 Welcome to In The Studio at Davis Media Access. My name is Madeline Hamaguchi, and I'll be your host today. We're going to be talking about the YOLO Community Care Continuum with our guest today, Michelle Kellogg, the Executive Director, and Debbie Woodford, the Director of Development. So we're going to jump right into it. Debbie, would you, excuse me, Michelle, would you like to tell us a little bit about the YOLO Community Care Continuum? Sure. Thank you for having us today. YOLO Community Care Continuum was started here in Davis by family members who had a child with mental illness about 40 years ago. So we've been around Davis for a long time, and we have a continuum services for adults with mental illness. But today, we're going to talk mostly about the Farmhouse, which is our local program located in rural Davis. And that was donated to you in the 80s, right? Right. That was pretty close after you started your program. Right, it was started by, like I said, family members who had children with mental illness. And at the time, deinstitutionalization was happening, which when Reagan was the governor, he was letting people out of the mental institutions and giving them their freedom. But there were really no services for people to go to. And the citizens of this community said, that's unacceptable. We're going to pull something together and make sure that our children have a place to go. And so they started the Farmhouse, which was this really unique program that offered people a place to live, but also rehabilitative services so that they could learn the skills they needed to go out and live independently in the community. Wow. So it's a way for them to transition and to heal. Yes. That's wonderful. So like you said, we're going to talk about the Farmhouse. What kind of services do people find at the Farmhouse? Because that is one of your many programs. So the surface of the Farmhouse, there's quite a few different components to it. First of all, it's actually a residential program. So people live there. They live as a member of a community and a little bit of a family. It's a 10-bed facility. So the clients there share all of the household responsibilities. So they work together to do the cooking, cleaning. They learn all of the skills like how to do their laundry, how to take care of things, plus the things that they need to learn in order for to take care of their mental health, such as how to take their medicines, what kind of things their medicines do to help them, what kind of things that they need to do in order to calm themselves, like when they're having a difficult day, how to self-soothe, how to reach out for resources when they need it. So those are the kind of things that they learn. And we have mental health counselors that work with them that help them to learn all the skills they need so that eventually, if they want to, they can live in the community independently. And many of our clients actually graduate from the farmhouse and live here in the community. Oh, wow. It's really nice. We just had an agency picnic, and we do that. We try to do that every year and we invite our old graduates to come and to the picnic. Oh, it's like a reunion. It is. Oh, that's pretty wonderful. It's great for the people that live there currently because they see that what their lives can be after the farmhouse. It's like, yeah, this is really hard work and it's difficult sometimes, but I can have this independent life. Other people come back and talk about it. So at the farmhouse, one of the things you have also was a farm to mouth program. Correct. So one of the things that we've learned is that our consumers, some people call them clients, they really want to work. So these are people that are on SSI for disability, but most people really want to have some form of a job. They can't hold maybe a 40 hour a week stressful position, but they want to do something meaningful in the community. And so we developed the farm to mouth program, which is an actual working component of our farm. So the farmhouse sits on 10 acres of land and we've been able to hire a farm manager who gets all of the crops going and things like that. And we have mental health consumers that we hire to actually do the farming. And it's a real job. It's not a token job. They have to show up on time. They have to do this farm work where they're out pulling weeds and harvesting the crops and selling them. And they learn all these skills and some of them continue in the farm to mouth program for a long time, but some of them actually take the skills and go out and get jobs in the community. We have a really good partnership with All Things Right and Relevant, which is a local thrift shop and many of our clients go on to work there or go on to other jobs in the community. So it's really a great training program. That's great. It sounds like it's been around for a long enough time, though, where you need to keep up the maintenance on the farm and the farmhouse itself. And recently you were able to get a grant from the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, if that's right. That's correct. Yeah, and Debbie, would you like to tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Each year, the Sacramento Region Community Foundation offers what they call immediate need grants. And so it's basically for the nonprofits who maybe have found themselves in a shortfall for something that is kind of critical to keeping a program going. And so with the recent storms this last year, part of the section of the roof at the farmhouse took a little bit of a beating. And so we applied for the immediate need grant to try and repair that roof spot. And they approved our grant. So here within the next few weeks, we'll be getting the roof fixed for our clients out there and just make it a safer environment for them. So. It's a really wonderful way to link the community with other local counties and other communities around the area. Correct. You reach out not only to Yolo County, although that's in your name, but you have a lot of connections to the surrounding areas as well. What are those counties again? It's Placer and... We do some work with Solano County as well. But yeah, Placer County, we've done some work with Sutter Yuba County. And yeah, we've really worked hard to make ourselves a regional resource so that we're available to people who need us, regardless of where you live. Yeah. So the other thing that you guys do for community outreach is you like to link up with businesses as well. One of them you were telling me about was Brooks Painting. Yes. So yeah, what was that service again that they were providing you? Well, every year they do a charity paint contest. And so they invite members of the community, not necessarily all nonprofits, who may need some assistance with getting a repaint somewhere. And so we submitted our story about the farmhouse and we were chosen as one of three organizations and it's basically a voting contest. And so we won the most votes. So the farmhouse will now get a full interior paint thanks to Brooks Painting. So the farmhouse is gonna be pretty spiffy by the end of the summer. Yeah. They also provided something similar service to the Safe Harbor program as well. About four years ago it was, they've done this charity paint giveaway for multiple years, which has been really fabulous. And four years ago we wanted also for Safe Harbor and they painted the interior of Safe Harbor Crisis House, which is located in Woodland. And it was really wonderful because these are the kind of things that we don't necessarily have funding for. If we have a need, then we have to fundraise for it. So when businesses and organizations partner with us in these ways, it makes things much easier for us to provide the services that we want to preserve, the mental health services that are really important in the community. So yeah. So the other way that you link up with the community is through having volunteers come in and having folks, just community members from many different areas come in either to actually work for you guys or volunteer for you guys. Debbie, do you wanna tell us a little bit about some of those different opportunities? Well, from my standpoint, a lot of the opportunities that I can offer for volunteers are based around events. That's kind of what my job is for the organization is to fundraise and I put on events. So every year, every year, it's our second year, we'll be doing a fundraiser in October. So we've already started some of our volunteer committee meetings, but we always welcome more. And then sometimes at some of our facilities, we need extra help in the yards, cleanup, those kinds of things. I'm sure Michelle can add a few more volunteer positions that are available. We had the Davis Sunrise Rotary a couple of years ago that adopted the backyard area of the farmhouse and they put together a really nice sitting area for the clients. So they put in a bench and some trees and landscaping and they made a couple of visits for us and we were very grateful for all of their help with that. That's such a beautiful safe haven, and not to go along with the safe harbor thing too much, but it does sound like a really wonderful place to grow. And so just to touch shortly on one of the things that you guys do for your clients there is you were talking about motivational interviewing. Do you want to explain that a little further? Sure. So we really have a philosophy of meeting people where they're at. So we talked to the clients about what it is that you want in your life. What is it you want your life to look like? And what kind of things do you have right now in your life? Is it working for you? Is it not working for you? If it's not working, would you like to make a change? And sometimes people say, no, I don't want to make a change. I just, you know, I don't want to do that. And we always accept that as an answer. That's a viable answer to say, no, I don't want to do that. And we always say, that's okay. If something changes and you decide that you're wanting to do something different or want to look at it differently, let us know because here's what we do and we would be happy to support you. And because we do that approach with people, a lot of times we do have clients that say, no, and come back around and say, yeah, you know, I want some of what you're selling at this point. And which is different than a lot of places because a lot of times I think providers think that they know what's best for clients. And we come at it like clients know what's best for them. We might not always agree with their choices, but eventually people think about their lives and decide what they want them to look like. And then that's our opportunity to help support them to get there. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, so wow. You know, that's, we covered a lot of information in that. And overall, I think it sounds like you have opportunities for people to come to you and either as clients or work with you as volunteers. And I think that's a really powerful message for not only client growth and growth of your organization, but for the community. And so congratulations for creating such a strong program. And I really hope that you guys get the support that you continue to need, and that's wonderful. Thank you. We have this philosophy that we love, that we create this healing environment, not only for clients, but for staff. So it goes right from the way that we treat clients to the way that we treat peers and staff and the way that we treat our partners as well. And so we have this really good culture that treats people well. Wow, that's lovely. You guys are, you guys are wonderful. The, the, our short conversation, also you were telling us about the theory of a hand up rather than a hand out. And it sounds like that's part of the growth process. Yeah, we, you know, there's a perception sometimes that people that are on social security disability, welfare, as some people call it, that they just want to be on welfare and that that's acceptable. And what we found is that most consumers, they want to contribute to the community. And they want, they maybe can't work a 40 hour a week job, but they really want to be part of the community. And so we give people opportunities and ideas about how they can do that. And so if, if you want a job, we're going to help you to figure out what kind of job you want, develop your resume, develop the skills that you need in order to get that job. And then we're going to hold you to standards. Like it's not going to be a token job. It's going to be a job that has real meaning. And so that you can feel really good about the impact that you've made and the fact that you've made a contribution and it wasn't something that was just given to you. And our consumers really respond to that. And they end up feeling a lot of self-esteem because they feel like they're a working person like you and I are. Right, wow. Thank you guys so much. We are out of time, unfortunately, but I want to thank our guests, Michelle Kellogg and Debbie Woodford. Thank you so much for joining us. Learn more about the YOLO Community Care Continuum, their website, it's www.y3c.org. Yes, yes. Great, www.yc3.org. Thank you for joining us in the studio and tune in next time.