DE Talk | Today’s Youth, Tomorrow’s Workforce – Cultivating At-Risk Talent

There’s no denying that today’s youth are tomorrow’s future, and sometimes, they just need a second chance and some guidance to set them on the track to success. In this episode of the DE Talk podcast, we sat down with Denny Armington, President of Youth Opportunity Foundation (YOF), to discuss how they work with disadvantaged and post-adjudicated youth to mentor, educate, and train them as they prepare for a stable and rewarding future in the workforce.

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About DE Talk

For DirectEmployers, it’s all about valuable connections and meaningful conversations. This monthly podcast features honest and open dialogue between powerhouse industry experts on a variety of HR topics ranging from OFCCP compliance advice to emerging recruitment marketing trends, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and insightful solutions that help infuse new life into your HR strategies.

Hosted by Candee Chambers, Executive Director of DirectEmployers Association.

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Episode Transcript

Candee Chambers:
Welcome to the DE Talk podcast. Tune in for dialogue between HR experts to amp up your HR strategies. Don’t worry, we’ll mix in a few laughs, as we know you need it.

There’s no denying that today’s youth are tomorrow’s future, and sometimes they just need a second chance and some guidance to set them on the track to success. In this episode of the DE Talk podcast, our Head of Partnerships, Shannon Offord, sat down with Denny Armington, President of Youth Opportunity Foundation, to discuss how they work with a disadvantaged and post adjudicated youth to mentor, educate, and train them as they prepare for a stable and rewarding future in the workforce. He also discusses the surprising disability you would never expect youth in the penal system to have, adding further challenge in their journey, and how employers can get involved to make a difference for the workforce of tomorrow.

Shannon Offord:
Hello everyone, I’m Shannon Offord, VP of Strategic Partnerships here at Direct Employers, and I’m happy to host another episode of DE Talk podcast. Welcome, my friend… I can call you that, right?

Denny Armington:
Yes, sir.

Shannon Offord:
Denny Armington from Youth Opportunity Foundation to our studio. As many can attest, Direct Employers works diligently to contribute to the workforce of tomorrow and improve employment outcomes for future generations. We support diversity, inclusion, and equality for all, and a huge component of that starts with the youth in our communities and opportunities that exist for those in need.

Indianapolis based Youth Opportunity Foundation is doing amazing work helping enrich the lives of troubled teens and providing support and resources to help these individuals become successful adults.

So, let’s dive in and talk about Youth Opportunity Foundation. Denny, welcome.

Denny Armington:
Thank you, Shannon, I appreciate being here.

Shannon Offord:
Let’s start here, tell me about Denny Armington. What is your background and what led you to Youth Opportunity Foundation?

Denny Armington:
Well, my personal roots are in the state of Iowa.

Shannon Offord:
I won’t hold that against you. I’m a Buckeye.

Denny Armington:
I understand that. We’ve had that discussion.

Shannon Offord:
We have.

Denny Armington:
Professionally, in hospital administration, I have a master’s degree and spent most of my time managing hospitals. And in terms of Youth Opportunity Foundation, actually it was born out of my background in hospital administration, as I most recently was the CEO of Rehabilitation Hospital in Indiana. And that is where I met a gentleman by the name, Ron Hunter, who is currently the CEO of Youth Opportunity Investments.

Shannon Offord:
Okay.

Denny Armington:
And, Ron called me about four years ago and said, “We need to have lunch.” And it was at that point in time, he talked about creating Youth Opportunity Foundation and gave me the opportunity to become the initial first, and so far only, President of Youth Opportunity Foundation.

Shannon Offord:
Nice. And, how many years ago was that?

Denny Armington:
That was four years ago.

Shannon Offord:
Four years ago.

Denny Armington:
Almost to the date.

Shannon Offord:
Oh, nice. I kind of knew that. So, that’s why we had you here and I’m just totally teasing. So, why was the Youth Opportunity Foundation started and what is its mission?

Denny Armington:
Absolutely. Thank you. Youth Opportunity Investments, again, Ron Hunter started that company about 10 years ago. And, the purpose of Youth Opportunity Investments is to manage residential treatment facilities for post adjudicated youth. And, they current currently manage property. They started out in the state of Indiana.

Shannon Offord:
Okay.

Denny Armington:
Which is why we’re headquartered here. So, they have three programs in conjunction with Department of Children’s Services and over several years time, gave up those contracts and moved to other states like Florida and Tennessee, Texas, and Michigan where they’re currently managing facilities.

Shannon Offord:
What led you to those states? Was it just happenstance or were there programs in place that lend itself well to go in there?

Denny Armington:
I’m speaking on behalf of Mr. Hunter, but my guess is it was a business opportunity because it is a business, but through my experiences with those states or in those states, I found that those states seem to distinguish themselves, especially the State of Florida, in terms of their interest in the outcomes of the treatments that provided for these children. So again, with the State of Florida, up until approximately 10 years ago, all of the facilities in the State of Florida were run by the State of Florida. They realized that they weren’t very good at that. So, they decided to privatize the management of those facilities.

And that’s how the opportunity came forward for Youth Opportunity Investments.

Shannon Offord:
Awesome. Tell us a little bit more about the programs that you offer at risk youth.

Denny Armington:
And, let me go back and I failed to finish the questions you had about Youth Opportunity Foundation. The mission is to give these kids a second chance at life. So, most of these kids are between the ages of 10 and 18. When they’re assigned through the court systems to these facilities. At the age of 18, if they happen to still be in the facility, they’re discharged. And most of them go back to, unfortunately, the same neighborhoods where they were arrested and without a specific set of tools to do anything other than what they [crosstalk 00:05:41] were doing when they were arrested. Yeah. So, recidivism is a huge issue. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit later, but that is where the idea for the foundation came forth is to help these kids with a second chance. Sometimes it’s a third chance. Sometimes it’s a fourth chance…

Shannon Offord:
Right.

Denny Armington:
… at life, but to get them the tool set, if you will, to do something differently than what got them in that position to begin with. And again, ideally from standpoint of the programs we offer and ideally you wouldn’t get into a justice involved situation with the kids. You would avoid that all together, it’s the best.

Shannon Offord:
Right.

Denny Armington:
We’re going to talk about our prevention model in a bit, but again, the opportunity to get these kids back on, most of us would agree, would be an acceptable opportunity at life includes first of all, mentoring because 85% of these kids and these programs are from fatherless homes.

Shannon Offord:
Okay.

Denny Armington:
So there’s nothing about mothers, mothers are critical and many instances, mothers are still hanging in there trying to support these kids, but the fact that they don’t have a father figure and most of the participants are male, probably no surprise to people. Although female component is rising, unfortunately, but they come from fatherless homes. So, mentoring is part of the opportunity to try and reestablish trust, confidence, and some points, accountability.

How many times have we responded to our fathers when we did something he didn’t care for. I mean, I went back to the woodshed, so to speak, and he let me know what was what in terms of that process. And, we’re not advocating that obviously, but accountability plays into these roles significantly in terms of what kids come out of these situations with is, we try and live by a code, if you will, of laws in this country. Being lawless isn’t going to get you far.

Shannon Offord:
Right. Definitely not now.

Denny Armington:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, ideally we avoid justice involvement when it doesn’t, again, we start with mentoring. The second option or opportunity is through education and/or training.

Shannon Offord:
Okay.

Denny Armington:
Again, we approach that through scholarships, whether it be into post secondary, some sort of form, because most of these kids come out of there, thankfully, with a high school diploma and/or GED.

So, then we’ve impact or impart on some sort of post-secondary.

Shannon Offord:
And, are you partnering right now with community colleges, four year colleges, different training programs out there? I think here in Indiana, I think you guys are working with Ivy Tech.

Denny Armington:
Yeah. We started with Ivy Tech and that was through my ignorance. We actually have three scholarship programs that we support. And the reason I say ignorance is that ideally, again, we would get these kids started while they’re still in the program while we know where they are 24 hours a day so that we can help counsel them in terms of the approach to post secondary. Now, most of these kids spend the majority of their time through the diploma requirements for high school and/or GED, but we also emphasize dual enrollment as the opportunity presents itself. So, we started four years ago with Ivy Tech and they were good enough to give us access to their programming, their counselors, et cetera.

And the program worked fine until the states said, “Oh, by the way, these kids can’t have access to internet because they find the ways to… You all have involved them with internet.” So, you know that there are some nefarious things that happen through the internet and our kids can find their way there.

Shannon Offord:
Right. [crosstalk 00:09:15] I think everybody’s going to find, or can find a way there.

Denny Armington:
Yeah. So, when the state said you can’t do that, we took a step back and repositioned our Ivy Tech relationship with our prevention model, which again, we will speak about in a moment, but we also have a post secondary scholarship program for victims of human trafficking.

Shannon Offord:
Okay.

Denny Armington:
Because we became involved with Hope Center here in Indianapolis. And, I learned more than I cared to know about human trafficking and the [crosstalk 00:09:47] impact it has on our kids. It is incredible.

Shannon Offord:
And you know what, it happens right under our nose and we have no idea what’s going on.

Denny Armington:
Yeah. Well, somebody from Dallas told me that Carmel, where I live, is the second highest traffic city in the State of Indiana.

Shannon Offord:
I believe that.

Denny Armington:
Absolutely shocked, I said, “No, no, no, no. We’re talking about Carmel, Indiana. Said, “No, it’s true. Look at your Attorney General report from 2016.” And absolutely, Carmel’s number two. I said, “This is impossible. We don’t even have a truck stop.” But it’s there, so that’s one of the unfortunate sides that our kids are presented to, and that’s part of what drives me an ongoing basis relative to the situation. So, the third program then goes back to where we started with the kids and our inabilities to provide them online services, which a lot of opportunities would be presented.

We found a university in the State of Iowa, Upper Iowa University, which is a four year fully accredited university that provides correspondence courses. So, that’s how we got around that opportunity for these kids. So, the ones who are interested, are willing to engage while in these facilities, we connect them with Upper Iowa University and they begin the process of post-secondary degree coursework.

Shannon Offord:
Okay. And are you working with any employers on maybe apprenticeship programs now, or is that something you’ve thought about?

Denny Armington:
Apprenticeships and internships are a huge opportunity for these kids. Again, a lot of what we end up doing with these kids is when they are approaching discharge facilities, again, it’s important for them to have some sort of skillset. So, we heavily focus on work certificates or work certification, so Safe Serv. For instance, those kids going into hospitality and restaurant work, we make sure that they’re certified for those types of things. So when they leave, they’ve got a certificate to present to a restaurant owner saying, “Hire me. I’ve got these capacities and capabilities right now for you. So, give me a job.” And, one of the things that we are focused on with these kids is the ABC model. So, it’s any job, better job, career type of opportunity for these kids. That’s the way we approach it. So, yes, to answer your question, employers are critical in this whole process.

Shannon Offord:
And, are you seeing employers being willing to work with you on some of these programs?

Denny Armington:
When I talk to the folks that we depend upon our transition case managers, safe to say employers have been outstanding.

Shannon Offord:
Awesome.

Denny Armington:
Absolutely outstanding. Where things seem to fall apart is implementation. Plan is a good idea. That’s the easy part. But to making these things work is a two way street, so to speak. So, you got to have employers and capacity to engage these kids. You got to have kids who are willing to be engaged and willing to stick it out. And, that’s where the accountability is placed into this as well.

Shannon Offord:
Okay. So, what states are you currently working? And I know that we talked a little bit about that earlier. Have you expanded?

Denny Armington:
Part of the early issues with development of the foundation was… And we had no services and we don’t provide services directly other than funding opportunities. So, we’re not a human services agency necessarily, and we didn’t have any local facilities to engage with.

Shannon Offord:
Okay.

Denny Armington:
And they were all out of state. So, why, who founded the foundation, initiated the foundation had no longer had their services in the State of Indiana. So, we went to the State of Michigan, where we are currently providing services, the State of Florida, State of Tennessee, State of Texas.

Shannon Offord:
Okay. So, I know you guys have four pillars and I know you touched on them. Can you share with our listeners a little bit about those pillars and why they’re so important to the program?

Denny Armington:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Four pillars include mentoring, as I mentioned earlier, and that is the essential start because there has to be a trusted relationship. And, what I’ll come back to on numerous occasions is the fact that I decided that there were plenty of opportunities doing what we were attempting to do for these kids. Now, there are lots of programs. It’s not an issue of programming or lack of programming. So, I decided from the get go, I didn’t need to recreate a mentoring program. I could collaborate with any number of programs and do a fabulous job. So, I was able to develop a relationship with Young Life which is a faith-based program. Four of my kids went through that here in Carmel.

So, I experienced Young life. I knew the folks there. So I again said, “I’ve got this opportunity. I would love to have you go into these facilities.” And they took a step back and said, “In a detention center?” Yeah. Yeah. “Why?” Because kids are there. And so, they have a motto with Young Life is, we’ll go where the kids are. I said, “That’s where my kids are.” Are you interested? And sure enough, in Kissimmee, Florida, they’re inside that facility doing God’s work in this case, trying to develop mentorships with these kids. And, it’s very effect, but that’s the start is mentoring. So, we’ve got to get a trust relationship going, which builds confidence with these kids so that they will listen to our program and say, “When you leave, we don’t want you going back and hooking up with the folks who helped get you here.”

Shannon Offord:
Yeah.

Denny Armington:
We want you to change your friends base, et cetera. We need to get you education. We want you to be accountable to yourself, to your family, to society in terms of what, most of us would perceive to be again, a great opportunity for them as opposed to going and robbing a 7-Eleven.

Shannon Offord:
Right.

Denny Armington:
That’s not going to work long in this society.

Shannon Offord:
You may get away with it once, but probably not twice.

Denny Armington:
Yeah. And we don’t want to see you back in justice-involved system again. We want you to be done with that. And that’s part of that trust, confidence relationship that we’re trying to build with the mentoring piece. Once we get past that, then we launch on the post-secondary process, the education process. Then it’s not our perceptions of what they want. We start with their aspirations. If they have those types of things, we try and expose them to things they may not even thought of.

What do you want to do when you grow up? I didn’t know that when I was 18.

Shannon Offord:
Right.

Denny Armington:
I changed my major in college five times.

Shannon Offord:
Yeah. Most of us do.

Denny Armington:
I ended up with a general studies degree, go figure. So, it took me some time to achieve that. So, what we also are trying to expose these kids to is what opportunities it may be for them.

Shannon Offord:
I know you and I talked about being from a small town, a lot of times you don’t get exposed to a lot of the different careers that are available and I’m sure these kids are probably experiencing the same thing.

Denny Armington:
Yeah, absolutely. And, with that in mind, we’ve started recently, again, back in Kissimmee, Florida, an agribusiness program.

Agriculture is big, in my roots, personal roots in Iowa, obviously. Indiana, it’s a big deal. Florida, it’s a huge deal. So, we’ve got kids down there, they may not want to be a doctor. They may not want to be a nurse. They may not want to be an IT coder, which is getting pushed in many instances. But agribusiness is another aspect of that. Where not only they may be interested, but there’s lots of opportunity in the State of Florida. So, we’ve started an agribusiness opportunity and it’s actually helped through an agribusiness here in Carmel. As well as FAA is helping us with that as well.

Denny Armington:
So, our second pillar is education. Third pillar is job. So, what’s this all going to lead to in terms of the process. And I described the ABC type of model. So, coming out of these institutions again, we’re not done with the education. Hopefully we’ve got it started, but we try and get them some sort of meaningful job. Something that they would agree would be meaningful. And, working in a McDonald’s drive through may not be everybody’s desire, but it may be what we can get for them at that time.

Shannon Offord:
It’s a start.

Denny Armington:
Yeah, it’s a start. It’s a start. And then we try to work with, stay with them, once they achieve that role, then we don’t just say, “Oh man, we’re done with you.” That’s it. Good luck type of thing. We try and stay with them in terms of that career development process.

So, that leads to a better job and you got to stick with the training. So, that’s going to lead you to this next thing that you would identify and helped us. We helped you identify what makes sense from a transition standpoint for your life opportunity, and then the last is applied research and that was our fourth pillar. And this gets into, we’re going to talk about traumatic brain injury in a bit, but that’s just part of it. The applied research piece is trying to find solutions because, quite frankly, what I have, these are my impressions only in the four years that I’ve spent, trying to find ways to help these kids is the system is broken, especially the penal system for… I think everybody involved with that would probably respond the same way. We can do a much better job. Recidivism rate for these kids across the country is somewhere between 80 and 90%.

Shannon Offord:
Wow.

Denny Armington:
So, it says we are failing miserably in terms of ways to assist these kids in giving back into a way that we all would assume is what we’d like to see for them in terms of process. So, this is not a minor league for adult jails. That doesn’t make sense, but that’s what’s happening.

Shannon Offord:
We treat it that way though.

Denny Armington:
That’s what’s happening to these kids. That’s the applied research pieces. We’re looking at solutions. And again, it’s not that we’re not doing a good job, because there’s lots of people doing this. There’s hundreds of millions, probably billions of dollars being spent either jailing these kids or trying to rejuvenate, if you will, their life cycles. It’s not working. So, let’s all agree to that and take a re-look, if you will, at what’s going on, how we’re doing it, in effort to find better ways for these kids.

Shannon Offord:
I mean, anytime you have 80 to 90% of people going right back into the same situations, you would think that, that’s not working.

Denny Armington:
Yeah.

Shannon Offord:
So, let’s talk a little bit about traumatic brain injury or TBI. I know this is a huge area focus for you guys. Most of us think of TBI as something combat veterans experience. I know that, that’s not necessarily always the case. I know with RHI where you were before, I know that most of the individuals that you guys help there who have TBI are usually between 18 to what, maybe 25. I mean, it’s typically younger people. So, talk about why TBI is an area of focus of why it’s so important to the work that you’re doing.

Denny Armington:
Well, when I was presented with the opportunity to direct Youth Opportunity Foundation, one of my first people I talked to about as I was forming the board of directors was neuropsychologist by the name of Lance Trexler, who I’d worked with at RHI.

I tracked his career for a long time, knew I wanted to hire him. So, I had the opportunity at RHI and did so. And as you mentioned, we saw a lot of brain injury at RHI. When I approached Lance about the board opportunity, he said, “So, tell me a little bit about the types of kids that you are intending to treat.” And then I described the group and he said, “Hmm, I’m willing to bet half my pension on the fact that a number of these kids will have had an experience with traumatic brain injury.” And, he had been working in the adult penal system here in the State of Indiana. So, he already had a clue that brain injury was an issue in penal system. And so, we went to one of the YY facilities in the state of Michigan.

We assessed these kids and, believe it or not, 55% of them had a history of moderate to severe traumatic brain injury. And this was in most instances, pre adjudicated. So, it wasn’t a situation where they went into jail system, they got the hell beat out of them by the other inmates. That wasn’t the case. These are kids who had some sort of other, whether it be a fall, that tends to be the most prevalent, or a car accident, or they had sports injury, they were playing youth football or soccer or hockey or any of the situations where they may have bumped their head. And, that led to this TBI situation. The unfortunate side of that is unless you are bloodied. You don’t go to a hospital, no instances. You’re involved in car accidents. You go. And when you go to the hospital, they treat the obvious.

If you’ve got a broken arm, they’re going to fix your broken arm. They may not even talk about the fact that you bumped your head. You may have not told them that you bumped your head. But the fact is that you had that insult most instances, again, it’s not being diagnosed. Only 20% of these situations are being diagnosed and of the diagnosed only 10% are being treated. So, you’ve got this huge, huge incidence of TBI, which leads to prevalence when it’s not being treated. Now, the good news is most of TBIs, if they’re not severe resolve themselves over time, if you don’t have another insult. So, I know I played football at Iowa.

Shannon Offord:
I won’t even comment on that.

Denny Armington:
We’ll probably talk about that later. But, in that day and age, we didn’t know about TBI. So if you got dinged on a play and you went to the sidelines, because you were just shaking your head, you weren’t exactly certain which way to go. Coach would say, “Shake it off and get back in there, come on.”

Shannon Offord:
Rub some dirt on it.

Denny Armington:
Exactly right. So, that was the way we approached that unfortunately. We’re better at it now, but we’re not close to where we’re needing to be. CDC described traumatic brain injury in the early two thousands as a silent epidemic, which needs to be addressed. And again, we need to do a much better job of prevention on a go forward basis. That’s why we ended up again looking at TBI.

Shannon Offord:
Yeah, I would definitely agree with you on that. All transparency, obviously I sit on the advisory council. In a lot of our meetings, the word crisis has been used to describe the situation our youth are in. Can you talk a little bit about that and the magnitude of a problem and why should the average person out in the community even care?

Denny Armington:
Well, thanks for bringing up the advisory council because I started with Lance, but as we realized that TBI was such a big deal in the penal system, again, we went back to the roots relative to solutions. What are we trying to accomplish here? It was about solutions. So, we created an advisory council that has a fair number of PhDs. So, you got to have people hopefully directing you who know what they’re talking about. So, we’ve been blessed with a number of PhDs, but also wanted to make sure that from our pillar standpoint, that once we identified TBI, we could decide how we needed to change the clinical treatment to provide, so that they understood what they were dealing with and could corroborate with the treatment process and stick to it.

But also the people that surrounded them, their families, their caregivers, their employers could help in terms of the adaptation that was necessary to make sure that we were dealing with the issue. We understood the issue. So, we have people like direct employers from workforce development process that would help us find employers that would be receptive to this opportunity, understanding that now we’re dealing with a disability, a recognized disability. So, certainly they get encouraged from standpoint of federal contracts when we talk about membership and DirectEmployers Association, but also doing the right things for these kids. This is a huge step towards being successful in this process. So, we have PhDs, we have workforce development, we have educators that can help us design education systems that can help us get the training that’s necessary for these kids to be successful in the process.

That’s the advisory council. And that’s why we put the advisory council together, which led to our acquisition of a Department of Justice grant, which we’re going to talk about in a second, but that’s the process. Why should people care? Again, this goes back to the recidivism rate. If traumatic brain injury is a significant subset of our kids that are going through our adults, or our vets, for God’s sakes, they’re going through the justice system then let’s give them the opportunity. Why would we not invest these kids? It’s already costing us billions of dollars in our jail systems throughout the country. Why wouldn’t we not be investing in them so that when they are released, we don’t have that 80 to 90% recidivism rate again.

That failure rate is unacceptable. We need to address it. And that’s why per say, it’s not just kids failing, but these kids become, and adults become homeless. They become criminals. They are a threat to your safety. Oh, by the way, how about… I want to talk about intergenerational poverty in the City of Indianapolis to begin with, but it is also an issue for the cities that we live in. For goodness sakes, our intergenerational poverty has increased from 9% when we started measuring in 1970 to 15% in 2020. And, those are not my figures. That’s the University of Indianapolis, SAVI Project that establishes those rates. That’s a 70% increase in our impoverished people, children in particular, in City of Indianapolis.

What does that say about us as a city and our abilities? And, this is a model city. One of the reasons I was attracted in Minneapolis 26 years ago was the size of the community and what was happening here. Lots of great things happening in the City of Indianapolis, but we can’t achieve our goals unless we’re floating all boats, so to speak, we all got to rise together or we will crumble.

Shannon Offord:
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, because if you just think about the stats you just gave for Indianapolis, and if you look across the country, that number just gets larger. The people that are being affected.

Denny Armington:
Well, the thing that, again, attracted my attention was Indianapolis is unequal for cities this size, for this increase, most of similar cities are going down in terms of the level of poverty. Indianapolis is, and no offense to Detroit, but we’re approaching levels of Detroit in terms of being impoverished. To me, that’s totally unacceptable. And we, as a city, as suburbs, as a state, ought to be focused on that. To resolve it, or this city has a limited future in my opinion.

Shannon Offord:
You’re right. There’s no question about that. I think there’s a misconception out there that at risk youth, I think primarily come from the inner city and everybody thinks it’s just an inner city problem, but I think those of us who’ve looked at some numbers, realized that, that’s not necessarily the case.

What are you seeing out there? I mean, do you see that it’s primarily inner city problem? Are you seeing it’s still in the rural communities? I know, especially, I’m from a smaller town in Ohio right next to Montgomery County, which has the highest opioid numbers in the country. So, are you seeing this problem in other parts of society, not just in the inner cities or is it just strictly inner city problem?

Denny Armington:
No, no. Absolutely not. Again, great question. Great segue. Again, these are not my numbers, but as I’ve looked more closely at this part issue, again, 51% of impoverished children in the State of Indiana are White. Now, I only bring that up because most people would say, “Well, that’s those people of color are the ones who are all impoverished.” That’s not the case. Now to counter that, Marion County is 14th on the list of percentage of impoverished folks. Marion county is 14th, City of Indianapolis is 14th on the list.

It doesn’t take you long to get past Gary, Fort Wayne, and then you’re out of major cities. Now, you’re going to counties. So, rural does play a significant role in that process. So again, the reason that we’re focused on Indianapolis in terms of intergenerational poverty, is that we have greatest numbers in larger cities. Inner city is bigger. There’s more people, there’s more opportunity to address that particular issue. And, I think we have to address them all. Yes, rural kids, their opportunities or opioid issues all over the State of Indiana, in most states in the country. So, that needs to be focused on. We need to give kids opportunities regardless of where they are. That’s the challenge.

Shannon Offord:
I know we had talked briefly about prevention. Can you talk about that just a little bit more in depthly about prevention and trying to get these kids to not get in the system. Are you guys doing anything for that, to prevent kids from ending up in the system and how are you doing that?

Denny Armington:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it didn’t take me long. And I mentioned earlier, when we’re focused on post adjudicated youth, we have no ties currently to facilities in the State of Indiana that are dealing with adjudicated kids. So I mentioned, our efforts in Florida and Tennessee, Texas, and Michigan are all related to Youth Opportunity Investments who spawned the foundation four years ago. So, we started there. We’ll get to these other opportunities as we grow, hopefully, but didn’t take me long as a result of that, to realize in my efforts to raise money, most of my close contacts, whether it be professional or personal, existed in the State of Indiana, I’ve been here 26 years. So, I was trying to go ask for money for people locally to send out of state, it’s not a real popular thing to do for fundraisers.

And I also looked at the opportunities, too. So trying to rehabilitate these kids coming out of the prison system. It’s long ways to go. You got extra hurdles to try and get a record expunged and you can, is possibility. And again, employers have been great, institutions of higher learning have been great. There are all kinds of opportunities for us to do it. They’re just extra steps. So, as I was thinking through this process, it dawned on me, light bulb went off finally saying, “Well, why don’t we prevent this from happening to begin with?” No small challenge, however.

Shannon Offord:
Huge task.

Denny Armington:
True. But if we could do that, wouldn’t that make more sense for our kids, for our cities, for our parents, our families, et cetera, let’s prevent that from happening. No small goal.

Shannon Offord:
Right.

Denny Armington:
I agree, but that caused us to launch this prevention model focus.

And again, this goes back to fact, YOF was late to the game so to speak. We’ve only been at this for 4 years. I don’t need to recreate everything, that would take me way too long. It’s not necessary. We’ve got plenty of programs. We’ve plenty of people who do great jobs right now doing the types of things we want to do. So, my effort is to find them, like Young Life with mentoring. I don’t need to be a mentor. I will, but anyway. So, we found Elevate Indy, which is a program that’s been in existence in the City of Indianapolis for five years now. And they’re actually one of 10 facilities throughout the country. Started in Denver, Colorado 42 years ago. And their focus is on mentorship and education process. So they go into school systems, they offer to teach a class, the certified class in the curricula in high schools, they start in high schools, middle schools, and eventually finding a way to elementary schools to start that relationship.

So they start with a parent or a teacher, student relationship through their staff members. And, the coursework tends to be about leadership and those types of things and personal skills, that type of opportunity. So, they established that the kids opt into, they’re not required to be part of this course or attendance course, it’s a voluntary, elective course. So, they start that relationship with these teachers. And after the class then teacher becomes their mentor. And believe this or not, that Elevate’s approach to the staff they hire is that you will be available to these kids 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Shannon Offord:
Huge commitment.

Denny Armington:
It’s a huge commitment. Nobody could do that, but the point is we’re there for our kids. We go to them where they are or the issues. So, they get the cell phones to the kid, their cell phone numbers, if that phone rings at 11 o’clock in the evening, and you’re already in bed, we expect you to respond to it because there may be a child in crisis at that particular point in time. And that’s what they do.

So, that was very attractive to me and said, “If I’m going to collaborate with people, I’m going to go with a group like this.” And the other thing that impressed me about Elevate Indy is that they have the statistics to back it up. So, their graduation rates are in excess of 90%. Whereas, historically IPS has been in the high sixties someplace. So, they have had an impact on these kids. These kids are coming to them. They’re not forced to do any of this. They opt into this relationship and they stick with it. And, in talking with the Elevate Indy folks, I said, “This is great, but their formal support ends when the child graduates from high school.” Now they continue to encourage these kids, but they’re looking for the next 18 or the next sophomore, junior, senior, that opts into their high school coursework.

So I said to them, “Our focus, YOF is post-secondary and I’m looking to raise monies for post-secondary training, post-secondary education, and jobs. So, let’s collaborate with this process so that as you are producing these kids, keeping them out of the jail justice system, then let’s take them to the next level, let’s continue the investment so that we are creating viable, happy, engaged citizens.” That’s what we’re doing with our prevention program in the City of Indianapolis, again, focused on that incredible intergenerational poverty increase.

Shannon Offord:
And what kind of results are you seeing from this right now? Maybe you’re starting to see kids, not getting back in the system, are you starting to see them become productive?

Denny Armington:
Absolutely. And again, I would have to defer to Elevate Indy for their success stories. They have plenty, again, around the country. We are just establishing that relationship. We’re just looking to formalize the relationship and starting to raise monies to support this effort. We figured that by investing about $5,000 a year per child who gets into the system, we will be able to, after whatever training they choose to, whether it be a two year associate’s degree, a four year bachelor’s degree, some sort of vocational training, an apprenticeship, we will get them jobs. And then, in response to that success for them, we’ve asked them to give back two years of mentoring to the kids who are coming into the system. So, we’re building civic mindedness with these kids as a result of the investment we’ve made in them. So, I refer to this as let’s complete the investment, we spend as a society, City of Indianapolis, $12,000 a year per child for their education. For 5,000, we can continue that into post-secondary.

And then at of this whole process, hopefully we’re going to have kids who are gainfully employed. They are doing the things that we all expect or hope for them in terms of rebuilding, continuing to build this city. That’s our prevention program in City of Indianapolis.

Shannon Offord:
Awesome. I know recently you guys were awarded the Department of Justice Grant down in Florida. Can you talk a little bit about that grant and are there plans to connect with other states and do a similar type of thing with them?

Denny Armington:
Huge opportunity in partnership with the State of Florida. And as I mentioned earlier, Florida has always impressed me, it’s be focused on improving their system, juvenile justice system in particular, and they were good enough to partner with us in the approach to Department of Justice and hopefully this will start within the next 60 days where we, again, are focused on traumatic brain injury and the impact that it’s having on the kids, as well as the system, and the recidivism in particular. That is a huge issue.

So, we haven’t started the Department of Justice Grant, but I think this will be unique in that it’s the first state to step forward and say, “We recognize TBI as an issue.” Again, I’ve looked around the country and there is awareness of TBI as an issue but nobody has gotten into actually working formally in terms of revising the system to accommodate that. So, we’ve had additional interest from the State of Tennessee as an example, State of Texas in terms of working these types of things. But it’s just an initial process and formation, State of Michigan, again, is interested, but we need to formulate all of that based on the success we anticipate in the State of Florida.

Shannon Offord:
Well, I know you talked about employment being one of the four pillars, obviously DirectEmployers is very interested in the employment space. How can employers partner with you and support your efforts?

Denny Armington:
Well, I think, again, going back to my discussions with the folks who have been approaching the recruiters, the folks who are providing opportunities to the recruiters, looking for talent, the employers have been outstanding, great in terms of providing those types of opportunities, whether it be through internships or apprenticeships, providing unique opportunities in terms of introducing kids to their company and the needs of their company in unique ways. And again, to a person they’ve all lauded the employer and the opportunities they’ve done. What people continue to express concern about is the fact that the implementation is here, where we could use additional traction. And I recently talked to one of the neighborhoods in the City of Indianapolis, and they had provided work certificates for five of their male youth within their neighborhood. It’s all about certification regarding engines.

And they got jobs for all five of these kids in one dealership. They went to work at the same time, which may have been…

Shannon Offord:
That may not have been the best…

Denny Armington:
… a bit of an issue in retrospect, but they all went to work at the same dealership. And within two weeks, they had all been fired. Laid off. Now, again, it’s not that the kids weren’t smart enough. They passed the certification process, but culturally, the acculturation of these kids through that whole process, we may need to rethink. And I think as I look at this opportunity from an employer standpoint, we would love to know their experience with these kids and how we can do a better job preparing these kids for that opportunity that’s being presented them. Because again, I think the employers are doing a wonderful job and we also recognize, I mean, I’ve run enough businesses in my time to understand, you got to have good staff, you have good employees.

Shannon Offord:
Well, I think you need to be ready to have a support system in place when you bring these kids in. I think if you do that, they can be successful.

Denny Armington:
Yeah.

Shannon Offord:
It’s like, when you bring in a vet into an organization, I mean, they obviously are looking for support systems to be successful in companies. So, I think you have to have those things in place to make sure that people can succeed.

Denny Armington:
Absolutely. I think we need to continue to work towards that to make sure that all parties, this is not just about accommodating kids, because we don’t do a good job of accommodating employers that will do that.

Shannon Offord:
Right.

Denny Armington:
So, we need to make this a win, win, win type of opportunity. And that’s what we’re committed to.

And obviously, opportunities through the DE Works process, which we’re part of, great idea. I mean, we need to enhance the ongoing communications process. It’s not just about one and done type of situations. It’s about continually focused on how we are doing.

Shannon Offord:
Building relationships.

Denny Armington:
Building relationships. Absolutely.

Shannon Offord:
So, what’s next for you guys? Is there a roadmap, is there a plan? Where are you going next?

Denny Armington:
Well, we would like to see, obviously, first of all, affirmation of the approach. So again, I’m looking through our initial relationships with DirectEmployers to make sure that this resonates with your membership. And, that’s part of this process. But I think then we need to take them on one by one and build a relationship. If it works in Indianapolis, it’ll probably work in Orlando. If it works in Orlando, it’ll probably work in Baltimore. And, if it works in Baltimore, might even work in Chicago. So, I’m looking for these opportunities because DE represents large employers, federal contractors, where I think we have the greatest fighting chance, if you will, to systematize this type of approach. And, that’s where I’m hoping that we can eventually find traction.

Shannon Offord:
Well, I know we’ve had a pretty heavy discussion and one thing we like to do here at DE with the DE podcast is try to have a little fun at the end with the series of rapid fire questions. [crosstalk 00:46:09] And I won’t ask one because I know that you’re a Hawkeye.

Denny Armington:
Oh, you can’t, you’ve got to ask that one. [crosstalk 00:46:13] You’ll appreciate the answer. I’ve already got it.

Shannon Offord:
I will let that one go maybe, or maybe not.

Denny Armington:
Go for it, please.

Shannon Offord:
So, we have a series of questions before we wrap up and hopefully we’ll have a little fun with this. So, one I’m going to throw in that you’re not ready for.

Denny Armington:
Oh.

Shannon Offord:
Favorite fast food restaurant.

Denny Armington:
Now it’s hard for me to drive by a DQ Chill.

Shannon Offord:
Well, I can go along with lot.

Denny Armington:
I don’t necessarily go for the sandwiches, but a Blizzard is my ultimate favorite.

Shannon Offord:
You know what, a Blizzard and White Castle sounds really good, but also could make you very sick. So, let’s go ahead and ask, favorite college football team.

Denny Armington:
Well, as an alumnus of the University of Iowa, so I got to say Iowa’s the top, but my secondary is anybody playing Michigan. I know we share that.

Shannon Offord:
We share that.

Denny Armington:
How about that?

Shannon Offord:
We can’t even say that word in my town. I mean, it’s that team up north. We can’t even say it. So, I like this guy even more now. Best life lesson you’ve learned.

Denny Armington:
Boy, I have been presented with so many, but my dad would’ve definitely been the poster child for being kind to people. And so, whatever I gained from him was through osmosis. And so, he was cool, but I think doing something that is the benefit for other people is really, the last four years spent in, looking out for kids has really come to fowarding for me.

Shannon Offord:
Where do you derive your inspiration?

Denny Armington:
As I mentioned, my background’s in hospital administration, most of it was in rehabilitation hospitals. So, I have a true affinity for anybody who struggles against all odds. In this case, disability and the Paralympics, we just completed the Olympics. They didn’t do a lot of exposure to Paralympics, but the athletes I see competing in sports events is amazing. There was something, it may have been LinkedIn, that was a young lady who was doing squats with 225 pounds. And she had one leg.

Shannon Offord:
Wow. One leg, that’s impressive.

Denny Armington:
Yeah. Squats.

Shannon Offord:
That’s pretty impressive.

Denny Armington:
Deep squats.

Shannon Offord:
Another curve ball. If you weren’t living in Indiana, which state would you live in?

Denny Armington:
Probably Florida. I’m getting old, long winters. It’s wearing on me.

Shannon Offord:
I understand that one, too. Are you a reader?

Denny Armington:
I am.

Shannon Offord:
All right. Hard cover or e-reader?

Denny Armington:
Hard cover. Primarily. I like to start my days with the Bible, brings me back. The reason that I’m here and one in terms of favorite recent stories was The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews.

Shannon Offord:
I’m going to have to look that up.

Denny Armington:
Okay. I’ll give it to you.

Shannon Offord:
Oh, even better.

Denny Armington:
Yeah.

Shannon Offord:
Social media. Yay, nay.

Denny Armington:
I’m getting better at Facebooks. That’s about all I can claim. Social media and I are not necessarily meant for each other, but I recognize it as an absolute must. So, I’m getting better.

Shannon Offord:
Awesome. Well, Denny, it’s been a pleasure having you join us today. I’ve had fun. I sit on the advisory council and I actually learned so much today.

So, definitely appreciate that. I speak for Candee and myself when I say that we are really happy to support the efforts that you guys are undergoing right now. Love that you guys are making a difference in the community, especially here in Indianapolis and wherever you guys decide to go next. It’s an incredible mission changing lives, which is just something that you get up every day and say that you’re changing lives, it’s just something that’s extremely awesome. So, definitely appreciate your time today. I do have just one last thing. If an employer would like to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to get in touch?

Denny Armington:
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I am part of ED Works, at least I’m told I’m part of DE Works.

Shannon Offord:
You are, with the PRM, you’re a PRM.

Denny Armington:
PRM. Good. And then, certainly reach out to me via email Denny.Armington@yofoundation.org.

Shannon Offord:
Awesome. Again, thank you so much. And we enjoyed our time today.

Denny Armington:
It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Shannon Offord:
Thanks.

Candee Chambers:
Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the DE Talk Podcast. Stay connected with DirectEmployers on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and subscribe to our emails by visiting DirectEmployers.org/subscribe to receive notifications of new episodes each month.