The Power of One Caring Adult w/ Jason Lheureux

Hillary sits down with Jason Lheureux, Director of Residential Programs at Wedgwood, to discuss the impact a single trusted adult can have on a child’s life. They explore how safe, supportive relationships build confidence, and how it helps kids navigate life’s challenges.

Jason shares real-life examples and practical ways that parents, mentors, teachers, and community members can step into this vital role. Whether you’re a caregiver, educator, or simply someone who wants to make a difference, this conversation will inspire you to be that one trusted adult for a child in need.

For more information on the podcast, please visit: https://www.wedgwood.org/podcast/

For more information on The State of the Child Conference, please visit: www.wedgwood.org/sotc

To learn more about Wedgwood, please visit: https://www.wedgwood.org/

For podcast and/or Wedgwood merch, please visit: https://wcb.myprostores.com/

Transcript

Hillary: 0:00

Hey, it's Hilary. Join me for a helpful and hopeful chat about mental health in our community. So grab a cup of coffee or tea. This is Wedgwood's Coffee Break conversation. Welcome to Season Five. I am so happy to be back brewing up hope through helpful and hopeful conversations with you our brew crew. Today, I am talking with a really cool guest. Jason Leroux, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Hilary. So I'll let you introduce yourself a little

Jason Lheureux: 0:27

bit Sure. My name's Jason LaRue. I'm a director of residential programs here at Wedgwood Christian Services. I've been at Wedgwood for about 15 years this year, and I supervise some of the residential homes where we have youth living in care, and then the therapists and staff that help support those programs great.

Hillary: 0:45

So what inspired you to get involved in this work and advocate for kids?

Jason Lheureux: 0:50

You know, I think really, it would be a similar story from a lot of employees at a certain point in, you know, in my life, in my younger years, you know, I faced adversity, faced challenges, and during those times, there's just one or two, you know, trusted adults that really helped me through that. And so we, you know, we talk a lot about how it just takes one trusted adult, or like, one support, to really turn things around in children's lives, and we see that in our work. But also, you know, I think if we look back, we all had those moments where we really needed somebody, and I think it just makes you want to give back. I

Hillary: 1:25

love that. So you were a part of Wedgwood's state of the child panel conversation, which was super insightful, and so for our listeners and viewers that couldn't be there, how would you summarize what the kids who led the conversation and you as the panel kind of talked about, and what is the state of the child?

Jason Lheureux: 1:41

Sure, I think the state of the child is always changing and very exciting and very complicated the world these days and the lives that our children lead are multifaceted and complex and definitely are deserving the time. And so for me, the state of the child event is really cool, because it's not just a professionals conference. It really brings people that are youth, that are parents, that are involved in the work, that are in leadership roles, you know, or that are just interested in mental health. And so the cool thing about the panel and about the whole event is getting to talk about youth and ways that we can create successes for children, but from a variety of different perspectives.

Hillary: 2:25

And you kind of touched on this a little bit, but at the state of the child, one of the things I took away was that it's the state of the child is kind of up to us, and it's one adult can make a huge difference for kids. So what does it mean to show up for a kid to be a positive adult, and does it always have to be a parent? No,

Jason Lheureux: 2:47

it certainly doesn't always have to be a parent. And sometimes youth gravitate towards or feel trust and respect and are ready to be heard and helped by people that aren't their parents, just because it's not their parents. So key number one isn't that it's you as the parent. The key number one is that it's a safe person and that those connections are happening, and then there need, does need to be communication in the family. You know, if you're receiving services, your youth has a therapist, it's not appropriate to say, Hey, what did you talk about? I want to know everything that happened in therapy, but it is important to say, hey, you know, do you like your therapist to feel comfortable or then, if it's a coach or a teacher or a family member or a trusted friend, that's number one is that it's that that person is involved in their life, and it's a person that you, as a parent, know for. And then showing up really just means that just showing up. But sometimes, as adults, we try to show up with youth, but it's on our terms, or it's what we think the youth wants, or we try to support and relate to our child the way that, you know, like I would want my adult friends to relate and support me, and it's different than youth. So showing up means showing up present, being physically present, but it also means asking questions and getting to know your child so that when you are showing up, you're not providing them the help that you want to provide. You're providing them the help and support that they're in need and they need, and they're they're looking for. Yeah,

Hillary: 4:17

kids are their own person. Sometimes it's hard to remember that kids are people, but they are they're unique, and they have their own wants and needs. And

Jason Lheureux: 4:25

it's surprisingly surprising how often adults forget that kids are people. And in some of the trainings that I do, that's one of the first reminders is just because someone is 456, 17, doesn't mean that they don't deserve the same respect that you would treat adults or that you would want to receive as an adult, or that you can't have hard conversations with them or take them seriously. They may be smaller people, but they are 100% their own, autonomous individual human beings. From the first second that baby rolls over or cries for the first time as they're saying, Hey, this is me. Me and I'm gonna get my needs met. They don't turn 18, and the day they move out, they get their human card. So I think as parents, the sooner we start relating to them, you know, as real people, the better.

Hillary: 5:12

Yeah, yeah. I'd love to hear how you see the impact of this presence or just showing up or absence, I suppose, of an adult in the kids you work with? Yeah,

Jason Lheureux: 5:25

I think at Wedgwood Christian Services, we do a lot of mental health services, and that is showing up for the children, but showing up in that kind of formal, structured way, because, hey, we are a therapist or a very youth treatment specialist, not having an adult in the child's life is one of the number one reasons why I think children end up here is we're trying to recapture that relationship, or try to provide something for that youth that they haven't experienced elsewhere. So it starts, you know, sometimes with the service providers, but my goal is always to be handing that back off to the community. Is to take a youth or, you know, even an adult, that's struggling and having a hard time, therapy is fantastic, but the real work happens in between those sessions, and the real work happens in that child or that a young adult's life when they're making decisions for what they want to kind of do with those therapeutic experiences, and so seeing clients come into our care lacking those supports or those resources or those connections, helping to kind of jump start that and then reconnecting youth to their natural communities, the people that care about them that will be here long term. I think it's one of my favorite things about the work. In all honesty, have

Hillary: 6:46

you seen a kid come in, maybe without any real positive adult support, and then finding some of that here, and it really changing the trajectory of their life?

Jason Lheureux: 6:58

I think for the US that are doing the work here. Those days are really important. You don't get them all the time, but when you have a moment in the work where you feel like, hey, I really connected with this youth or or I made a difference, it's very meaningful. We've we almost always are getting youth into care that don't have many or sometimes any connections. Sometimes our clients have been involved in therapies or out of home placements for a long time, and by a long time, sometimes, I mean years. Sometimes we're getting clients who have experienced pretty significant trauma and have been in as many as 1112, 13 different placements. So if we talk about the importance of relationships and creating those connections, can you imagine what your life would be like and your just views of the world and your sense of attachment if you had changed homes and families 12 or 13 times? And so when we have youth come to Wedgwood to stay in like in our residential treatment programs, it really is my goal that this is the last placement before they find their permanent home. You know, when you hear the stories from some of these youth, how resilient they've had to be and how much they've been through and still just somehow, how hopeful so many of them are. So then my goal is, hey, this I just really hope this is the last placement. So how can we do that work and get the clients ready for the community? And that then means that advocacy too about building those resources and those supports, but to have a youth come to care in that situation with maybe no connections, you know, no family. Some of our youth have no family. You know, terminated parental connect relationships or and then to see them kind of struggle and work through their trauma, but then succeed, you know, and then discharge successfully. You know, as a client we had just a week or two ago that has been with us for over three years, and he'd been in care for many years before that. And then to have that client be stable and be ready and be willing to create those connections, practice, those with us here and then get adopted. You know, it's really nice to see

Hillary: 9:23

that's really beautiful. And to have a kid who, you know, 13 different placements, and the average age of kids here, I think, is like 15. So to have that many moves and that much instability, I does the bulk of the work really end up being teaching kids like how to make those healthy attachments and find healthy adults.

Jason Lheureux: 9:47

I think it's really helping them to believe that the world can be different, helping them to see that they do matter, that they do have meaning, that this has been their experience so far, but it. Could be so much different. So those multiple placement, or those years in care, are usually a combination of all of the traumas that the youth have been through that they just lack that ability to understand and to kind of cope through that. And then when that's paired with not the right placement at not the right time, it makes sustainability really difficult. So I like to think that Wedgwood helps to reinstall hope into the children that they can believe that their lives can be different. That's the thing about trauma, is it sort of warps your your brain and your mindset to just believe, well, this is just how it is. You know, this is how life is and it can't be different, which is something as adults, I think we take for granted. Of for is we have many more years of experience of things working out well for us most of the time, that it gives us a sense of perspective and resiliency, and we have more supports, we have more resources, and we are more hopeful for the future, because we've seen that the life can be different, the world can be different. But if you're 15 years old, 13 years old, and the bulk of your life experience, things have not gone well for you up to this point, it's much more difficult to sort of learn to believe in yourself, to believe that that world can be different for you, and then to like, kind of learn to love again, you know, when you've been hurt so many times, and I think that's what our care, our care staff do in the residential programs, is just show our youth that adults can be different, and doing that Through regular, everyday interactions, just with our youth. It doesn't even have to be treatment focused with that capital T. It's just showing up for the kids, you know, like you said, and then engaging with them as people and role modeling what how adults can handle stress and how we can build relationships and and that kind of slowly helps to kids to sort of grow to believe that things can be different

Hillary: 12:04

for them. And just having an adult walking with them through all of this turmoil, like reminding them that they're not alone. Like, yeah, that might suck, but somebody is there with me saying it's going to be okay, probably makes a huge difference. Oh, it

Jason Lheureux: 12:19

makes a huge difference when people are kind of coming in and out of your life constantly, it's, it's, it eventually becomes static, you know, it becomes white noise. And then even well meaning workers or well meaning supports just kind aren't able to make that connection because of all those walls. And it becomes kind of this, like circle eating its own tail kind of thing. So it's certainly difficult, but it's also really awesome to kind of see what kids are capable of when you kind of surround them with with the right kind of supports.

Hillary: 12:53

You talked a little bit about walls, kind of being in the way. What are some of the barriers that come up for adults to be the one person for a kid.

Jason Lheureux: 13:03

We, as adults, just don't know what the kids are into these days. And I'm not just talking about in residential but just like if I was talking to any adult in any context that wants to be there for a child, is we literally don't speak their language. We literally don't know what their pop culture references are, what their priorities are, what their interests are. As older adults, we struggle with just the idea that for them, social media or certain habits are they're not unhealthy, they're okay. We don't understand them. They're weird to us, just because it's not the environment that we grew up. And so I think being curious and asking questions and taking time just to get to know what your kids are into is a great way to start building a connection, rather than telling youth what to do, rather than assuming what they're into or they like or that will make that bond or trying to force onto them the stuff that I like or the things that I want to do, you know, just kind of let you set the tone, and when you really approach it from that mindset, you'd be surprised how often you can let a child be in charge of the relationship. That doesn't mean that they run your house or they run the program, but you're giving them a sense of ownership and a voice in a way that a lot of times they just don't get, because the world's kind of not wired to slow down and say to the child, like, okay, cool. Like, you know, what do you want? And then well meaning helpers ask that question, and then the next hurdle is getting the children to believe that you really mean it, and the way you do that is not through more words, but it's through allowing that youth to observe you and for your actions to show that you're falling through.

Hillary: 14:55

I had an interaction with a friend. Of mine and her son, and he, you know, was so excited to teach me about a game and to have him walk me through I had no idea what this thing was. I think he maybe made it up, but the way his eyes lit up when I asked him to show me how to play it, he was so excited. And now that we have that relationship, where we have that game that we can play, and to put him is like, you know, more than I do in this situation. So I want you to tell me also, because I had no idea what it was, somebody had to explain it to me. So asking kids and like listening to learn is so huge. I

Jason Lheureux: 15:39

really love that concept of trying to find ways to allow your children to be subject matter experts. The world is hardwired to have adults be in charge, and adults to know more, to be able to do more, to be able to have more access. And then kids are kind of in the back seat, like in the booster seat, five point harness, coming along for the ride. So when you can find a way to help that youth feel like they're in charge or they have some control. It's fantastic. And you know, technology and media could be a real scary place, but we kind of can sit back as parents and go, Oh, I'm afraid of what my child's doing online. I don't know how I feel about that website or that app, I'm gonna limit access. I'm gonna take that away that just that reaffirms that you're in charge and that the child is not in charge. But for me, and like my kid, one of her favorite things that we do is sometimes just go cool, like, grab my phone, show me what kind of stuff you're into on YouTube. And it's often just, you know, silly things. And I, as a parent could say, this is boring. I don't want to do this. I'm going to check out. But just by checking in, you can kind of see, just in the body language and the tone of voice and the energy level, just how things change for the child when they can see that you're really checking in and you're being curious, and some of the stuff that the kids are into are actually pretty funny, pretty interesting, pretty meaningful. And you know, I would challenge most adults, that your kids know more and have more to teach you than they think

Hillary: 17:12

they do, and you never know until you ask. Nope, you certainly don't. So we talked about it a little bit, but practically, how do we do this? How do we be the person for a kid, whether it's our own child or it's another kid in our life?

Jason Lheureux: 17:30

I think consistency is key. You can't kind of half check in and half check out. That's definitely something that we experience with the youth in our care, or with parents that are trying, or adults that are just sort of, I don't know how to get started. Sometimes, consistency is the number one key. Just, just keep showing up. You know, I find most times in life, in relationships, if you're giving it a fair shake and you're doing your best, you'll have another opportunity, even if you make a mistake. Then the second thing, which I kind of mentioned earlier, is just being being genuine. You have to be honest. You can't try to use their jargon just to try to be cool. You can't pretend that you have a favorite superhero if you've never seen a Marvel movie like you know, youth can pick up in authenticity very quickly. So being authentic and being honest are also very important. And then I think we have to role model. You can't tell a youth that they spend too much time on their phone if your phone is out at the dinner table, you can't expect your teenager to understand the importance of not using substances if, like, you're driving them to school and you're and you're using your vape, so you have to set that good example in those good role models. And sometimes that means model emulating the behavior that you want to see for the children, or sometimes it means having a hard conversation about helping them to understand why. Like, you know, I understand this is of value to your priority you. Here's how being an adult and a child is different, and then letting them ask questions, and then you staying persistently curious as well.

Hillary: 19:09

I love that. Yeah, they're persistently curious. It's a theme that just keeps coming up. It seems like in a lot of our coffee break conversations that you never know until you ask and you have to want to know the answer. It's

Jason Lheureux: 19:20

one of, I think, the main complaints that children will have for their parents, for their teachers, for their pastors, for their coaches, is you don't really care. You know, that belief that you don't really care I'm just an accessory or a side note, and you just want to herd me, you know, into pastor and then herd me into pen. And it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to build those connections, and then when you're working with youth that have experienced adversity or trauma, you're also needing to kind of recapture all those lost years of connection. So me with my child, my ability to build that trust and that connection and that authenticity and that i. Um, that belief that I really am showing up and I mean it, it starts on day one, you know, and you can't rush that process. I think a lot of times with parents, with helpers, with folks looking to get involved with working with kids, or when you're looking to foster or adopt, there's that sense that you can just, I'll just hug them enough and love them enough, and kind of speed up that process. But you know, if you want to take an avocado seed and grow one of those tiny, little avocado plants, you can't just like, force it to grow on your timeline. You have to understand that it's a process. Then you have to be patient. You have to be extraordinarily patient and let that process happen on its own. Kids grow fast enough, you know, my daughter's so, you know, I would tell that to parents too, like, don't rush it. Don't rush your kids in a grown up or to be something you know that's that's going to happen naturally in the future. And also just understand that that your child is growing according to their blueprint, you know, not your blueprint, not your time frame, and how things sort of hit them in their daily life is different than how it hits you in your life today, and it's also different from the experience that you had as a child. You need to just take your time and let each kid just just be unapologetically themselves, the good and the bad,

Unknown: 21:19

because they're people, because they're people. Yes, reminder again, your children are people.

Hillary: 21:26

So what is giving you hope about the well being of kids in our

Jason Lheureux: 21:30

community? I do love having those individual connections on a daily basis. In my work at Wedgwood, pretty much every day, there's a moment with a child that challenges me or or frustrates me or discourages me, but then almost every day, there's a moment that excites me or challenges me in a good way or fills or fills my cup. But I could also say the same thing about all the staff that I work with, because staff are people too, and every day is, is a combination of having, you know, good things happen. Not so good things happen. Mundane things happen. You have highs, you have lows. And depending on your mindset, you can choose to focus on the lows, or you can choose to focus on the highs, or you can end every day with, you know, like, just like a reflection on the whole day as a whole. Like, how can the good parts of my day and those success moments encourage me and make me stronger and motivate me to get back to the work tomorrow and to keep improving? And then, how can those challenging moments again help me grow? And the thing is, about kids is, sometimes those challenging moments are actually more important because your kids are telling you something which I don't think I've mentioned yet, but I really feel all behavior is communication. All behavior is being driven by my desire to get my needs met. And so for our kids, when they engage in a challenging behavior. They don't have time to do things for no reason. They're trying to get their needs met, and they have learned this is this is the best I got. So it's actually more motivating for me when when a youth is struggling, because I know I'm doing I'm doing the work. I'm like, Ooh, there it is. I can get frustrated with the behavior or how it affects me or makes me uncomfortable, or I can slow down and act with intention. Think about what this behavior is trying to tell me, and then approach that youth with curiosity and try to work through it. So all behavior is communication.

Hillary: 23:35

Yeah, I love that. It's a good reminder. This was such a great coffee break conversation. Thank you for your important work and all that you do here at Wedgwood, and for taking the time to talk with me today. Thank you. Thanks for the coffee for more information on wedwood Christian Services, our mental health supports and how we are empowering kids and families. Visit our website. Links will be in the episode description. Stay hopeful, stay helpful, and let's have another coffee break soon.