Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Doni: What if spending just a few hours a month with a child to reduce the opportunity that he or she would engage in the use of drugs by 46%.

Or alcohol by 27%?

Or skipping school by 52%?

I know that sounds too good to be true, but it is.

Big brothers and sisters of Northwest Ohio are unapologetic defenders of potential kids or the Littles, as the big brothers and big sister family calls them, thrive in an environment designed to support, empower, embrace and encourage.

I'd like you to rediscover the amazing impact of this organization on our community with our guests, Dr. Marvin Whitfield, CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Northwest Ohio, and board member and medical student, Bhavneep Kaur.

I'm Doni Miller and welcome To the Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You know how to reach me.

You can email me at doni _miller@wgte.org or again for this and any other episode that you might want to watch again, go to wgte.org/to the point, we have with us today, representatives of one of the most amazing organizations on the entire planet.

I say unashamedly.

Everybody knows about Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and I am so, so happy to have with me today its CEO, Dr. Marvin Whitfield and board member and medical student Buffy Core.

Welcome, both of you.

Welcome.

Marvin: I want to start off.

Thank you for having us here.

Doni: I know it's my privilege to have you here, especially because I think that while everybody knows about Big Brothers, Big Sisters, they really think of it as, you know, that that sort of match making service, that sort of, you know, let's let's put someone with a child and then they go off and do good.

But you guys have an amazing impact on this community.

I mean, what you do reduces the rate of school dropouts and involvement in drugs and alcohol.

And so tell me tell me about your organization.

Marvin: Yes, we're big brothers.

Big Sisters of Northwestern Ohio first opened its doors in Toledo back in 1937.

Wow.

As a youth agency and then in 1980 became an appeal that we're brothers, Big Sisters and start emphasizing mentoring program.

I was fortunate to come on board in January of 2020, right before the COVID crisis as a CEO and continue to build what they've already established.

We actually took it a step further.

And not only do we do a mentoring, which is the core basis of what we do, which is very important to having a positive role model in a child's life.

But we looked at what's society was facing today for social unrest, cultural differences.

But then the impact of COVID, which may take 8 to 10 years, we see the final impact of being separated.

And we create we extend our programs.

I'm proud to say that our organizations are the first to establish an external program I'm sorry, external program that is called Empower Future Leaders, which is designed to address the continuing growing needs of our youth.

That's an in-school program.

Absolutely.

Program and also a summer program at no cost to our community.

Doni: No kidding.

Yes.

Well, I want to ask you about it, because you are a full time medical student.

Yes.

And a board member.

Yeah.

What is it about this organization that made you take that very little time that you have this free time and donate it?

Bhavneep: Yeah.

So my journey with Big brothers, Big Sisters, it kind of comes full circle.

So growing up in my hometown, I was actually a big and when I learned about Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Northwest Ohio, I definitely wanted to continue my involvement with the organization.

And so me and one of my colleagues, we created a nine wing curriculum that we created for eighth graders, and we implemented the four pillars of Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

So cultural competency, life skills, leadership and career development.

And we didn't really know exactly how it's going to go just because it was a trial run.

And, you know, we didn't ever really try that before.

And so the first week, of course, like the students weren't really receptive.

They weren't super excited.

Yeah.

But within I think the third week or so, the kids were super excited and very engaged in our activities.

And, you know, the mentors and the kids, you could see kind of like the relationship forming over that nine weeks span and time.

And it was just so great and rewarding to see the impact that we were having on those kids as well as the impact that they were having on us.

And I think from a student perspective, it's easy to think that there's a limit as to how much that how much of an impact you can have on these kids.

But it was truly so, so rewarding.

And so I wanted to continue working with this great organization and that's when I joined the board.

And I serve as a member of the Event Planning Committee.

And that's one of the special things about Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

You get to see so many different aspects of the organization.

You know, there's event planning, of course, that we do, and then the fundraising aspect of it, and that's as you know, of course, being a big.

And so getting to see all of that come together and seeing the results of it.

So it's so amazing.

Yeah.

Doni: What, what kind of impact do you see on the kids?

How do they change?

Marvin: Well.

Doni: Just make a difference.

Marvin: So the mentoring programs which been in place over a hundred years nationally be it Brothers and Sisters of America throughout our states, has done a great job laying the foundation literally.

You can take 4 hours a month.

That's 40 hours.

You're two days out of your life.

You have a lifelong impact.

But now we're we're because of what we see within society, the impact of COVID, we have to go beyond that and and also capture the kids who may not qualify or in our mentoring program.

And so that's why we created Empower through the program.

But, I mean, you talk about how she and her colleagues came within our organization to arrest on four pillars.

When I took over, the first thing I did was look at the data.

Toledo has done a great job through the university and the city, collecting the data, identify the needs of our youth and the community itself.

Doni: So the primary needs to be.

Marvin: So basically, the four pillars a life skills, high surviving environment you are you're in now.

So it's easy to tell a kid who's living in a space of crisis, well, come to school and get a good grade.

Right.

You know, try not to get in trouble, but we have to give them the tools, the life skills.

The second space is leadership development.

My mom taught me at a young age.

She's tell my coaches and teachers if my with a group of kids that get in trouble, it's because he chose to go ready to be a leader.

Leaders are less likely to put themselves or others in bad situations.

But then also cultural competency.

How do we teach our kids to maneuver in different cultures?

How do we teach them to adapt in different spaces?

And then finally, the career development piece, the fourth pillar.

I was fortunate.

I had a dream at a young age.

I want to be a police officer so I'll ever start as a teenager and retire at 27 to go to my next career.

A lot of these kids, a lot of people today don't know their next path.

And so if you give the child opportunity, expose an individual such as both the VA and her colleagues and say, hey, listen, like me, you can be a doctor like that or you can be a law enforcement or business owner or philanthropist and help them on that journey without focus from age ten.

I know what I want to do is start as a teenager, make my career.

So create opportunities to expose these youth and also expose businesses and local people such as yourself.

And I love to have you come out when they talk to the kids in the school summer program about journalism and what you do here and just inspire them and give them access.

Doni: Thank you.

And you see the kids changing in front of you.

Yeah.

How do you see What changes do you see?

Bhavneep: Yeah.

I mean, like I said, during those nine weeks, you know, early on, they they weren't really excited at all.

They weren't receptive our curriculum.

But over time, you just kind of see this excitement and you can see kind of this motivation and then that, that I think that's like one of the big things that I strive for kind of going off of that.

We expanded over to the undergrad campus at Toledo and we just recently created a club to get more people involved.

And also that serves as a great opportunity for undergrads as well and to get involved in leadership opportunities.

And that was definitely something that we wanted to do, just so that, you know, you can you can serve the community and get involved.

And we actually have a really exciting event coming up.

It's called Steam Field Day.

And what we're planning to do with that is to have several people from different careers come together.

So medicine, arts, nursing, peace, and to kind of give early exposure to kids to different career paths.

And we're also going to be bringing in keynote speakers to talk about their personal experiences.

I will probably also talk their talk about my various, you know, personal experience as well as the obstacles I've faced on the way to getting where I am now and that ranges, I think, all the way from middle school kids to undergrad.

And so it's a big population that we're targeting and hopefully that tries to motivate kids to, you know, seek out which career interest they have and to explore different options.

Doni: Those sorts of things.

Sometimes kids don't know what they feel or what they can do or how how to even be self-confident.

And so they run into an organization like yours.

Marvin: Yes.

So to elaborate, because you kind of glide over a little bit.

So it was a49 project in the wassup teen medical students but at Universal Toledo that partnered with us with the in-school program because of the great work and the expansion they actually this fall put together a student body organization called Big Brothers Big Sisters, Rocket Nation.

It's how we incorporate even more college students from different backgrounds, different experiences now to come in contact with our youth.

And like you was mentioning, is that a lot of these kids we come across are in a space of crisis.

Doni: Right.

Marvin: And no hope.

And so what better way?

So my whole mindset is, man, meet you where you are absolutely helping you out.

So what better way.

Doni: Without.

Marvin: Judgment?

Exactly.

000 here.

Right.

And so what better way to bring in the younger generation?

Because at my age, I can tell them, hey, just work real hard.

But that's a long way off to have somebody like me in her team who who've had certain challenges because she's had her own challenges culturally.

We've talked about that to talk about, hey, you may have these barriers with this House, able to circumvent those barriers and continue on.

And the whole goal is to expose them to so many different options that we hopefully put them in a space to identify what or who they have an interest in that path.

And the one thing I've learned that no matter where you live, it's all about access, access and opportunity.

And so Big brothers, Big Sisters, and I'll partner with you and help people like you here.

We're trying to give our youth as much access as possible.

Doni: That is amazing.

And I want to.

I want you to hold that thought.

I want to come back and talk about how people get involved and what training they have to go through and help people understand that they don't have to be afraid of doing this kind of thing.

We're going to go away, but we'll be right back.

Carol: Please stay with us.

Lucas County jail today is vastly different than it was in 2014.

The individuals in the jail were not being correctly served.

Nor was the population of Lucas County.

When we started digging into the needs of the community and the jail population, we realized we can make the community a safer place and a more just place.

Repeat crime before trial can go down.

And in Lucas County's case, it did.

You can reduce your jail population, meaning that people have a better chance of succeeding in life.

VO: WGTE Public media, in collaboration with the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Safety and Justice Challenge, presents Rethinking Joe and Justice.

A community town hall that challenges our thinking about overincarceration and how this adversity and disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities.

Join the discussion at the downtown Toledo Lucas County Public Library on January ten at 5:30 p.m.

Your questions and comments will be addressed at the town hall and can be sent in advance to Daugaard J. Doni: We are glad to have you back with us.

Before we return to our guests, I'd like to remind you to reach out and contact me with your opinions about the show or things you might like to see us do.

And you can do that through our social media pages.

You can email me at doni _miller@wgte.org And again, if you'd like to see this episode and, and the many others that we have online, please go to wgte.org/to the point, we have with us if you missed our first segment.

Board member and medical student Bhavneep Kuar.

And we have the CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Dr. Marvin Whitfield.

We were talking as we went to break about the impact that your work actually has on kids.

And we don't get any of that done if we don't have the adults that are involved in the process.

Right.

And I can guarantee you that folks are out there saying, I don't know how to do that.

I yell at my own kids all the time.

I don't have enough time.

Kids don't like me.

What would you say?

Marvin: So it's not as hard as you think.

I'm actually my fourth, you know, I've been there.

Number one, how do relationships design is both benefit, both grow and both are exposed.

And we've actually streamline the process without removing the safeguards to where we now reach out, accommodate our volunteers.

And like I said, we only ask for hours, a month.

4 hours can be in a space of doing an activity, virtually meeting with them virtually or on the phone, just give them access when they need to have a positive role model in life.

This adds up to 40 hours a year is two days out of your life.

But the great thing too is over the past three years we've worked really hard to partner with local businesses and so a lot of our bigs, the Littles, go to opera Urban Air online throughout the month.

Clean juice, the zoo.

We're always trying to create opportunities where they can go out at no cost to them and have fun.

And but also if you have family, bring your family because we encourage our ones to become comfortable there.

A little to make that little part of a family.

And we have several family events throughout the year too, where at no cost to you, you can bring your other kids along which are little and enjoy some activities.

Doni: That's amazing.

I want to I want to ask you about training, but before we get to that, you said something that I think people would be particularly interested when interested in when they are bringing their littles to you, their kids, to you to become littles.

And that's the safeguards.

How what do you do to make sure that my child is safe?

Marvin: Well, we have a that we do a background check and actually we go a little bit further to the national standards of just watching them through the system.

We actually do a fingerprint and go through the FBI and state.

I'm retired law enforcement, so I'm real big on child safety.

And so we do a thorough background check.

We do an interview, we actually screen, we do the profiling.

But additionally, every 30 days, we make contact with the big the little and the parent.

And our our team is trained on to look for indicators, but also provide support.

I'm proud to say also that we're the only trauma certified team.

I notice that Big Brothers, Big Sisters and Nailsworth in Ohio.

We are certified to behavior services.

So even if your child is having challenges now, we don't get too deep into the space of counseling, but we know how to identify what's needed and do referrals.

But we do train an area of leadership, CPR, basic passport training.

We make sure we pay our team to get a proper support for the only child.

The family, but also the big but.

We take a step further, too.

Over the past two years, we've increased our partnerships to where we screen the child and a parent or guardian.

Now is the dynamic sort of household because it served no purpose.

We stabilized the child in the household, so we do referrals and I'm kind of a lead to segue way to the back end.

We talk this conversation about our fundraisers for the first year.

I'm proud to say that we was we're still moving towards it, making the numbers higher.

Not only do we get the kids in our program, but we also identified kids in a household not only to treat, but also the kids are not waiting this because unfortunately have a long waiting list and we always look for our babies.

Yes.

Doni: Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

So your experience as a big though, must have been life changing for you.

Yeah.

So to sort of grab you into this process and not let you go, what would you tell folks out there who are sort of on the fence and trying to decide about whether they want to do this?

Bhavneep: Yeah.

So growing up I was a first generation student and my parents were immigrants.

And so I don't really have a lot of guidance in terms of my academics and my career career path that I wanted to pursue.

I didn't really have a lot of guidance in terms of that, and that was also one of the reasons I became a big because, you know, that mentorship aspect is so important and to have a positive role model, like Dr. Whitfield was saying is so important and not even just that, but also just having someone that is encouraging you, supporting you along the way is so instrumental, right?

So that was definitely a big aspect of Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

I wanted to continue being a part of.

Doni: Who does the child have to come from a single parent home in order to be a little know?

Marvin: A couple thing that I did when I first took over.

Well, across the states, it's not a requirement.

It can be just any child of need.

But also we expanded children in rural areas, but, you know, suburban areas, because just because you may have the financial means, I mean, you have the capabilities, access such programs, but there's no limitations that children need.

That child comes in our program.

Doni: Okay.

And is there a definition of a child in need?

Is it just if the child wants the parents want?

Marvin: Yes.

The only time we put a definition to a child, because in our in my mindset and how we run organization, that's what we call it, power future leaders, all our kids are future leaders, is when we come to the space of funding.

So with the grants, we only can serve as a part of the grant funding at risk kids.

Kids who live in areas of high poverty, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and crime.

But we work hard throughout the year to fundraise to address the needs of the kids who do not fall within that space.

Because just because we try to make it balance.

I don't think you have to be in a state of crisis for we often support and they have to come across.

If you don't see that support.

Doni: Right.

You know, one of the things I think about that I'm not sure people often think about when they look at your organization, is that not only is this a benefit to the child, but if you're a single parent, it really helps make that journey easier.

Yes.

You know, there's this sense of when you're a single parent or a family that's living without a lot of means that you have to do it all.

And what generally doesn't get tended to as well as you would like to, is are those needs that child has that maybe you just don't see quite as quickly, you know, because you're you're busy with trying to figure out how to feed people and how to keep people warm and those sorts of things.

And you guys really help in that regard.

Marvin: Yes.

We have a particular case that come to mind where it's a as a family who's living in a nice suburban community, too, where the father was killed in an accident.

And just so happened, I knew the mother.

Our daughters grew up together and she said, hey, can I pay for my children in your program because I need support in this space?

You know, I've been through a lot.

And I said, Well, it's free is no cost to you.

Right?

And both of them in our program thriving.

And so the program is designed to cut across all aspects.

The only thing that that's the same consistently is the need of the child.

And everybody need a positive role model in their life.

Doni: What kinds of things what kinds of programing do you have to support the big.

Marvin: Yes.

So we're real big on training and so we have training.

We first come into the program, you will receive training, but also support.

So it costs us 1800 dollars a year for one match that goes at a cost of cover and having a special system to your case.

And we also have a threshold in each case.

We don't want our specialists, but we'll make sure it's a 1 to 1 relationship between our specialists and all parties involved.

And throughout the program, we're every 30 days you hear from us, what do you need?

How to reach those goals and other assets that you may need.

And we kind of leave it up to the trio, the parent or guardian that the little and the big to to advise us how we support their development, which we also give them goals about the process.

But we have crisis training.

We have sometimes situations where there may be threat of suicide or drug abuse or other things they can place that we coach and counsel the big through the process and unfortunately in our unfortunately in one aspect, but fortunately another aspect because of the relationship we in the past we've had where children came for to their big to where they were some form of abuse.

And so we trained them on how to work with us to get information to.

We can refer it to the appropriate agency.

Can we all a self-report agency?

Doni: Is there any is there any age restriction?

I imagine that that some of the Littles loved you and your colleagues coming in because you can, you know, get down on the floor and play and that sort of thing and you would get down on the floor and not be able to get.

Marvin: Them down for a little while.

Yes.

Doni: So is there an age restrictions?

Is one work better than another?

Marvin: So one thing I did modify when I took over for child safety reasons is that our mentoring program starts at age seven at the earliest, probably eight because of that age.

It can communicate effectively, but our empower future Leader program starts at age five because in that space the child is not left alone with an adult.

It's out with either the school system or during the summers with our trained experts.

And so other than that, it's unlimited out at age 18.

Doni: But what about volunteers?

Marvin: So a volunteers any age?

In any age, pretty much you pretty much.

Bhavneep: And I also kind of like that, you know, there's no age restriction because so many different ages, you know, the older you are, the more experiences you have and the more you can cater to that age group.

Right.

And so the eighth graders that we were working with, I think they were more likely to engage in our activities because we were closer in age versus, you know, if it was someone older, maybe they would be, you know, not so receptive.

But yeah, so when we made that curriculum, we catered it kind of towards that age group.

And so we had some fun activities implemented into the curriculum.

Doni: One minute left, what would you say to folks out there?

What do you want to leave them with quickly?

Marvin: We're always in need of volunteers and volunteers.

How you envision it, whether you want to be a big brother, big sister in volunteer two days out of your life to have a lifelong impact.

Or if you don't have the time, we will take that dollar.

No dollar too small, because it does cost to provide these programs, because the programs at no cost to the families.

Like I said, it costs 1800 dollars a month for our mentoring program and then 37,000 per cycle for our email program.

And right now we're in the middle of our Angel tree and get them a match program to either donate to where we can take our youth shopping or donate towards support.

No match for one year.

Doni: All righty.

Thank you both so much for joining us.

And you can find out more information about this amazing program online.

Big brothers, Big Sisters, tons of information on there.

Please, please, please.

Two days out of your life.

Two days out of your life to make a major difference.

Happy holidays to everybody.

I will see you next time.

On... To the Point.

Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public Media.

This program was made possible in part by viewers like you.