Head Inside Mental Health
Todd Weatherly, Therapeutic Consultant and behavioral health expert hosts #Head-Inside Mental Health featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment with experts from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care.
Head Inside Mental Health
Building Pathways for Young Adults with Vince Benevito
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Vince Benevento, founder of The Causeway Collaborative. Drawing from his personal journey through recovery as a young man, Vince created something different - a program specifically designed for young men who need more than just talk therapy. Through male mentorship, community engagement, career development, and practical life skills, Causeway helps bridge the critical gap between intensive treatment and true independence.
Our compelling conversation when we begin discussing parental expectations versus a young person's authentic path. "If you want to have a meaningful, lifelong relationship with your kid, maybe it makes sense to modify your expectations and actually listen to what your kid has to say," Vince advises, challenging parents to prioritize connection over achievement metrics.
For parents, professionals, or anyone concerned about supporting young men through mental health challenges, this episode offers valuable insights into creating pathways that actually work - even for those most resistant to help.
Hello folks, thanks for joining us on Head Inside Mental Health, featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment with experts, advocates and professionals from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care. Broadcasting on WPBM 1037, the voice of Asheville independent commercial-free radio. I'm Todd Weatherly, your host therapeutic consultant, behavioral health expert. I am here today with Mr Vince Benavito. Vince is the director and founder of Causeway Collaborative leading, providing direct service for all three specialized teams. A licensed professional counselor, he holds a BA in psychology from Wesleyan University and an MA in school counseling from Fairfield University. Same as my wife, but here in the Carolinas.
Speaker 1:Actually, vince began his career as an in-home therapist for adolescents and families at the Wheeler Clinic in Plainville, connecticut, a regional behavioral health services provider. From there he entered the corporate world where he worked as a professional recruiter and honed career counseling skills. With these valuable experiences, vince transitioned back to individual community-based counseling as an employment specialist at the Kennedy Center, one of Connecticut's largest, most highly regarded community organizations. At the Kennedy Center, vince worked to find meaningful jobs for unemployed adults with psychiatric diagnoses and criminal histories. I did the same for the community college in our area. This is going to be a fun conversation.
Speaker 1:He joined Freudman and Billings in the 2010 educational therapist, completed a year-long internship in the Weston High School Guidance Department, re-initiated and co-led weekly support groups for at-risk students in 2012. Vince has brought all these skills together and experiences to start the Causeway Collaborative, which serves young men who are transitioning and needing to find their way, probably in recovery from not only mental health disorders but also substance use disorders, needing that coaching, support and vocational support. They're in the local community in Connecticut and with a team of trained professionals, coaches and therapists that help them find their way after they've come out of residential treatment. Is that a pretty accurate description? Vince?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty right on.
Speaker 1:And I'll say this you and I got connected through a doc that we both know and appreciate. Dr Santo Piedra is a highly regarded psychiatrist in the area. He can't say, he can't say enough about you guys. We've got a, we've got at least one client coming your way and have started working together a little bit. I got to tell you, as a person who started an organization that's got some similarities in the local area and then handed it off to the therapist that's there, like what you guys are doing is we need so much more of it. Thank you, yeah, we just doing. Is we need so much?
Speaker 2:more of it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yeah, we just we just need so much more of it, because young men and women, um, they need this kind of support.
Speaker 1:I always say that that it may be one of the most vulnerable times you have is coming out of residential treatment, so that step down, transitional step, is really important. The next most vulnerable time, and maybe even more vulnerable, is when you actually step back into, like, the apartment and your own space and you've got all the stuff on you now, right, and it's like I mean more people crumble at that time than any other time and it literally I don't. I don't understand how insurance companies have skipped this component of care, which they often do. But, like, if you will, you know it looks like you've done a lot of, you know a ton of this, like working with adolescents, working in school systems, working in educational environments, corporate environment, so you've got jobs in there, education in there. I mean all the component pieces. It's like you've blended all this stuff together and created Causeway, collaborative, what. What gave you the gumption to do that? Cause it's not an easy job.
Speaker 2:No, no, I appreciate that, yeah, and, and you know, thanks for thanks for all the praise. So, um, yeah, I mean, you know, I think, uh, I mean first and foremost my, my, my vision for the organization came out of my own personal experiences. You know I was a guy who struggled mightily with, you know, mental health and substance use. You know, throughout the course of my you know, latter teens and into my 20s, and you know there was a couple pieces of it that really formed, you know, the ethos of who we are One, I was as trigger resistant as anybody you could ever be, who we are One. I was as trigger resistant as anybody you could ever be, and so I really became curious and fascinated by the idea of wanting to be worked with, you know, and like finding ways to engage guys who were really hard to reach and didn't really respond to other service providers prior, kind of became preoccupied with that specific population.
Speaker 2:I also was I mean this, and this is a long time ago, you know when I was in college this is over, you know it's about 20 years ago now but like I was fascinated by the lack of support specifically for young men. You know, like men and young men, like there there wasn't anything you know that was focused on men's issues or young men's issues, or you know issues around you know that was focused on men's issues or young men's issues, or you know issues around you know educational support, or where do I find a job or where do I do this? I mean, I think you know I also wasn't one of like the super motivated kind of guys to go out and like proactively look for help, like help had to come and find me a little bit late in the game. So you know I I wanted, I wanted to be a part of a solution that was providing, you know, greater access for, you know, men and young men to care, that was providing services that were like therapeutic but not specifically limited to couch therapy or talk therapy, which I think for some guys is, you know, something that they're not really readily able to engage in.
Speaker 1:You've got a limited success from it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like you know, just they don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:you know, sometimes Well, they're good at fron it, yeah, and like you know, just they don't want to do it.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes they're good at fronting yeah, they're good at front, and I say that only because, like I, was too right. So I think that was a that was a core piece that that resonated with me and, honestly, you know I there was unique attraction for me about the idea of you know older men touring into young men and you know sharing stories, and you know older men touring into young men and you know sharing stories and you know having perspective and providing wisdom. But you know, in the ways that I think you know male specific work can be, can be particularly impactful.
Speaker 1:So have you done any, have you collaborated at all or know anything about the journeyman foundation? Have you done anything with those guys before or?
Speaker 2:know about them. I don't know anything about those guys. The journeyman foundation have you?
Speaker 1:done anything with those guys before or know about them, don't know anything about those guys.
Speaker 1:Similar idea, not a program per se, more like, you know, forms groups, free groups for young men and, and you know, gives them the opportunity to kind of get under the layer and get a little deeper with how they're connecting with others that you know, either peers or older adults, but very much centered around exactly what you're saying. You know, how do we bring back and you know, writes a passage, is a big piece of it and all those other things. How do we bring back kind of this elder guidance as a part of an adolescent's life, you know, and dads are one thing, that's true, but you know, as a dad, as a dad of two teenagers, I know I can't be everything like and you know, if you look at the kind of child development stuff which I'm sure you're very familiar with, we know that the source of their, we know the source of their information and the source of their guidance and and a lot of the stuff that even the channels, their maturity, yeah, it's largely as they grow into older teens from their peers absolutely.
Speaker 1:From their, from their social groups, not from their family. And if you can spice that with something that's got actual, real, knowledgeable guidance to it, that's the trick, and it sounds like that's what you're accomplishing. I want to, if you will, one or a congregate of, of of individuals that you've worked with. Yeah, give me a tough nut to crack story, if you would. I'd love to just your experience with one that just comes out in your mind. I know they're all kind of you know you don't do easy work, they're all kind of tough night, but there's I know there's a couple of shiners out there. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So um, you know I mean there's so many great stories over the years. You know guys who um, and guys we've had these like long and winding roads with. You know um got a guy I'll leave the name out um. This kid came to me at 15 years old. Uh, you know post karen. Uh, for you know pretty severe substance use issues. You know pretty traumatic family constellation parents were split. You know there was some abuse with mom's new domestic partner. You know dad had a new girlfriend. He was a, you know, c-suite guy. So you know a lot of open space for this kid to like find ways to get himself into trouble and he I'm sure plenty of money plenty of access, you know, not a lot of oversight, so it's a pretty messy cocktail there.
Speaker 2:Came back from Karen, came back into us and under our care and, you know like, relapse pretty quick and so we sent him right back. He did okay for a couple years, you know, and honestly I mean, you know, look, it's a, really. I mean, as you know, todd, I mean it's a, it's a for a 15 year old kid to come back and get sober and stay sober is a very, very tall order, right. So you know, this kid did really well for a couple years and then, you know, about 18 years old, you know, went sideways, relapsed, got really bad for a couple of months and now and we sent him away again, finally got cleaned up for good.
Speaker 2:So fast forward now this guy's 22, 23, comes in once every six weeks, once every four to six weeks to see me just for a check-in. But working in a construction job as project manager, making 65, 70 grand, no college, you know, 55 hours a week and, you know, actually started up his own little business on the side in addition, there too, and all the while, you know we've been doing work alongside him, you know, for years, you know, through our mentorship program, you know, get him on a regimen, having him work out, doing wellness-based stuff, helping him feel good, you know, doing a little socially focused work where we're trying to get. He wasn't a 12-step guy so we had to work overtime to get him connected with positive things that weren't substances, and then working him and the family in the counseling process for a couple of years on end. So long road for a guy like that.
Speaker 1:We lost some, we won some, but the story was a happy ending at the end of the day lost some, we won some, but the the story was a was a happy ending at the end of the day. So well, it's not. You know, like I say it's not a linear path. No, the recovery and you know, I know that people have this, they have I've heard people really have a problem. It's like relapse is part of recovery and like I get why we don't like that statement and I I think that there's an important resistance to having that statement be true. That comes from people who are, who are working in recovery. I would say, however, that, like, the process of self-discovery is not a linear path and it comes with some interesting turns and sometimes, especially as a young man, you definitely stumble. Stumbling looks different for everybody.
Speaker 1:You know, because even a person who's in recovery and successfully sober is not necessarily successfully recovering. They pour all of that into a work and then they crash, or they pour it into a relationship that's unhealthy, or they do all these other counter addictions, if you will, that aren't any better for their life, or they're miserable. Because they don't know. You know they haven't found anything that causes them to feel good and a place to have community and, you know, do the things that cause a person to have a fulfilling and meaningful life, the one that they want. And you know if you will speak to this because I've said this, I've been saying for this for years.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We get, and I think you, I think recovery is guilty of it. Treatment is guilty of it, unintentionally, but it's societal. You go to school and hopefully you finish school, or you finish some version of it, and you graduate. There's this celebration and they give you a certificate and then and it's a falsehood Like it you know you've, you've completed something and that's that feels good and that's great. But you know, in, in many ways it's almost like with having kids, like it's almost like pregnancy. You know, you freak out that you're, that you're pregnant when your wife's pregnant with their, with your child, and they're coming along the way, and then that child is born. It's like pregnancy, didn't? That? Wasn't nothing? Yeah, that was. That was just conceptually preparing me for the idea of what the real deal was now you like you turn the page right.
Speaker 2:That's all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's all it's like you know, I I think that celebrating markers is good, but you know they, you know they didn't recover. They call it 13 months. You know more people relapse on their year anniversary than almost any other time, like in your work. How do you navigate this? And I want to tell you that this is not like. This is the rest of your life, by the way, what we're doing here. I know you feel good and successful. We've built some stuff and it's great. And for the rest of your life, you're going to be trying, you're going to be attempting to to manage a version of this. How do you get that message across, cause, somewhere you have to right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no doubt, and I, I think you know for us to you know that that begins with the family. I think you know, and and and and cultivating a narrative with the family of one of, uh, not only transparency but sort of progression, you know, like transparency around, like establishing reasonable expectations that make sense and that you know people can kind of co-align to. You know, I think what happens most often with us is that mom and dad are over here and kids kind of over here and like we start, you know, out of the blocks, with, you know, party party A and party B not being on the same page. So I think you know the conversation I think begins with like, what are we actually trying to do and what do you? You know, hey, kid what's and kid kid's 23, now right, so you know Johnny like
Speaker 2:what's your vision for your life and where are we headed? And then making sure that the parents understand that and are, you know, to some degree on board with that? Right? And if we're not on board with it, that's okay. But let's have the conversation up front and just kind of re-scope expectations. So it always begins with expectations and then from there, you know, I think I just encourage transparency.
Speaker 2:You know I encourage men, you know men to really be purposeful about sharing their resistance. If you think something sucks, it's necessary that I know about it so we can pivot and go in a different direction. And it doesn't do any good for somebody to tell me that they're on board with a plan and we start working a plan for three to six months only to find out that it's not the right plan and he did it begrudgingly the whole time or whatever the case may be. So it's important to you know, look forward, be transparent me to be on the same page with a guy, as somebody who's working to serve him and and you know, trying to work on his behalf, um, and and really, lastly, that the vision is his. You know that it's not dad's any, you know, just his parents.
Speaker 2:And it's not you know mom's, his father's, whatever, Like it's. This is a young man's, or a man's vision for his own life, and we're stepping forward because we believe that that's what he knows is best for him.
Speaker 1:And you have to impart the crushing news to the parents that, hey, this, this box that you've tried to put your, your, your adult child, in your adult son in, he may not meet that that's correct yeah, it may not be his dream at all, and in order for him to live something that looks, that looks successful it may or may not meet your idea of success and you may need to come off of it entirely. Like cause, if we start aiming for a goal it's not his, but instead yours it's doomed to fail in the first place. You're going to be right back in the same spot you were in.
Speaker 2:Cause the guy's never going to run with it. If it's not his, you know he'll fake it for a little while, but it's going to be revealed eventually that it's on him and we're going to have to pivot anyway.
Speaker 1:So well, there's also a I mean I don't know what your experience as a young man with I can. I can pick out pieces of mine, and it wasn't necessarily that that my either of my parents had some overbearing idea of success about who I needed to be, but they definitely had ideas about what success looked like. Sure, and so I spent a part of my life trying to meet those ideas, even though they were not mine, and then I would succeed at them and be miserable. Yeah, I'd be like, why did I? This sucks, how did I do this? You know, and I think that that you, you know, that process is difficult. I'm I'm, you know, I'm glad I had versions of support and things that I did to kind of like let me navigate this and figure out who I am and what I want to do.
Speaker 1:But, like for a young man, especially if they've gotten addiction in their background or you know something that looks like fairly significant mental illness and mental health challenges in their background and and familial dynamics that throw into all those things that can get very overbearing, I can imagine that that's like probably one of the toughest things to face and terrifying at the same time. It's like, oh my God, I have no idea who I am or what I want to be. It's easy for me to just sign on for a co-opted plan of somebody else's than it is for me to come up with my own. So maybe that's it like when you I'm certain that you run into this with these guys, right? It's like, well, my dad said, you know, or whatever you know, well, I just want to go out and be this successful thing. It's like, yeah, I hear that and I don't buy it. It sounds like like BS to me. Like, like, tell me about that conversation when you have it with guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Um, you know, I think my approach has changed with respect to this.
Speaker 1:I think I want to hear this. I'll tell you why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I think a few years ago, you know, when I was younger. Um, you know, and I was a little less patient, maybe, like I would just fire right back. You know, and immediately, you know poke holes and deconstruct, and you know. Here's why that's a terrible idea. A, B, c, d, e, right. And now and I think this is a much better approach I will always allow the guy to engage me in demonstrating why his plan is going to work right and reserve judgment. So this is a hilarious story.
Speaker 2:But we had a guy one time who came through he might've been 5'2", 5'3" maybe, and he told me that his vision was to go to the NBA, right, and so like, rather than like, you know, uh, metaphorically, dunk on him. Uh, I decided to say okay, well, you know, I know a little bit about basketball not a lot much as a fan, not as a player. But you know why don't we take a look at Kobe's training regimen and, like you know, see what guys who are playing in the high level are doing? You know on a daily basis, and you know we got through about hour one day. One of you know 2000 jump shots and you know 300 pushups before you start your day. And he tapped out pretty quickly and say you know what? We should probably go look at doing something else with our time. So you know, honestly, it was, you know, acquainting him with data and evidence around what was required and demonstrating the incongruence between what was required and what he could do, that helped him get there himself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a big fan of letting things set their own limit. That's right. Like you know what I mean. Like, well, I like that idea. I've got to. I'm not going to say this in my mind.
Speaker 1:I'm like I've got a pretty good idea that that's going to set its own limit because you're going to get about a third of the process and it's going to be something that you don't want to do. That'd be my guess, but I'm gonna let that play out like the other. The other one, um, socrates. He called it, uh, intellectual midwifery, and he would, like you know, let somebody talk through. And just so you're saying this, but also this they sound like they are in conflict with one another. Can you explain that a little further? And then the person would work their way down to tripping through it and realize it was a completely incongruous kind of ideology that they had formulated.
Speaker 1:I think that that I mean it's beautiful work. Not only is it something that allows a person to arrive somewhere, but it also teaches them a thought process Absolutely, which you know in so many times in just following impulse after impulse they've never really engaged in. Right Now, with adolescence this one's you've got a lot of experience with adolescence and classroom work and education work and everything else, and one of your stories you start with a guy at 15. And obviously there was stuff that his story had some dips.
Speaker 1:No doubt some dips, no doubt. What's the difference in your mind overall in finding a message that lands with a 15 16 year old versus with a 23 24 year old?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, it's a good question, um, you know, I mean, I, I think, um, I mean, I think for me it's about relatability and connecting with people. You know, and I, I think, um, you know, this work is um helping somebody navigate their own journey. You know, and I think, if you create a space for a guy of any age to do that in a way that um allows him to open himself up, um, you know, and, and with and with approachability and and respect and care, I think it can work. You know, irrespective of age and really irrespective of personality, um, I've got some, you know, very, very unlikely pairings. If I walk back through the annals of the client relationships that I've had, some of my favorite clients I've ever had have been some of the most unlikely pairings between myself and they.
Speaker 2:But I think it's exactly that. It's not trying to overextend, not working too hard to try to force a connection when it's not there. It's not trying to overextend, not working too hard to try to force a connection when it's not there, when common interests aren't shared. I think that it's applying all the skills that we all try to do to do good work being empathic, being kind, being relatively level. I'm a little more emotional than the next guy. So that's the watch out for me. I always have to watch injecting myself too much into the conversation or allowing my you know highs and lows to peak too much. Um, but I think, if you know as long, I mean, I think, if you abide by those principles, if you are careful, if you are honest, if you're transparent and respectful and and you know, uh, and if you allow yourself to be yourself, um, you know you. If you allow yourself to be yourself, you know you can you can do pretty well.
Speaker 1:I think that's the I mean. To me that's kind of the big thing. It's like you and I are probably the same, but it's very unlikely I could be anything other than myself, and trying is painful.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't know how. Actually.
Speaker 1:I don't have any idea how to do something like. I watch things where people try to. You know comedians will talk about it or somebody you know actors or whatever be something that isn't them and I'm like that looks incredibly a little bit of vulnerability, certainly, genuineness and authenticity showing up and having a connection. Like that's a great answer. Thanks, vince. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:If you were, if you? Instead of you, you're a parent.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:How was that? How does a parent like I think I get asked this question a lot.
Speaker 2:I've got some in my head.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear yours like how does a parent approach the the I know everything 16 17 year old, versus the different version of I know everything 21, 22, 23 year old? Yeah, yeah that's that's having struggles or that's going through something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a great question too, I mean, I like I, it's a, it's a scope of the role conversation, I think, right, so, like you know, 16, 23, I mean 23, that guy should be independent or moving towards, you know, absolutely has far more degree of command of his life than you know, a 15, 16 year old. If he doesn't, we got bigger issues, you know. So I mean, I think, as a parent, you have to know that the scope of your role is far more limited, far more consultative, right, like you know, kids, guys are coming to you, your sons are coming to you, your daughters are coming to you, because you know for, for, for, advice, direction, you know insight, but the, the heavy, heavy lifting should be over by that point. At 15, 16, you're, you're right in the throes of heavy lifting yeah, my kids.
Speaker 2:My kids are younger 10, 12, 8, um, and but we're even experiencing it, you know, with, especially, my oldest. My oldest is going to middle school, right, and we're in a cool time with him now because this summer was the first time where the world became his. So he got his little gizmo watch, he got his bicycle and now, him and his brother, they go 10 o'clock. Mom, we'll see you later, come home 630. And they got their watches and if their mother needs them she calls. So I think even there there's some discomfort for me and her for sure, like you know it's. You know, out of sight, out of mind, is hard, especially because this is the first time going through it. But, um, but if you kind of see, we, our vision for our children are that. You know we, we work to help them become better independent versions of themselves. Right, and I believe that you know a bicycle and a watch gets him closer to that than him being at home. You know where he's under my watchful eyes.
Speaker 2:So, it's important for, I think, parents to as that as that world expands, right, because you know, 16 is bigger than 12 and 23 is bigger than 16. As their world expands, we have to shrink our own role to allow them the space to step in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the discomfort piece is where it, where it falls apart sometimes for parents. And you know I have my own pitfalls as a parent. I will fully acknowledge them. But you know I've got I've got a 20 year old going to college and I've got a 17 year old got his first car. So you know we're we're in two different launching places, but they're versions of independent launching, no doubt.
Speaker 1:And it's like I don't know. I think the car is harder than college. To be honest, with you Giving them the car and letting them drive off by themselves for the first time, it's terrifying honestly.
Speaker 1:As a person who does not experience terror very often, sure, but it's like, and how else is he going to go and do these things if you, if I don't let him go do them, um? And then they come back and they, you know there's a little trouble here, there's something else, so they get a ticket or the. You know the things. They happen like. They come up um, and then you, you try to deal with them as a parent. I think that's when you and I are working with individuals who are, you know one. They suffer from some challenges.
Speaker 1:In the first place, they've gotten into trouble, you know, and it's addictions and mental illness. But you know, those things will throw a maturity process off, hands down. So this person's on a delay or a lag, and then you've got the. You know, maybe you've got the late teens or early 20s year old that's in the basement, hasn't done any launching, hasn't done any things, might need treatment. And then they get to you and it's like, okay, how do we not, how do we not like backpedal right back to where we were, um and I it might be a cool thing. You get these guys, I. I assume they're coming from transitional living environments for the most part sometimes and I it might be a cool thing you get these guys I. I assume they're coming from transitional living environments for the most part sometimes directly from treatment, coming home Like.
Speaker 2:I tell you what's. What's interesting, though, todd is like A lot of times these guys are not coming from those places you know, so like in, in, in, you know, I mean I would say 15 to 20% of cases they are.
Speaker 2:They're either, you know, uh, you know, stepping up from once a week with a therapist to something more comprehensive with us or stepping down from program to us, you know, to maintain continuity along the continuum. But honestly, I mean we get a lot of referrals just for guys who are looking for something different, you know, compared to what's offered, you know, with respect to care, you know. So, like for us, like I mean our mentorship program, you know the way we take guys out in the community and help them do things. You know, sort of the teaching man of this kind of framework. There's not a lot of supports out there, male to male, particularly in the realm of, uh, you know, kind of clinical overlay that parents can can grab a hold of.
Speaker 2:So we get a lot of like 16 year old kids who play too many video games, who don't do anything else, who, like we can just kind of like get them out in the community and like do something you know, which is a significant intervention for a guy. Like that, you know. Or we get guys who are, like you know, um, super anxious about the college process and a little bit late in the game and so like we can do a little work around. Like you know a guy whose transcripts a little messy, who's like more your c, you know c-ish kind of guy like that there's still an option for him around the go forward plan, whether that's community college and we ladder up or we go straight to four-year or we do a vocational route. Like we want to grab a hold of the guys who you know aren't the top 10 in the class and aren't going to ivy league schools, but like they want to plan too you know they deserve to have one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh man, yeah I I wish that.
Speaker 1:Um, like I say we need more of it, so much more of it, because I think that those folks I think what we see in the in the like emergency treatment, placement things have gotten bad now hand is probably a significant portion of those guys that you're talking about that never got that right at 15 or 16 and what they grab it and what they gravitated towards was, you know, maybe a bad crowd or you know substances that were you know they might as well play video games and get high all day, you know, or whatever like they gravitated to those things because they didn't have a resource that wasn't just IOP out of the local community, whatever, or a therapist who, like you say, knows how to present well, can tell you a good story and walk out and do whatever the heck they want, which they do very often and need something that lives on the ground and feels like it means something.
Speaker 1:And that's what you're providing, and I wish we could orchestrate it so that it lived in school systems and it lived in other places, so that we could stop having this repetitive treatment problem that we've got in our country, which is just getting worse, post-pandemic, worst I've ever seen. Did you see a lot of fallout from the pandemic? What was the deal, pandemic-wise, for you? What did you see a lot of fallout from the pandemic Like? What was the deal, pandemic-wise for you? What did you see?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was a really interesting time for us and a really interesting time to be a business owner. Yeah, they didn't give you the rule book on that one.
Speaker 1:No, they didn't have one.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, you know, look, I mean I remember actually very, very well, it was my kid's birthday. So you know, my son's birthday was the. We were celebrating his birthday on the.
Speaker 1:March baby Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was March, right, so his birthday is the 21st, but we celebrate the 23rd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we celebrated. We celebrated the week before, right? So on the 15th March 15th I took my kid out and spent the whole day together. We had this wonderful, wonderful day. And then the announcement came over all the things the world is closing Monday at whatever 9 am, and so we were going. I mean, I got that news on Friday night. I had the full team online on Saturday. We flipped the whole business remote by noon on Monday and we're running the whole operation, you know, completely remote, completely virtual. Now, we had almost no virtual capabilities before, but we caught up pretty quick, and so what it meant was a couple things One, I think, we got a pretty big spike coming out of the blocks.
Speaker 2:So we had this big influx of everybody was in the kind of crisis that we were all in. So parents wanted to kind of shore their kids up in that first couple of weeks, and then it was like then nobody knew how long this thing was going to go, Right, and so it was like all right, well, let's hunker down, Right. So all the guys who just pumped right in, you know kind of, you know sort of dissipated, and people were playing the waiting game in a very sort of thoughtfully conservative kind of way, you know. So what it amounted to really was we had a pretty significant uptick in terms of business around the family side. So we're doing a lot of work around crisis mitigation family work because everybody was stuck in the house ready to kill each other, Right?
Speaker 2:But after about month two, there was not a lot of new business coming in and not a lot of families were reaching back out again because no one knew how long this was going to go and to what ends, and so it was hard on the business side for a while, for sure, and we made things work and here we are. But for the guys like now who were moving through it and who emerged from it, I mean, those were scary, scary, scary times for everybody, and I think that the people that we see, the young men that we see now right, these you know highly video game addicted, online, focused, like lack, lacking activity, school refusing, like these guys who are really struggling. Much of that work came out of the deficits that were curated and cultivated in COVID, and these guys have just never caught up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they're standing here in a lurch on the other side of it and then they need somebody to help them walk through it. And I think the other thing that I see is people get in a real hurry. You've got parents that are. Other thing that I see is people get in a real hurry, like you've got parents that are so you've got, you come out of pandemic, right, you got some, you got some grades that you failed. You got some, you got some stuff, some stuff you got to shore up.
Speaker 1:And now you're sitting here and you're going back to school and you're in a lurch and then you see parents kind of do this big, like you know, ladder of influence. Oh, he's, you know he's, he hasn't done this right and he hasn't done this right and suddenly his life is going to be terrible and and and we, we will, as parents, have failed. So like when you have to work with that um, I'm always telling people it's like look, if he doesn't graduate on the year that the school gave him years for, so what? Let's slow down and let's be concerted about this plan that we're making for your person, for you and your family, so that we can actually get there, do you get a lot of pushback from families on that message, like when you, when you have to be like, okay, it's, where's the fire? First of all. Second of all, like let's just throw our let's throw our destination goal out a little bit, let's figure this out and and let's let's cool off and slow down for a minute, like what's the pushback you get from parents?
Speaker 2:uh, all a lot, yeah, I mean a lot. I mean, you know, and that's not from everybody in your area.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, I mean I look, we, I mean we're, and we're in you. We're in Fairfield County, connecticut, we're in, you know, the affluent suburbs of Hartford, connecticut, and we're in Westchester County, new York, new York, affluent suburbs in New York city, right? So you know, just out of, uh, out of alignment with, like, what the kid has done, right, like, not maybe what he's capable of, but certainly what he's done, and I think the frustration often comes from that, if for nothing else. And so like, something has to move. You know, something has to move.
Speaker 2:The expectations have to move, or the capacity and the drive and the ambition and the work ethic and all the other things on this side have to move, or the capacity and the drive and the ambition and the work ethic and all the other things on this side have to move. But I mean, I think what we try to attack first is the relationship. You know that the expectations are counter to the relationship, and the relationship you have with your kid is more important than anything. So if you want to drive a wedge between you and your kid, keep up with your lofty expectations. If you want to have a relationship that's meaningful and lifelong with your kid, maybe it makes sense to modify and adjust your expectations and actually listen to what your kid has to say.
Speaker 1:No, it's not a series of objective. They're human being in front of you. Let's start there. Wow, we need a bumper. We need a T-shirt.
Speaker 2:We need swag, we need gear, we need swag.
Speaker 1:I'm going to start working on it. This has been a fantastic like I think we could. You know we just do a bunch more interviews and keep going nerd out about this stuff, but I sure do appreciate you making time for being on the show today. This is Todd Weatherly with WPBM 1037, the Voice of Asheville, head inside mental health. We'll be with you guys next time, vince.
Speaker 2:Thanks a Mental Health. We'll be with you guys next time.
Speaker 1:Vince, thanks a bunch. Awesome. Thanks so much, todd, really appreciate the time. You too, I'm. Thank you. Bye, I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home.
Speaker 2:I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. I feel so lonely and lost in here Bye.