development. And we teach them about bonding, and parenting and discipline, and all of those things, which are really important to help set up families for long term success. I love it. We serve, you know, kids in that zero to five in that age range. But we're also teaching them how to navigate the systems around them how to be a good partner with the school, how to be a parent who's ready to engage in education. But we're also now teaching them how to support each other, we're not really even teaching it, we're just bringing creating the space for it, right. So we have a toddler play group, and the parents come. And what we're naturally seeing occurring is, oh, hey, I know you and you know, could you give me a ride here? Or, you know, could you watch my kid today? Or, Hey, could you teach me how to make that thing? You know, the one parent brought in like a pumpkin spiced Chex Mix thing and people were exchanging recipes, right, which is a really typical kinds of things. And so we're just creating space. And doing that intentionally now to ensure that people can build the social support systems that have eroded over time. And I think that that's a really cool kind of unintended consequence that we're going to actually begin to make an intended consequence in our programs. As we move forward over the next few years,

Joe Van Wie  25:01  
when you're you're describing that in my head, and I can be wrong, but just the idea that comes to mind is this departure of the 40s 50s and 60s of say, maybe a church being built around a community or it's ethnicity. And this would have been the space for a lot of these things that are being described if it was done well or not. Outreach seems to be not only a secular, but evidence based plus space for this. And I know that term circle around a lot evidence based but if I'm not wrong, yours is a strength based evidence approach that people can lift each other up, you're creating a space, that you innately have these values virtues, given the right space, time and support, you can solve these problems as a community. Now, this evidence is just compiled, probably for the last seven decades since FDR, since the rise of social services, the information really hasn't changed of what you can do to lift up status. Socioeconomic status, mental health, is community based. And outreach. Is that how you would just, you just described outreach that way? It's the space to do this.

Lori Chaffers  26:17  
Yeah, I think so our mission statement says, with respect for the individual, and the highest professional standards, outreach, you know, tackles, I'm gonna get it wrong, I can't believe that. But we tackle economic self sufficiency and family stability. But we start with those two things, we start with meeting the individual where they're at with the respect piece. And then our workers and our staff and our administration really tried to deliver our programs with the highest professional standards. And so it's the combination of those two things that allow us to get to the crux of economic self sufficiency and family stability. So we really do try to treat our I hope, our staff with the same kind of respect that we treat anyone who walks through our door. And we find that in caring that's a parallel in child welfare, we would call this a parallel process and the supervision is the parallel process of the way we treat our staff is reflective also of the way we treat the individuals who come to us so whether, you know, we offer a lot of programs in the prison, or for people reentering the community after prison. And we I can't tell you how many mornings I have walked in, and to someone sitting in our waiting room who literally has just been released that morning or the night before. And it's you know, eight o'clock in the morning, and they've been sitting there waiting for the doors to open or have come in, you know, at seven o'clock, and they're just waiting in the waiting room until the right person gets there to meet their needs, whether it's clothes, you know, getting them some clothes, hooking them up with our employment, our lead centers, our employment workforce jobs and our GED classes, you know, and I think, you know, we just had a gentleman Steve ward at our award ceremony this fall. And Steve newest in the 90s. You know, we've been doing this for 35 years now, he was in the 90s. And when he tells his story, about how outreach helped change his life and change the trajectory of where he is, and he's doing fantastic things now, it's great. And tomorrow, we worked with the county. What stood out to me about his story is We treated him with kindness. Right? That's how he starts a story. What is that we treated him with kindness. And I think, for anyone, whether you're coming in for our GED program, or our workforce development program, whether you're coming in because you're underemployed or unemployed, whether you're coming in because you just re entered the community, from prison or on our family sides, whether you're coming in because you're involved with Office of Child, child welfare office, or whether you're involved. Or you're newly in recovery, and you're trying to learn how to parent again, because before you were parenting, and you weren't really there, right? Like nothing was clicking right. And so now this is a whole new world of learning how to parent. And so we're able to really meet you where you are, welcome you, with kindness, treat you with respect, and then equip you with the right tool so that you're successful in your job, or you're successful in obtaining your GED, or you're successful in building healthy patterns in your home for your children. So that, hopefully, you know, they can go on and be successful as well. So I think that that that kindness piece, that respect piece is a large part of who we are. And then yes, creating space for people to ask hard questions to work through challenging issues, people who've never been able to hold a job before. We're helping them figure out how do they what's the right kind of job? And how do we support them in maintaining the job after they move on, you know, so I think that there's this whole piece where we we try to wrap people tightly and that they feel comfortable being able to say, this isn't working, or I tried that new skill and it's, it didn't work what what can I do differently, right? It's creating space for people to be vulnerable, and to work through the hard stuff that they're going through and then walking alongside of them, as they gain whatever it is They need to gain to get to the next spot. And if we can't do that outreach, we partner with everyone, right? So we'll refer to lots of local community partners, we partner with local businesses for employment. And so we we certainly don't believe we can do this alone.

Joe Van Wie  30:14  
And it's pretty sprawling, its programs. I like the word kindness, they said. If I'm not mistaken, I was looking at it up not too long ago, we were defining it. It's a noble act. It's like an old English 14th century word. And it's beyond tone. It's to act immediately with kindness is to offer something, someone without judgment, right, or a position of power. Before we take kind of a little walk down some of these new programs, you defined a lot of generally, for 35 years, you've been meeting people in the spaces and there's a multitude of programs from prison resources, single parents in distress financially. And you're meeting all different types of populations. People that presumed maybe they were middle class until they lost a job. And, and that can be a struggle. I'm sure you have to help with the idea of kindness and stigma that you're okay. Like, yes. Okay. That's a community service. Even if it's just estimates, let's let's just define outreach in the sense just for a clearer picture for someone. What, how many counties? This is like a local chapter to a national organization, or are you local? And how many people broadly, are you servicing in Lackawanna County?

Lori Chaffers  31:46  
Yeah, so we're, we're primarily in Lackawanna County, although we're expanding a little bit by bit. We serve just around 4500 individuals annually, in Lackawanna County, Lackawanna County, and then some on the outskirts and like, that's 2% of our population.

Joe Van Wie  32:03  
Estimate, if there's, you know, wow. And then if it was just the city take, you know, 70,000, you're serving 4000?

Lori Chaffers  32:13  
I've never done that number, but you're probably right,

Joe Van Wie  32:14  
we're doing it now.

Lori Chaffers  32:17  
Yeah, yeah,

Joe Van Wie  32:19  
that's substantial. It is, and I just a rough estimate, a lay man shoot from the hip accounting people at meetings. I used to do this with my sponsor, and then try to take an aggregate over and I would say at any time actively, there's anywhere from 3000 people in recovery communities, peer to peer, and maybe a few other 1000 that are non active, which would reach kind of the national met metric of how many people are identifying recovery. 22 million people. I think people need to hear that number, because that's your neighbor. That's your sister. That's your cousin you haven't talked to in a little while. We're not talking about pagan babies, overseas, they all this, these are our neighbors. Yeah, absolutely.

Margie Durkin  33:06  
And when I go off to see people, and I talk to them about these programs, the first thing I say is, if these programs were available to me, and I knew about them, when my children were little I would have, like been thrilled, because I had to go out and research all of this stuff on my own. Because, you know, and immediately that takes it out of you're the bad parent. Do you know what I mean? And I'm, you know, we're trying to, to, you know, to help you be a better parent. Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean that you started out being bad. You just started out being normal. Do you know what I mean? Like, like anybody else?

Lori Chaffers  33:42  
And I used to say, I wish this came with a manual. Yeah. And then I found out about the programs of outreach, and I was like, Oh, it does. You know, and really, we have parents in our Parents as Teachers program who, because it's not income based at all, and so anyone can come. So that Okay, so we have families have all sorts of structures involved in our parents this year programs, we do 89% of our families that we've served this year, of the individuals who are served are well below the poverty level, so making less than $15,500 this year, but there's that other percent, almost 10% of the individuals who have served who are not there.

Joe Van Wie  34:20  
And let's say there's a family single or two parents making $60,000 a year. Do you see this walk? We

Lori Chaffers  34:28  
have a handful of those individuals or those family units Yeah, with us right now. And they came because they were raising little ones and knew that this the Parents as Teachers program could really help them be a better parent right and help their kids be more developmentally, you know, kind of on target because of the activities

Joe Van Wie  34:48  
we were teaching program to start maybe one let's just unpack that program, parents and teachers program, the parents, teachers, parents, as teachers and what how would you summarize that?

Lori Chaffers  34:57  
So the idea is that the parent is the child That's first teacher. And so we equip parents with the ability to understand what the child's developmental milestones are, and then help give them tools to help their children achieve those, we assess the child's development all along the way. And if they're struggling we give them we can provide opportunities are activities for them to do to bring, help the child achieve those milestones. And if we feel that there's a delay that will partner with early intervention or others to get them assessed so that they can get the services they need leisure recall, when you were talking about the, the blind children that you work with, or the children who were blind, I was thinking about all the services that go into that, you know, and that zero to five timeframe in the child's brain, there's so much plasticity, and so you can like they can overcome so many things. And so it's really important that those young ages to bring the opportunities to families so that they can kind of learn, you know, different ways they can challenge and it's, it's all free. And even the activities we teach them are generally using stuff you just have in your house, right. And so there's so many things you can do just in your home, to set a child up for success and to be ready for school when when it's time to get there. This goes

Joe Van Wie  36:11  
beyond safety measures and plugs. This is does this look like a class that would almost from the way you're describing it, I feel you're almost looking at a lifespan development class that's tailored and personalized to the individual? Hey, if you're not aware of what's happening in development, 123 these are the things you'd want to focus on your five and you know, non judgment one to five, we could have a couple of screw ups you could.

Lori Chaffers  36:38  
Right, right, right.

Joe Van Wie  36:40  
All right. But is this kind of on a lifespan development? path that you kind of educate? We operate from this lifespan development from one to eight? And these are the skills we want to? Yeah, absolutely. It's a class.

Lori Chaffers  36:58  
Yeah, except it's like in your home, right. So we can come into your home. So home visiting our means you don't come to us, we go into the home, it's private.

Joe Van Wie  37:06  
You don't have to be around other writers. Let's say you're nervous about admitting, I don't know what I'm doing right. Which I yeah, I have to my called Margie. I don't know what I'm doing.

Margie Durkin  37:21  
And, and the thing about that is, is that you're creating a connection to between a parent and a child. So you have those structured activities, which who has time to figure that out, it's already figured out for you do you know, this is an activity that's going to aid in this, this, this developmental milestone, you know, so they're going to bring that in, and they're gonna help you connect with your child using that activity that you didn't have to figure out on your own. You know,

Joe Van Wie  37:50  
and then, you know, not to be authoritarian, but it's also, I presume, a licensed social worker, now coming into the intimacy of the home. And it's never the goal, a dislike, say, separate a families. But if you you have a real feel if there is a distress, and they need more help, or trauma is happening, you can now identify it with them safely, non judgement saying, I don't know if you're aware that like, it's really impactful, because it's, you're seeing the setting, and like you were saying, the system versus system kind of being the home. Right, and you get a real you.

Margie Durkin  38:29  
It's real help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we

Lori Chaffers  38:31  
are workers aren't all licensed social workers, but all degreed professionals who have studied psychology, social work, early education, education, those kinds of things, but, but yes, we go into the home, and we really get to see all of what's happening now. Right, we get to see, you know, how present dad is dads, we're doing a whole fatherhood initiative. Now at the agency, we're doing an assessment on on how we're engaging dads because dads matter the the research and the statistics about the impact of fathers in children's life lives are it's an enormous impact. And so we can assess where is dad in the picture? And how do we get him more involved right here doing a

Joe Van Wie  39:10  
podcast? Yeah. Well, also, you know, you get a feel through just observation is there you know, food insecurity, cleanliness, hygiene, you know, you get a whole landscape, you know, what's what's, what can be early intervention, if that's the case, like you said, and, and finding a soft landing, hey, you might need another resource and we know how to put you in touch with. Okay,

Lori Chaffers  39:43  
so let's always do that in a warm handoff whenever we can, right we want we never want people to go at it alone because it's scary. And so if we can be a part of the meeting, or the phone call to make that next step we want to do that. In parenting, I think is I always say I've got two little ones my son It's the best and hardest job I've ever done. And there shouldn't be any shame in anyone saying, I don't know how to do this new thing, because you've never done it before,

Joe Van Wie  40:10  
even if you do, what if you're working 40 hours a week, and the other parent is on another shift, right? And so you know what to do? Do you have the energy and the cognate cognition to do it when you're exhausted?

Lori Chaffers  40:24  
Yes. Right, exactly. You're trying to make ends meet. And it's hard to get down and play when you're so exhausted from whatever, yeah, shift you just came on.

Margie Durkin  40:31  
And if you get on a play, and if you have a structured activity to get down in play, it's a lot easier than to have to figure out that that out on your own. The other thing is, I mean, yeah, it shouldn't be a stigma. But it is, yeah, it is a stigma. It's like everyone should be the best parent. You know,

Joe Van Wie  40:47  
well, I think fake people live in a lot more heads mobile, for me, myself, that always know how to do things perfectly. Yeah. I don't know where these people showed up. But they live in my head, right? And I'm like comparing competing with imaginary families or people in my head. It's just nonsense. I think a lot of us have that kind of inadequacy in my community. So one program, if I could leap around, say to young parents, even if, you know, they could have degrees, and employment, and they're stressed and their times crashing, and now they have their first pregnancy. They don't have the family, secondary family kind of structure for support from babysitting. Were the insurance or health care that would provide them say a doula, which is a really I don't know what we would have done without a doula. Can you tell me about that, that those I guess there might be two programs baby sitting in the dual.

Margie Durkin  41:51  
It's not. It's not a dual the way that you're thinking of Joe, like the midwife doula is a postpartum doula, although yours might have done some postpartum stuff to

Joe Van Wie  42:00  
us would call her it was usually problems with me, because I don't know what I'm doing. As a child in our house, what does this mean? Yeah,

Margie Durkin  42:10  
yeah, this is actually postpartum. Now, you know, this person can are if they're certified. And they can go in and they would like to go in prior to when the baby's born and to get to know the parent and, you know, whatever issues are going on there. But, but it's, it's primarily for, and boy, I'll tell you, this is one, this is one of a program where I would have been so happy with this program, if it existed. It's really looking at maybe doing, you know, a few chores around the house, very light housekeeping, maybe running to the store, but mainly emotional support for breastfeeding, bottle feeding, you know, making that connection with the baby. You know, my day they didn't talk about postpartum depression. Yeah, you know, nobody mentioned that. I'm sure I had it. But nobody talked about it. I drove my doctor. Crazy. Crazy. I called him every five minutes, you know? So, I mean, I think it's me again. Yeah.

Joe Van Wie  43:12  
I think we got disconnected.

Margie Durkin  43:19  
Yeah, the best story I have about you, I will tell you, just how clueless I was. So it was late in September. It was it was my son Casey, my first son. It was his first doctor's visit. It was very, very warm that day, I had a little hat and a coat on him, like a little knitted hat and a little knitted coat. And you know, and I went into the doctor, and he said, Do you have a hat and coat on today? And I said, No, he goes, Well, why does he? Because I don't know what I do. So it was you know, it was that was just a very small example of you know, I really could use some help. But But anyway, yeah, this is this is an awesome program. It is taking off like wildfire. Well, so I need to say that at this point right now. We do have you know, we have very limited slots, but you know, like so but

Lori Chaffers  44:13  
it's totally worth the call. So I think the thing so the doula program, it's you know, 12 weeks it can begin post or prenatally and then we continue for 12 weeks after the baby is born and it is coming into the home and offering you know, time for mom to go take a shower and like to go take a nice long shower while I hold your child while I do your dishes.

Joe Van Wie  44:34  
Yeah, do it at home with a child mid COVID No one could come in the house like showering we It wasn't even a considerate we were dumbfounded like going downstairs. Now I was gonna go downstairs my wife like I didn't have any like this is just kept unfolding to me every day like marginal tasks become planned. Right stuff you'd never or have to cognitively think about now I have to plan how I go downstairs. Yeah, right. Oh, it's wild. Yeah. So that's the doula program.

Lori Chaffers  45:10  
And we'll have we'll have a second doula who's just getting up and running now, through some funding in a partnership with maternal family health services. To serve the dual, the doula program will serve individuals in recovery specifically,

yeah. And so yeah, yeah, that that's brand new.

Joe Van Wie  45:29  
And what's the first way to reach out for this? You said call, but like, I'm gonna have this in the show notes. You can call or visit a site and sign up or

Lori Chaffers  45:37  
do I want to know, you know, our numbers? 570-348-6484 You can call and ask to speak to Carlene Gula

Joe Van Wie  45:48  
or Carlene Gula, the doula. She

Lori Chaffers  45:52  
oversees the buildings. But Aaron Fossett and Erica Baltra CITUS are doulas and they're, you know, trained, and they are loving this program. So we are ready to do that. And then if, you know, depending on what we learn through the kind of initial intake, we'll figure out which program makes the most sense and where people qualify, that'll be

Joe Van Wie  46:12  
in the show notes. Before we move on, why is it being funded now? Like it's evidence based, but is this new evidence? Or why did the funding come through now? And how do you keep it? Yeah, so

Lori Chaffers  46:25  
the doula isn't newer evidence, right? There's still not a ton of research on it. But the research that is out there says it's incredibly impactful in helping moms and dads get through those first months. And then, you know, being able to assess for postpartum depression and and get families to the resources they need if a mom is struggling. And so the evidence is suggesting that it's really impactful, especially for individuals who don't have a strong support system. You know, I had a husband who was supportive. My mom, my, my mother in law came and stayed with me for three weeks after my second kiddo was born, right? A lot of people don't have that. And so the doula offers a soul a sense of support that. That makes it possible, right? It's insane to have a new baby, like you were saying, and I can't imagine how hard that must have been to during COVID. You know,

Joe Van Wie  47:15  
I'm not a neurologist. But let me speculate and just propose something to here's an invisible benefit of the stool are now being in there that you can measure, if someone had the money to research this. It's the lowering of cortisol, especially if you're breastfeeding. Now, the cortisol is this hormone that has been produced from stress of the new child. But it also interrupts sometimes knots can be substantial, it can be marginal, the development, frontal lobe, a child's ability to self soothe. So sometimes, because why I'm saying this, and I can't mention it enough. You'll meet many people in recovery or in their path to recovery. They can't really point negligence or abuse, like my addiction and rise from this, I had a beautiful life. But that doesn't measure the cortisol and stress of a pregnancy in the first two years of young parents of these people who describe a beautiful life. I think the the answers there, it's not magic, but it can be invisible. Having a doula will reduce this, this scenario, and a rising up for the baby's total development during breastfeeding.

Lori Chaffers  48:32  
Yeah. And will allow I think, so I struggled after my son was born, he's my second and I really, I struggled, I had postpartum depression. And, and it lasted for a while. It wasn't like the baby blues, it was postpartum depression. And it made it hard to bond, right? Because I was just trying to survive and and I had all of those supports, right? I think, had I had a doula who was looking for that, who was saying, Hey, you seem like baby this is this is more than just the baby blues. Yeah. Right. Who could have made that normal? And who could have said, let's, let's talk about that. Let's get you the help you need. Right. I think that would have been really great. I was and I'm a social worker, I did dimensionally go to counseling and get into a good place, but I wondered if I would ever be able to love him like I loved my other one. And now it's funny because he's my color. And so, you know, now I can't imagine life without him. But there was a period of time that I was like, what is happening here? You know, and I think our doula program and actually all of our evidence based programs so we SafeCare and early headstart and along with bat all have that component in it. The doula is just a more intensive service. So even if we can't get you into the doula right now, all of our programs can come into your home and, and give you some sense of normalcy and understanding of what's happening, so that you can make a good next step. Right? I think any one of those Yeah, because

Margie Durkin  50:04  
we have prenatal specialists with our Parents as Teachers program to, you know, so, you know, it's really birth to five so or prior to birth. So you know, and so those people can do you know, a lot of the same type of things, you know, be of support,

Joe Van Wie  50:20  
we benefited from just having the discussion. I was illiterate to these ideas, conditions, concepts, men aren't taught these things, you know, I have to be a partner to my wife. Yeah. Oh, I'm gonna do it from like a vast sea of ignorance a about women's anatomy, I thought I took human anatomy. We had an education online, with the doula that made me more supportive, just from information. And it wasn't even a confrontation, it was just information. And it just woke up my curiosity. I don't understand this. I got through 40 years, and I missed this whole part. Also, we benefited from therapy, we're locked in a COVID. We checked in on Zoom once a week, and that therapist first question was exactly what you said, Laura is checking in witness. Are you depressed? It's okay to this. Does your husband see this? Does he know? What can he be doing? It was a dialogue that sometimes it's hard. As much as I love my wife, and she loves me. We don't retire. We're not what part of the day you'd have the formal discussion. Yeah, we energy, we had a time and place to show up to a third party, we trust it and really liked. And this woman would just go through the week for us. And I don't know, if we would have been able to pull it off organically by ourselves, we would have been fine. But it could have been a lot harder, right? And I'd be a lot more ignorant of what I could be doing to help my wife. Because the scenarios that are happening to her that just aren't happening to me, this is not the process of my end. I had no idea about those things. Yeah. Well, I guess in a general way lower, would you just kind of maybe tell me a handful of more programs, we've really did a deep dive on some of these. But if you had a broad description to describe, so you know, all the other new ones that kind of rose up this year? How would you

Lori Chaffers  52:31  
do that? Gosh, it's hard to do a broad stroke. But I will say that when I go back to the mission of economic self sufficiency and family stability, whether that's, you know, we have, like I said, the GED program, we have a new program now for working with youth involved are at risk of involvement in the juvenile or criminal justice system. That program again, all of our programs have this wraparound feature where we're really assessing the whole situation, then trying to remove barriers and build on strengths, like you said earlier. So we have, you know, our all of our workforce, GED education side of our programs, anyone who's looking for job we've had individuals come in who have master's degrees and individuals who come in, who are struggling with basic literary literacy. So we can do everything in between there in terms of working with employers and those kinds of things. And then on our family side, we have supervised visitation for individuals who might be involved in the court system and need to do that and have supervised visits at the office. And we have our incredible years program, which is a cohort based parenting program. Really great program. That's one of the programs. Before I came to the agency, the director of that program said, Maybe you should read our incredible year's book,

Joe Van Wie  53:44  
what would you call a core cohort?

Lori Chaffers  53:46  
So that's like a 14 week it has a specific start a specific end, and it is with other parents. And so it's it's really a class, we do it both in person and on Zoom,

Margie Durkin  53:57  
focused on behavior. I mean, like,

Joe Van Wie  54:00  
and do you see, organically rise up, like a support and a network rise up? Like,

Lori Chaffers  54:08  
especially in the when we're doing them in person, we see that more but though, even online, I think, if you watch the Zoom chat, right, you'll see people chatting kind of talking to each other supporting each other that way.

Joe Van Wie  54:22  
reprimand them, there'll be no talking. No, no, it's

Lori Chaffers  54:25  
good. It's good. You know, it's actually a lot of facilitated discussion, right? People know more than they think they know. And sometimes they don't know that. They're not putting it together, that it applies in this situation, right. And so it is evidence based and does have a curriculum, but a lot of it is the facilitated discussion between parents about what's working and what's not. And we have a parent Cafe program that I love. We do that less frequently and probably quarterly but the parent Cafe is awesome, because everyone in the room is just a parent. So you take off your social worker hat and you take off your teacher hat, and everyone talks about just what It's like to be a parent now that it is guided, and it has a facilitator tutor, but everyone's on the level, but everyone's on the level. And so, you know, if you're talking about what do you do with your screaming kid at night, everyone can talk about their own lived experience of what you do with your kid has been screaming for two hours that night. Right. So, and there's some guiding principles and that we kind of focus on but like group rules and Right, right, right, and pillars that, you know, kind of help bring the program together, but it's fantastic. So this is what I would say. That's awesome. All right. Now I've been zoom, or we have done a couple of in person recently. So it made three if they're in person, where do they happen at the center on our Seventh Avenue center? Seventh Avenue by the sheets? Yep, that's right. Exactly. Yeah. I would say if you're curious, and just call us. Yeah, we'll set up a tour. Yeah, we can tell you about our programs.

Joe Van Wie  55:51  
I'm worried about stigma and in a weird disguise that okay, I have I've been shopping for a wig not up a wig. St. Joe?

Lori Chaffers  56:03  
Yeah, you know, our programs are for everyone. Like I said, we've we've had all sorts of people come through, I think one of the state, I'm gonna get her name wrong, but one of the state representatives ended up going through our program. Yeah. Not on our site. She toured our site and loved the parents, the teachers program so much that she enrolled, and it was now out of town. Yes. And I'm not going to remember the name I want

Joe Van Wie  56:24  
to come down. We had asked for a lot of help my, you know, I'm a grown man and I addiction ravaged me again. And it was hard to admit how much help I need it. And the people I talked to in recovery, parents, these resources there, you don't know they're there. And you just need to feel unjust to get the support. that's needed. I can't believe how many programs you started this year alone, when you were showing me the papers, it was overwhelming. They were they were programs, I've never I've maybe it's just because I don't have enough experience that I don't feel I've seen a lot like they're new, as a social offering to like, these are all

Margie Durkin  57:11  
I live a stone's throw away from the center. I mean, I couldn't walk there. I knew people that were connected with the center, two people actually in different capacities. When I got the job, I had no idea. No idea. And it became you know, it didn't take long to be really passionate about going out there and educating the public with what, you know what incredible programs they were offered. Because, I mean, not only and, you know, Laurie mentioned it, too, we have highly skilled staff that gets certified continually in in new areas, we have a trauma person who's certified trauma specialist, you know, we have prenatal specialists. Now we have the postpartum specialist. I mean, this is an agency that continues to grow and change. And, you know,

Joe Van Wie  58:03  
it's it's not common to have a trauma specialist that can identify maybe continual resource or word care on or off site, but connecting identifying it, because this can be the wellspring of all distress and dysfunction of what's, you know, seizing up a life's development for any What Why do you? Why do you continue to do it? How do you take care of yourself? Because social workers jobs are far different than just clocking in somewhere you are connecting with people. They're trusting you. Yeah, it's hard to dial it in. You can't fake care. Right? Right. And someone who's hurt I don't care how hurt or distress you're, you know, when someone's

Lori Chaffers  58:49  
they say that about the youth I worked with, like they could smell a fake a mile away. Oh, they know, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Joe Van Wie  58:55  
We're how do you how do you do self care in the midst of all this beautiful stuff that's happening? It's, it's, it's, it's a different type of job. You're showing up and connecting with people's emotions all day?

Lori Chaffers  59:06  
Yeah, I learned young in my career, because I started in child welfare. I learned that I was never gonna get it all done in a day. And when you're making decisions like that, you're like you're making sometimes life or death decisions for kids, you know. And so I would find that I couldn't sleep at night. Because all these things would be running in my head of things I needed to get done. So I started sleeping with a pen and paper next to my bed. Someone taught me this from my agency. She said, just write it down. Even if you can't read it in the morning. At least you're getting it out of your head, right? And so there's lots of little ways to that I do that. So I now use my phone of one rollover and type of note or, you know, but I try to run I'm not great but I try to run I think that the self get you think you have to figure out self care for yourself. So for me, prayer, you know, I read my Bible and my devotions. I really Make sure that I take time off, right. And when I'm off, and I tell this to my staff, please use your time off and turn your phone off. Because it's okay that you're not available, someone at the agency is available if someone needs an emergency. So it's okay for you to not be here, you know, and that's important. You have to be able to connect to your own life into your own families or whatever that looks like. So that you can continue to serve well. So I think, you know, at the end of the year, and we have to, like, tell people, we got to use your time off, gotta use time off, and I'm like, don't wait until December. Do this all year. I don't care. Take a mental health day. That's why you have the time. So I think that's good management. Well, and I think it's one of the things I loved about outreach. And one of the reasons I came to outreach is because they are known, we are known in the community, for encouraging our staff to take care of themselves. So we have, you know, through a grant we had gotten, I think through Moses Taylor, before I came, we created a meditation room that has, you know, soft lights and a salt lamp and aromatherapy and a comfy chair and a nice cozy blanket so people can go take a 20 minute break if they are they using? Yeah, yeah, people just said to me the other day that she said, I almost fell asleep in there. I said, that's fine. That's what it's for. Right? It because we want people who are dealing with, you know, high intensity cases, we want them to be able to take a minute to take care of themselves. And so we do encourage that, you know, I think, you know, maybe it's hiking, for some people, maybe it's meditation, like you said, or whatever that is to take care of yourself. We want to help create space for people to do that we have a partnership with Jewish Family Services, John Minkoff comes over twice a month, so that our staff can have a staff support session. You know, it's voluntary, they don't have to go. But if people want to talk about a challenging case, or how they're dealing with the work life balance, he comes in and leaves that session twice a month for all of our staff. That's great. So I think it's an important part of how we care for each other care of ourselves. Thank you, Margie. Well,

Margie Durkin  1:02:03  
I think I, I had mentioned before, then I'm, you know, a liaison. So because of that I don't, I'm not dealing directly with I'm mostly going out and doing presentations connecting with agencies, so you could fake it

Joe Van Wie  1:02:17  
all. Just just the island.

Margie Durkin  1:02:22  
I what happens for me, because I have I have another position where I where I am doing counseling to children. And so and I've always been in social anxiety, I've had to learn how to do this. Sure, you know, take care of myself and, you know, you do you get you get pretty good at trying, you know, managing it and, and having a structured way of doing it because it's survival

Joe Van Wie  1:02:46  
become habit and ritual. Burnout is real. Yeah. It's a condition of the brain. You're burnt out. You can't think complexity, frustrations, you fight or flight off. Your Migdal is just totally going haywire. Measuring threats, you have to be in need keep the phone on what is life without the phone. Right? And you disconnect from like you were saying, your personal life? That's where it's that's, you don't know what's happening?

Margie Durkin  1:03:14  
Yeah, yeah. So for me, I mean, I, I've been running a long time, you know? And, you know, I think of it as like, how am I caring for myself spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, and even financially, you know, because all of those things are stressors. So, you know, I try to hold myself accountable in all those areas. Like, periodically, we used to do this with a couple of my friends, where we would actually do this on a daily basis, we would email each other and say, What are you doing for yourself in all those areas? And it was awesome, because it got us into the practice of thinking in terms of that, like, what am I doing for myself spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially today? You know, so, you know, got me into that hole. You know,

Joe Van Wie  1:04:02  
that's good. Workers. Yeah, sharing a practice, because a multitude of things what you described over work, but then, even for some, it's almost like a transference of the distress. Yeah, like, almost, if you're not experiencing some distress, how legitimate Are you in bridging this help to get like a lot of weird things can happen to a worker that wants to connect and empathy has to be I hate to say, but measured and measured in the practices you're talking about. So yeah, it doesn't defeat the work.

Margie Durkin  1:04:36  
Yeah. Because you you could easily get burnt up, you know. So, yeah, meditation, you know,

Joe Van Wie  1:04:43  
well, as we're winding down I, I, I hope I did some justice to at least create and generate curiosity, and more what a departing words of not only where to find these again, and we can mention the number one Um, are there any other ways of support? So if you didn't need the programs, but you wanted to volunteer, donate or be part of any fundraising apparatus? How would you tell people to get involved?

Lori Chaffers  1:05:13  
Yeah, so you can visit our website at WWW dot outreach works.org. And there's information on there about volunteer opportunities, ways to support us financially, to donate time, talent and treasure all of those things. And so you can visit the website in Oregon call the office 570-348-6484. And

Joe Van Wie  1:05:37  
then on the note of donations, yes. Are we talking clothes diapers formula? Is there a place to drop? Is there a drop off or? Yeah, so

Lori Chaffers  1:05:47  
call? Yeah, gotcha because we you know, we don't have a ton of space and we're not necessarily like a food pantry. But we will take specific items that we know we go through quickly like clothes for

Joe Van Wie  1:06:02  
your social worker, you know who else needs right?

Lori Chaffers  1:06:05  
We do we are often saying we can't take that but dress for success can or friends of the poor, you know, but I think there's lots of ways to get involved. And on donations, those kinds of things. That's always give us a shout. We'll see what we can work out.

Margie Durkin  1:06:19  
Yeah. Well, ladies,

Joe Van Wie  1:06:21  
I've I'm flattered you came and I'm glad I could be of any help or now or in the future. And these programs, what they do specifically for a community that I'm a part of and relate to is people who had to recreate from addiction. We're grateful and grateful for this area.

Lori Chaffers  1:06:42  
And I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here. Like you said, a lot of people don't even know we exist. And you know, we've been here 35 years and be like, oh you dude, what? Why? This is really awesome. 12

Joe Van Wie  1:06:51  
listeners, we're gonna reach that's great. You're all in Nanticoke I'm trying to build a county populate. Well, thanks for coming on.

Margie Durkin  1:07:06  
Thank you. Thank you.

Joe Van Wie  1:07:10  
I'd like to thank you for listening to another episode of all better. Find us on all better.fm or listen to us on Apple podcasts. Spotify, Google, podcasts, Stitcher, I Heart Radio, and Alexa. Special thanks to our producer John Edwards, an engineering company 570. Drone. Please like or subscribe to us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. And if you're not on social media, you're awesome. Looking forward to seeing you again. And remember, just because you're sober doesn't mean you're right.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai