Lodestar Children's Services
Interview with James Regan, Executive Director & Founder
Can you tell us about your journey from graduating to founding your own agency? When I started grad school at SSW, while working at a residential facility where I thought I would retire. I was advancing steadily there, loved the work, and was asked by my boss to consider earning an MSW as a necessary step so that I could become an administrator for the agency. The agency even paid for my tuition!! Long story short, I became the Program Director just before completing my MSW. 3 years later, I was laid off.
I had to reinvent myself and it was hard! It was then that I started working with clients in their homes for the first time and fell in love. I was not in love with my salary having been cut almost in half. I made some attempts to get back into management, but fell flat. I tried a few different roles and settings... always loving the work, but growing ever more discouraged with the fiscal viability of the profession I had chosen.
Several times, I thought about taking the leap into starting my own agency focusing on this important work of in-home direct services for children. It seemed ridiculous (and it probably was). I knew firsthand that many children in residential facilities could have avoided such placement with better access to this stuff. I also knew there weren't nearly enough providers or awareness. Eventually, personal ambition and belief in the reality that I could develop a desperately needed resource won out.
What inspired you to start this agency, and what needs were you hoping to meet? Anecdotal stories were always so powerful for me. I watched children wait for over 2 years for these sorely needed services. I believed that I could, at the very least, help with improving timely access to care. I watched the system's extreme struggle in hiring, in matching workers with family/preference, and providing effective training and support for this difficult job. I will not pretend that we have solved any of these complex and multi-faceted issues, but we are trying.
What is the mission of your agency, and what kind of work do you focus on? To "empower children and families." We try and make each client/family feel supported and heard, work with their needs as they define them and concretely to try and lessen the need for psychiatric hospitalization/residential placement.
What have been some of the most rewarding—and most challenging—parts of running your own agency? Having the freedom to craft and enact your own vision/doing something meaningful for our community. The services really do tend to make a major impact in the lives of our clients and their families. Having to be responsible for other people's livelihood, being subject to external forces that could negatively impact our mission that we have not control over, and having to continually deal with the heartbreak, ambiguity, and secondary trauma intrinsic to this work are the challenges.
How did your time at SSW influence your decision to launch your own practice/organization? My macro-courses, especially courses with Dr. Carolyn Peabody, helped me develop my appreciation for the need to think big and to not be afraid to think differently and creatively. These courses also helped to think more critically about organizational culture, the important role that it can play, and just how susceptible non-profits can be to cultural threats. It's obvious that organizational culture is central to employee satisfaction but it also got me thinking about how it also impacts service delivery and the people that we serve.
What advice would you give to social work students or recent grads who dream of starting their own agency? Starting an agency is not for the feint of heart. It is very likely to require tons and tons of help and immense initial personal sacrifice. I would not recommend doing it without startup funding-- this proved immensely difficult and, in hindsight, I would have done this part differently. Most importantly, I think it always helps to start with identifying a clear need that your agency or practice can fulfill-- the right motivation, skill set and plan can still fail in our profession, if there is not a clear and immediate need to be met.
