The Power of Social Work: Christina Byrne's Mission to Transform Lives

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:02.826 --> 00:00:08.785
Hello and welcome to no Wrong Choices, the podcast that explores the career journeys of accomplished people.

00:00:08.785 --> 00:00:14.913
We showcase these stories to provide insights that are strategic, inspiring and, most of all, entertaining.

00:00:14.913 --> 00:00:19.611
I'm Larry Samuel, soon to be joined by the other fellas, tushar Saxena and Larry Shea.

00:00:19.611 --> 00:00:28.751
If you've been enjoying our show or are new to the program, please support no Wrong Choices by following us wherever you're listening right now and by giving us a five-star rating.

00:00:28.751 --> 00:00:37.274
We also encourage you to connect with us on LinkedIn, facebook, instagram Threads and X, or to send us a note via NoWrongChoicescom.

00:00:37.274 --> 00:00:41.243
This episode features the social worker, christina Byrne.

00:00:41.243 --> 00:00:52.055
Christina is the executive director of St Francis Friends of the Poor, a very important facility in New York City that provides housing services to people with histories of chronic mental illness.

00:00:52.055 --> 00:00:56.191
Christina is someone who's making a difference literally every day.

00:00:56.191 --> 00:00:58.746
Tushar, please set up this conversation for us.

00:00:59.569 --> 00:01:06.311
Let's be honest, this is not an easy subject to talk about in a lot of ways, because, mean, no one really wants to talk about the notion of homelessness in america.

00:01:06.371 --> 00:01:08.540
This is not something that we kind of look at.

00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:20.531
Look at a great deal in our lives and, and you know, so many of us are lucky to have to have, you know, a very uh, you know, a flourishing career, a happy home, family, etc.

00:01:20.531 --> 00:01:25.147
Um, and it's those other folks in society who've said you, you know what?

00:01:25.147 --> 00:01:28.346
No, these are, these are topics that we have to concentrate on.

00:01:28.346 --> 00:01:29.409
These are people too.

00:01:29.409 --> 00:01:35.405
These are members of our society, members of our community, and they should not be, they should not be forgotten and they should not be ignored.

00:01:35.405 --> 00:01:44.768
I mean, I've always wondered about the mindset of someone saying that I'm going to move down this type of career path because it's a it's kind a special person who does that.

00:01:44.768 --> 00:02:01.960
I'm really interested in finding out that journey of christina from you know where she started to where she is now, because it's you know, now she is a real advocate, a real, a person of real importance within this, within this sphere, and I'd love to hear that story I love the notion of mindset there.

00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:04.162
I t I think you just set the stage for us.

00:02:04.162 --> 00:02:13.615
You know we prepare for a lot of interviews and in preparing for this one, in looking at her life and her career journey, all I realized is how selfish I am.

00:02:13.675 --> 00:02:14.395
Yes, we are.

00:02:14.395 --> 00:02:15.788
Are we kidding you?

00:02:15.788 --> 00:02:17.044
We're doing that all the time, Larry.

00:02:17.044 --> 00:02:17.164
What?

00:02:17.164 --> 00:02:19.461
Do you mean, are we not saying it enough?

00:02:19.461 --> 00:02:20.081
That's right.

00:02:20.263 --> 00:02:20.842
That's right.

00:02:20.842 --> 00:02:48.336
That's right, but no, I just I went through my own thoughts of, like you know, I'm always thinking about my career and how I want to go forward and what I want to succeed at and do and accomplish, and it does make you think about somebody like Christina Byrne who's thinking about others all the time and just how special that is and how rewarding and fulfilling, yet challenging, a career this can be.

00:02:48.336 --> 00:02:50.687
So, yeah, fascinated to start this discussion.

00:02:51.489 --> 00:02:51.991
Absolutely.

00:02:51.991 --> 00:03:00.383
It's all about how can I make a difference and how can I give back A very uplifting mindset as we get into this.

00:03:00.383 --> 00:03:12.090
One of the things I'm curious about is what it's like to run this type of community or facility or organization whatever the right word is in New York City.

00:03:12.090 --> 00:03:21.585
I mean, this is a big place with complicated politics and I imagine that plays a very big role in her day-to-day, so I'm very curious to hear about that as well.

00:03:21.585 --> 00:03:25.352
So, with all of that said, here is Christina Byrne.

00:03:25.352 --> 00:03:27.623
Christina, thank you so much for joining us.

00:03:27.965 --> 00:03:28.807
Thank you for having me.

00:03:28.807 --> 00:03:29.449
It's my pleasure.

00:03:30.682 --> 00:03:39.903
Of course, I should point out to you and to our audience that you sort of wound up on our radar screen thanks to one of our past guests.

00:03:39.903 --> 00:03:48.816
Cindy Hsu of CBS here in New York did an incredible story on St Francis that was just so remarkably uplifting.

00:03:48.816 --> 00:03:54.233
She brought it to my attention, watched it, and you so stood out within that.

00:03:54.233 --> 00:04:00.272
I just felt that we needed to get you on the show, and Tushar and Larry were excited about it too.

00:04:00.272 --> 00:04:02.647
So again, thank you so much for joining us.

00:04:02.889 --> 00:04:03.189
Thank you.

00:04:03.189 --> 00:04:04.043
Thank you for joining us, thank you.

00:04:04.082 --> 00:04:18.403
So, Christina, as we lead into a lot of these conversations, we always like to give our guests the opportunity to tell us about them in their own words, rather than you know whatever comes out of my mouth leading into the conversation.

00:04:18.403 --> 00:04:23.242
So, Christina, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about what you do?

00:04:24.182 --> 00:04:34.786
I guess the way that I would define myself is by saying that I'm a social worker and I think that best describes me professionally.

00:04:34.786 --> 00:04:39.495
But it also describes kind of my innate being and who I am.

00:04:39.495 --> 00:04:43.088
So yeah, I would say I'm a social worker.

00:04:44.182 --> 00:04:45.687
And was this always the dream?

00:04:45.687 --> 00:04:47.086
I mean, let's start at the beginning.

00:04:47.086 --> 00:04:50.149
Let's take us back to, to a little girl.

00:04:50.149 --> 00:04:53.548
I mean, I know you had aspirations to be a lawyer at one point.

00:04:53.548 --> 00:04:54.512
Was that the dream?

00:04:54.512 --> 00:04:56.560
Obviously, this is a different calling.

00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:57.766
So how did this happen?

00:04:57.766 --> 00:04:59.245
Tell us about where it started.

00:05:00.060 --> 00:05:01.221
Yeah, you know.

00:05:01.221 --> 00:05:09.725
I think if you were to ask anyone who knew me growing up what was I going to be, you know that senior superlative at high school.

00:05:09.725 --> 00:05:10.810
You know what are you.

00:05:10.810 --> 00:05:11.512
What are you going to be?

00:05:11.512 --> 00:05:14.386
I think everyone who knew me would have said social worker.

00:05:14.386 --> 00:05:17.173
That is not what I would have said.

00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:36.444
I would have said I would have said a doctor or a lawyer, said a doctor or a lawyer, and for me that had less to do with being a doctor or a lawyer and had more to do with how I defined success and respect.

00:05:36.444 --> 00:06:00.002
You know, I grew up with, you know, in a tough household and I was intent on showing the world that I was better than what I was coming from and for me that meant so that meant you know, a doctor or a lawyer I went to.

00:06:00.002 --> 00:06:05.733
I went to college thinking that I was, I was going to go in one of those directions.

00:06:05.733 --> 00:06:08.129
I liked biology, so I studied biology.

00:06:08.129 --> 00:06:18.394
And then there was this turning point in college where it all became very, very clear to me that that was not the right way to go.

00:06:19.742 --> 00:06:20.925
So now, what school did you go to?

00:06:20.925 --> 00:06:21.687
What college did you go?

00:06:21.708 --> 00:06:23.172
to Undergraduate school.

00:06:23.172 --> 00:06:24.291
I went to Rutgers University, nice, jersey.

00:06:24.291 --> 00:06:24.600
Always making good people.

00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:24.673
Yeah, jersey girl did you go to?

00:06:24.673 --> 00:06:24.863
What college did you go to?

00:06:24.805 --> 00:06:25.838
Undergraduate school I went to Rutgers University, nice.

00:06:25.838 --> 00:06:26.980
You went to look at Jersey.

00:06:26.980 --> 00:06:28.002
Jersey, always making good people.

00:06:28.423 --> 00:06:29.247
I'm a Jersey girl.

00:06:29.247 --> 00:06:29.687
There you go.

00:06:29.687 --> 00:06:30.451
I'm a Jersey girl.

00:06:30.451 --> 00:06:31.620
Makes you very excited.

00:06:31.641 --> 00:06:33.423
Down the shore.

00:06:33.702 --> 00:06:35.485
Oh, look at you, perfect, absolutely perfect.

00:06:35.485 --> 00:06:47.317
So what was that thing in college that said to you okay, because your story is not that dissimilar from mine in a sense, right, so like, I went to college as well to become a lawyer and I ended up a broadcaster.

00:06:47.317 --> 00:06:50.302
Now, obviously we have gone in different directions.

00:06:50.302 --> 00:06:58.021
But so what was that one thing in college where it kind of sparked with you so no, no, no, my calling is not being a doctor, it's not being a lawyer, it's going down the road of social work.

00:06:58.021 --> 00:07:00.305
What was that one thing that kind of ticked the box for you?

00:07:01.846 --> 00:07:02.168
Yeah.

00:07:02.168 --> 00:07:18.786
So you know, I put myself through college and worked as a waitress the whole time, and you know there was this moment in time where I was in a very fancy restaurant, dressed in a tuxedo, serving very fancy people.

00:07:18.786 --> 00:07:24.744
You know the same people that I thought I wanted to become, and they were just jerks.

00:07:25.165 --> 00:07:34.161
They weren't nice, they weren't nice to me, they weren't nice to anyone else in the restaurant who was trying to make them have a wonderful evening.

00:07:34.841 --> 00:08:12.372
And I was like you know what I'm done with waitressing and through a friend I got a job working with a little boy, nine-year-old boy, who had cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, and my job was to meet him at home at the school bus, get him off the school bus, get him into his house and make sure that he got a snack, that he was clean and that he sat in front of the television until his mother got there and everything was just quiet and copacetic.

00:08:12.372 --> 00:08:19.333
His mother was an older single mom and their house was not wheelchair accessible.

00:08:19.333 --> 00:08:34.613
This was a nine-year-old boy he was pretty big for a nine-year-old whose only method of getting around was either kind of dragging himself, crawling or using a wheelchair, and his mother wasn't physically able to help him in and out of the house.

00:08:34.613 --> 00:08:37.563
I mean, you had to go down a couple steps of stairs.

00:08:37.563 --> 00:08:48.484
So the bus driver came and got him in the morning and he went to school and then I got him off the school bus and that was his life and that wasn't okay with me.

00:08:48.803 --> 00:09:23.625
And so I, you know, I worked with him, his family, the organization that I worked for the community and helped them get their ramp and to get a collapsible wheelchair, like a portable wheelchair, and got him out of the house, you know, threw him in the car, threw the wheelchair in the trunk, went to the park, went around the neighborhood, you know, went to the mall, just exposed him to life and that kind of exposed me to what my new life was going to be.

00:09:23.625 --> 00:09:31.796
I knew right away, right there, and then I changed my major, focused on psychology and yeah, that was it, nine-year-old boy.

00:09:33.302 --> 00:09:39.254
Wow, I'm curious as you tell that story, did you maintain a relationship with him going forward?

00:09:39.254 --> 00:09:41.163
Do you know what became of him?

00:09:41.605 --> 00:09:51.028
For many, many years I did maintain a relationship with him and his family, but it has since been many years since I've been in touch with them.

00:09:51.028 --> 00:09:53.900
But he moved out of his mother's house.

00:09:53.900 --> 00:09:59.852
His mother was still alive, but you know he did what all of us want to do.

00:09:59.852 --> 00:10:01.221
He got out of his parents' house.

00:10:01.221 --> 00:10:12.445
He went to go live in a group home with other people who had disabilities similar to his and, you know, was living his life with roommates and the supports that he needed to enjoy that.

00:10:13.326 --> 00:10:17.701
Wow, and in a lot of ways you've made that possible or you helped make that possible.

00:10:17.701 --> 00:10:27.174
That's incredible, yeah, so after that moment and the pivot that presents itself, what did you do?

00:10:27.174 --> 00:10:38.865
Like, I know you changed majors, et cetera, et cetera, but what types of things did you get involved with to really immerse yourself in a world of giving back and taking care of others?

00:10:40.267 --> 00:10:40.547
Yeah.

00:10:40.547 --> 00:10:59.878
So I would say for the better part of the first 20 years of my career I kind of fell in love working with people who had developmental disabilities and intellectual disabilities and so you know I kind of worked my way through the progression.

00:10:59.878 --> 00:11:09.149
So you know, I changed my major, graduated with a psychology degree as I started in my career.

00:11:09.870 --> 00:11:11.214
you start where everyone starts.

00:11:11.214 --> 00:11:14.243
It's kind of on the front line, working one-on-one.

00:11:14.243 --> 00:11:20.751
So I went from working with that individual in his home to working as a supported employment job coach.

00:11:20.751 --> 00:11:29.326
What that meant is that adults, young adults, typically with developmental disabilities, who were trying to enter the workforce but needed extra supports.

00:11:29.326 --> 00:11:35.927
So I was there to help that person learn their job and do well in it.

00:11:35.927 --> 00:11:45.291
And one of those jobs was working in a meatpacking factory and a meat locker.

00:11:45.291 --> 00:11:48.178
So it was a freezing cold environment.

00:11:48.178 --> 00:12:02.785
I remember it was summertime, so it was beautiful and warm outside, and then you walked inside and you had to like, put on these winter coats and then these lab coats on top of it and gloves and hats and all you know you're around food.

00:12:02.806 --> 00:12:05.533
I'm picturing a Rocky right now, just so you know.

00:12:05.533 --> 00:12:07.847
I'm absolutely seeing Rocky in my head.

00:12:09.321 --> 00:12:10.424
That's exactly it.

00:12:10.424 --> 00:12:16.812
That's exactly it, and yeah, I had to help her, you know figure out how to do that job.

00:12:16.812 --> 00:12:20.749
Needless to say, it didn't last very long.

00:12:22.982 --> 00:12:27.990
You are the person who had this job yeah, very long and you know you are the person who had this job.

00:12:33.139 --> 00:12:33.881
This is not what I signed up for.

00:12:33.881 --> 00:12:37.308
But, more importantly, I went back to the people who get the jobs and was like what were you thinking Right?

00:12:37.308 --> 00:12:49.419
Like you weren't setting anyone up for success and and for them, their job was I need to find places that are willing to hire people with developmental disabilities and that don't have entry level requirements.

00:12:49.419 --> 00:12:51.243
So, but they weren't.

00:12:51.243 --> 00:12:58.054
They weren't on the ground, they didn't understand how you know what situation would work best.

00:12:58.054 --> 00:13:16.982
That helped me realize that I was going to do better serving people in any capacity from a systems perspective, as opposed to working direct care on the lines, because that just wasn't the right way to go about it.

00:13:17.804 --> 00:13:22.601
I kind of want to maybe not jump ahead, but I want to ask you kind of, maybe, an odd question.

00:13:22.601 --> 00:13:41.620
You said a moment ago about this notion of, uh, this well, how, how it is that you were kind of shocked by how, um, the people you had worked with were treated in a lot of ways and then, and not just maybe they're treated on an individual basis, but in terms like the environments they worked in there, the the way they were treated in that sense.

00:13:41.620 --> 00:13:52.682
So, how much of your job do think, or how much of your current job and then the job in general, um, is compassion versus outrage or is there a good combination of the both?

00:13:54.024 --> 00:13:59.995
Um, uh, yeah, I would say there's.

00:13:59.995 --> 00:14:02.542
It's a good, it's a healthy combination of both.

00:14:02.542 --> 00:14:03.904
You need to have both.

00:14:05.128 --> 00:14:22.744
So compassion look, you know the the the people that we're working with, can sometimes be really challenging to support, and you have to come from this place of compassion to understand that this is this is not their fault.

00:14:23.065 --> 00:14:24.971
They are not doing this on purpose.

00:14:24.971 --> 00:14:41.727
They have an illness that has taken over their life and the lives of their loved ones and everyone who supports them, and the way you get through your day and the way that you help people through their toughest times is with compassion.

00:14:41.727 --> 00:14:55.115
On the flip side, when you're an administrator, like I am, you also have to have a healthy dose of questioning authority and saying what is this system?

00:14:55.115 --> 00:15:05.414
And it's supposed to be set up to provide supports and services to help keep people safe and help them live with dignity and as members of the community.

00:15:05.414 --> 00:15:28.222
But the way that the system is oftentimes set up just flies right in the face of that sentiment, and so you have to be there to challenge the establishment and challenge policy and funding and try to blend those two worlds so that it makes sense that you can actually accomplish what you need to accomplish.

00:15:29.625 --> 00:15:40.942
Christina, getting back to the journey aspect, were you able to make a difference and tell them that they need to take better consideration of what jobs they're offering people and what they can do?

00:15:40.942 --> 00:15:43.528
Were you able to affect change there?

00:15:43.528 --> 00:15:45.232
And what happened next?

00:15:45.940 --> 00:15:53.932
So I guess what I would say is I don't know if I was able to affect change there.

00:15:53.932 --> 00:15:54.955
Right, it was.

00:15:54.955 --> 00:16:12.573
I was young, I was in my 20s, I was moving quickly through the career ladder, but I do think I was able to make a difference and I think that the best way I can say that I know that is because of where I am now Right.

00:16:12.573 --> 00:16:13.416
You know what I mean.

00:16:13.416 --> 00:16:28.816
I very quickly worked my way up the career ladder into roles where I had the ability to influence change and now, you know, make change.

00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:31.322
How did you do that?

00:16:31.322 --> 00:16:40.250
You know how do you become a skilled person within your field and how do you rise through the ranks and become a leader.

00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:46.071
Yeah, well, I mean part of it's education, right.

00:16:46.071 --> 00:16:47.094
I went back to school.

00:16:47.094 --> 00:16:49.203
I got my master's degree in social work.

00:16:49.203 --> 00:16:55.134
A lot of it is, you know, trial and error experience.

00:16:55.134 --> 00:17:10.607
You know working in systems and for people and around and with people, and now I'm kind of talking colleagues, bosses, executive directors and other organizations and, uh, and you know, seeing learning.

00:17:10.607 --> 00:17:45.509
You're navigating through those systems to see like who are people that are doing good work and people that I want to align myself and, and who, who, who, who's doing it the wrong way and the way I don't want to do it, and and um, in making a lot of mistakes, is is also, you know, learning and getting to where I am also required a lot of you know three steps forward, one step back throughout the career and you know much like this whole podcast.

00:17:45.509 --> 00:17:49.807
The premise of it is there really are no wrong choices.

00:17:49.807 --> 00:17:52.272
You're, uh, you're doing the best you can.

00:17:53.221 --> 00:18:00.387
As you say that, um, you know, was there a particular obstacle that you had to overcome along the way that you were thinking about, as you mentioned that?

00:18:02.201 --> 00:18:04.223
Uh, oh, yeah, I guess I can think of two.

00:18:04.223 --> 00:18:49.175
So you know, one of the obstacles was that I was promoted into a job, so I was working as a program director, and so that means I was, you know, at a higher management level, but still very much in kind of middle management, and I worked for an organization that then merged with four other organizations and a position opened up that I applied for and miraculously was hired for, that was charged with helping to integrate those four or five organizations into one.

00:18:49.175 --> 00:18:55.059
So you took five independent organizations and trying to get them to join as one and move forward as one.

00:18:55.059 --> 00:19:15.519
And you know, one of the things that I think has since part of that job, that has since defined the rest of my career, was around change management and helping people to to come together around a common cause, even though everyone was coming at it with different perspectives.

00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:18.243
And you know this, these mergers were not.

00:19:18.243 --> 00:19:25.913
People were not happy about the mergers, you know people are using their independent identities.

00:19:26.796 --> 00:19:48.414
And you know that ended up kind of sparking my transition from doing program work directly with people in those cases with disabilities, to now working with systems and organizations and overcoming those challenges.

00:19:49.056 --> 00:19:49.477
Interesting.

00:19:49.477 --> 00:19:51.407
What is the timeframe we're talking about?

00:19:51.407 --> 00:19:53.606
How long are we talking?

00:19:53.606 --> 00:20:06.071
From day one, when you got into the industry to where not where you are currently, but to where you said you became a program director and then, obviously, someone who began to oversee four or five different entities?

00:20:06.071 --> 00:20:14.772
Um, probably about 15 years so you put a lot of time in.

00:20:14.813 --> 00:20:29.536
You put a lot of time in to get the to move up the ladder that way yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, um, and you know, you were kind of saying like what does it take to get to that point?

00:20:29.536 --> 00:21:06.497
Yeah, um, one of the things in that job that, uh, that you didn't really know until you were leaving, right is, you know there was, there was one particular person in the organization was kind of the executive director of one of the smaller of the five and he was as resistant as anyone could possibly be to this merger and accepting the idea that we're all going to come together as one organization.

00:21:06.497 --> 00:21:12.722
And you know, in many kind of I would say, passive, aggressive, but kind of aggressive, aggressive ways you know like.

00:21:12.782 --> 00:21:16.030
I'd send an email and he'd respond in Spanish.

00:21:16.030 --> 00:21:24.244
You know he was a primarily like, so he would just respond in Spanish and I'm like I don't speak.

00:21:24.265 --> 00:21:24.746
Spanish.

00:21:24.746 --> 00:21:26.711
You know what is the intent of that.

00:21:28.840 --> 00:21:30.605
You know what the intent of that was.

00:21:30.605 --> 00:21:31.788
You can't say that I don't know.

00:21:31.788 --> 00:21:33.320
Can you say it on the podcast?

00:21:33.381 --> 00:21:34.423
Yes, you can.

00:21:34.423 --> 00:21:38.050
What he was telling me was to go after myself, right?

00:21:38.070 --> 00:21:45.380
He was just like no way, but we worked through it and I don't even remember.

00:21:45.380 --> 00:22:01.616
I was probably in that position three or four years and when I left he gave me and what's funny, I don't know if you can see it on here, but he gave me this little box and that says courage nice wow and I.

00:22:01.656 --> 00:22:04.540
That was so meaningful to.

00:22:04.540 --> 00:22:25.506
To have him I mean, he gave me hell the whole time, like never stopped giving me hell over this, but he appreciated who I was, how I was going about doing that, um, that his best interests were in mind, even when we were in disagreement.

00:22:25.506 --> 00:22:31.415
And he just said you had a lot of courage to take on and do this job and thank you.

00:22:31.415 --> 00:22:37.143
And it was like one of those really affirming things that you don't know until you're on your way out the door.

00:22:37.750 --> 00:22:39.217
Yeah, a breakthrough moment.

00:22:40.232 --> 00:22:41.637
I have a couple of questions for you, christina.

00:22:41.637 --> 00:22:42.875
One you said obviously you got your.

00:22:42.875 --> 00:22:44.523
You said obviously you got your master's degree.

00:22:44.523 --> 00:22:45.630
You got your master's degree.

00:22:45.630 --> 00:22:51.623
Now, I mean, I guess to move on in any kind of job it requires a higher education at some point.

00:22:51.623 --> 00:23:03.010
But I want to ask you like, on a serious note, do you feel that you needed a master's degree, not just simply to move on, but obviously I get to move up, move on in your career.

00:23:03.010 --> 00:23:08.752
But if you had to kind of do it over again, would you still feel necessary to get a master's degree?

00:23:08.752 --> 00:23:13.893
Because obviously you had a, you had a wealth of experience and that alone could have moved you up the ladder.

00:23:13.893 --> 00:23:25.576
Um, and then two, how much institutional resistance did you, did you, uh, did you have to suffer through, let's just say, as a woman in the end, in this, in this career?

00:23:26.317 --> 00:23:50.381
Right, right, um, you know, I do think I needed a master's degree and you know, one of the things that, uh, that that really helped me is having been I was in the workforce for a number of years before I went back for my master's degree because one you needed it to move forward, right.

00:23:50.761 --> 00:23:56.278
And there was that check the box I need to have this degree to do this.

00:23:57.140 --> 00:24:40.385
But what I didn't realize because you know, you're young and you're cocky and you think you know things is that when I went to school and I was able to be around students that were coming right out of undergraduate school and getting their master's degree and students like myself who were working full time, still in the workforce and getting the master's degree, and when we came into our classes where we were talking about sort of the book theory on whatever it was, the difference in being able to internalize that information that you were learning was profound.

00:24:41.394 --> 00:25:01.659
You know the younger people that were going straight from undergrad into graduate school and they may have had an internship or something like that that they were using as their you know field practice and their reference, but you know, I feel like they really missed out on the opportunity to learn how to practically apply the skills that we were being taught.

00:25:01.659 --> 00:25:16.666
And I didn't realize that I needed those skills until I was in those types of situations and saw, ah, this is, this is how I could have handled this, so I had an identical experience with my MBA.

00:25:16.747 --> 00:25:18.615
I got my MBA in my late twenties.

00:25:18.615 --> 00:25:21.085
I think I finished two days before I turned 30.

00:25:21.085 --> 00:25:25.266
And I kept asking myself the question why did I spend all this money for the next 10 years?

00:25:25.266 --> 00:25:30.078
And then, all of a sudden, I was running a big company and all this stuff was in my head.

00:25:30.078 --> 00:25:34.479
I didn't know how it got there, but it was so incredibly helpful.

00:25:34.479 --> 00:25:37.470
And eventually it comes back around and it helps.

00:25:42.238 --> 00:25:46.684
Yeah, no, it sure does, and I was also, you know boost my salary working in social work.

00:25:46.684 --> 00:25:53.963
I will say my salary increased by a whopping $11,000 a year.

00:25:54.411 --> 00:25:55.702
A whole $11,000.

00:25:55.702 --> 00:25:56.727
A whole $11,000.

00:25:57.210 --> 00:26:00.650
Depending on what you were making before, that may or may not have been significant.

00:26:00.971 --> 00:26:02.031
And it was significant.

00:26:02.031 --> 00:26:09.163
But when you look back on it you're like, wow, you definitely weren't going to school because you were hoping that you were going to make the big bucks.

00:26:09.683 --> 00:26:27.144
But, you know, tushar, one of your other questions was you know what challenges might I have had, you know, coming into this workforce and climbing up, as you know, as a woman, and you know, I think, I think what I would say is I've worked in nonprofit my entire life.

00:26:27.144 --> 00:26:29.371
Right, nonprofits are.

00:26:29.371 --> 00:26:51.667
There's a lot of women in nonprofits, okay, and so I, uh, I, I think I came up at a time where there was much more focus on giving women opportunities in leadership positions, because nonprofits were primarily white men, middle aged white men.

00:26:51.667 --> 00:27:03.903
But I was coming up in a time where there was much greater awareness of that and so I think, given given lots of opportunities, I don't feel that I was ever at a disadvantage.

00:27:04.590 --> 00:27:07.098
You never felt a resistance as you were moving up.

00:27:07.630 --> 00:27:15.635
No, but, interestingly enough, the position that I'm in now at St Francis Friends of the Poor.

00:27:15.635 --> 00:27:39.032
You know, I am the first woman, first non-priest, to run this organization and, while I don't want to say that I faced resistance, because people were certainly very welcoming, it was a hard transition for a lot of people.

00:27:39.032 --> 00:27:48.142
I mean, it was things like they have shared bathrooms on the floor and they're like do you need your own bathroom?

00:27:48.142 --> 00:27:49.288
Like no, no, no.

00:27:49.407 --> 00:27:49.750
Oh geez.

00:27:50.130 --> 00:27:55.140
Yes, as long as everyone's clean, like we can share the same bathroom.

00:27:55.140 --> 00:28:00.376
They had no idea how to accommodate a woman, or they didn't think they knew.

00:28:00.376 --> 00:28:03.479
I'm like no, no, everything can stay the same.

00:28:06.371 --> 00:28:08.257
I'm so glad you talked about salary.

00:28:08.257 --> 00:28:09.780
You brought it up, so now I'm going there.

00:28:09.780 --> 00:28:11.855
I want to talk about your.

00:28:11.855 --> 00:28:34.462
Motivation really is what I want to talk about, because success really today is defined by bank accounts, power titles, freedom of you, freedom of time that you have to devote to your profession, or freedom for yourself, I mean as a social worker, and going up through the ranks of those you know, the corporate ladder, as it were.

00:28:34.462 --> 00:28:36.445
What was your motivation?

00:28:36.445 --> 00:28:44.498
I mean, obviously you got a tremendous amount of good feelings from helping people and the motivation is there in that way.

00:28:44.498 --> 00:28:46.239
Was that primary?

00:28:46.239 --> 00:28:54.467
Did you think that at some point, hey, I'm going to be okay financially and I'm going to do very well financially, or was that just never even a thought in your mind?

00:29:01.609 --> 00:29:25.753
And you know it sounds almost like ridiculously altruistic, but while I thought that's what I wanted and needed and look, we all need money, right but really what was motivating me was the successes that I had along the way where I could see where I was making a difference and helping other people, and that was self-motivating.

00:29:25.753 --> 00:29:38.681
You just wanted to do more of it and I found myself, you know, doing better and better at it and I never, I never wanted to be an executive director.

00:29:38.681 --> 00:29:51.282
I always liked the behind the scenes stuff, kind of setting other people up for success and letting someone else be that front person, I mean the guy behind the guy.

00:29:51.970 --> 00:29:55.823
Yeah, yeah, and you know being the executive director is tough.

00:29:55.823 --> 00:30:08.065
You know it's kind of lonely at the top and you know the buck stops with you and if something goes wrong, like guess what, you're the one that's on the hot seat and I never thought that, I wanted that.

00:30:08.570 --> 00:30:20.809
And you know, five or six years ago there came a point in my career where I needed to make a change.

00:30:20.809 --> 00:30:35.311
I was not happy, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with with the rest of my career, because I moved so far away from being connected with the people that I started to get lost.

00:30:35.311 --> 00:30:49.694
I didn't feel like I had a community anymore and um, and so I left that job and took a job in a very, very small rural community as an executive director.

00:30:49.694 --> 00:30:57.517
And you know there was parts of my of doing that was like what the hell did I just do?

00:30:57.897 --> 00:31:00.383
So you left New York and went to a rural community.

00:31:00.609 --> 00:31:26.327
I went left New York, went to Northeastern Pennsylvania and became the executive director of a very small organization, a nonprofit, serving people that were survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other violent crimes, and really connected with my roots, with the roots in the community.

00:31:26.327 --> 00:31:55.092
And you know, on some levels, you know I felt like I was in retreat because I had gotten sort of overwhelmed by New York and felt lost in New York and so I was like I got, I got to retreat and kind of figure out who I am and in in doing that I just I.

00:31:55.092 --> 00:32:10.640
It really helped me figure out what I was looking for in the next part of my career, and it was that I still wanted to be someone who was approaching it from an administrative point of view, but I wanted to be able to be closer to the change and I didn't want to be in a small community for the rest of my life.

00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:17.602
So how to find that and that's, you know, like everything sets you up for that next step.

00:32:18.971 --> 00:32:24.594
And you know, prior to that I don't think I ever would have taken jobs or even look for jobs as executive director.

00:32:24.594 --> 00:32:28.327
But you know that job helped me realize that I could do it.

00:32:28.327 --> 00:32:29.290
I enjoyed it.

00:32:29.290 --> 00:32:39.976
I just needed a different setting to do that in, and that led me to the job I'm at now at St Francis, and I've never been happier in my work.

00:32:39.976 --> 00:32:45.565
I've never felt more motivated to come to work every day and continue to do good work.

00:32:45.565 --> 00:32:55.084
And you know, all of that's the product of all of the three steps forward, one step back, over the course of 25 years.

00:32:56.009 --> 00:32:59.897
What exactly attracts you to that position of being an executive director?

00:32:59.897 --> 00:33:11.971
Is it simply the matter that A you said I would much rather be the guy behind the guy, to the point where you just had that moment of clarity and said you know what, it's actually better to be the guy, the one who makes that decision right?

00:33:11.971 --> 00:33:19.113
So what are those one or two attributes, or one of those two things that most attract you to such a position?

00:33:19.713 --> 00:33:36.818
You know, I think I developed the confidence in my skill sets to know that I could make good decisions and contribute meaningfully to the growth of an organization, and you know that's so.

00:33:36.818 --> 00:33:50.057
It's a little bit of kind of confidence building that I realized that I could do that little bit of kind of confidence building that I realized that I could do that.

00:33:50.057 --> 00:33:55.078
So, yeah, I guess I just kind of I don't know how else to put that then, other than there's no shame in saying it just kind of called to you.

00:33:55.098 --> 00:33:56.407
There's no shame in saying it kind of called to you.

00:33:56.407 --> 00:33:56.650
Yeah, I mean.

00:33:57.711 --> 00:34:16.849
I kind of got the confidence and really thought, um, and really thought that I could make a difference and really thought for this particular organization, really thought that, uh, you know my life, uh, my, my professional experiences led me to this position and prepared me to do well in it.

00:34:18.273 --> 00:34:24.704
So we have touched on St Francis, but we haven't really dug into what they do.

00:34:24.704 --> 00:34:33.704
So, can you please sort of lay out what St Francis does, how they're making a difference and really get into a little bit of detail around that for us?

00:34:34.110 --> 00:34:34.431
Sure.

00:34:34.971 --> 00:34:43.925
So St Francis Friends of the Poor is the organization that I work for as the executive director is the organization that I work for as the executive director.

00:34:44.284 --> 00:35:26.827
We provide permanent supportive housing to single adults who have long histories of homelessness and live with severe mental illness, and so I think to bring that a little bit more definition, the people that we work with primarily have schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder that if you're not familiar with that disease, it you know it has degrees of illness.

00:35:26.827 --> 00:35:36.233
So there's plenty of people with schizophrenia that can live fairly normal lives.

00:35:36.233 --> 00:35:41.797
They take their medications, they know that they have this disease and they've got the tools and the resources to help them manage that.

00:35:41.797 --> 00:35:54.474
And they could be living amongst us and we wouldn't know it.

00:35:54.474 --> 00:36:11.036
But like any kind of illness, there are degrees and so the people that St extreme end of the disease where it impacts their ability to live their lives independently.

00:36:11.036 --> 00:36:46.867
You know schizophrenia is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, paranoia A common attribute of schizophrenia for many of the people that we support is lack of insight into their illness and so by the time they find us, they have cycled in and out of the system of care.

00:36:47.811 --> 00:36:56.431
And that could be, you know, living with family members who have finally reached their limits, quite understandably.

00:36:56.472 --> 00:37:20.639
This is in no way disparaging family members who have to say I can't take this anymore to cycling in and out of people's couches, losing all of their friends, losing their job, ending up on the streets in homeless shelters, in psychiatric hospitals, in jails.

00:37:22.019 --> 00:37:28.894
So a lot of the people that we support have cycled through that many times over.

00:37:28.894 --> 00:37:37.614
Just like there's a continuum of the disease, there's a continuum of care in the field that provides these services.

00:37:37.614 --> 00:37:49.003
And so, you know, some people can live, you know, fairly independently in their own apartment, with drop-in, someone dropping in once a month, checking in, making sure everything's okay.

00:37:49.003 --> 00:37:54.280
Other people might, you know, live with a couple of housemates in an apartment.

00:37:54.280 --> 00:37:58.181
Again, maybe someone drops in once a week, checks in, makes sure they're okay.

00:37:58.181 --> 00:38:11.804
The people that end up coming to live here at the St Francis residences are folks that really do need daily assistance in order to help them to stay healthy and housed.

00:38:11.804 --> 00:38:22.623
So we've kind of fill a niche in the community of working with those folks that have not thrived in all of these other.

00:38:22.623 --> 00:38:25.286
You know, continuum of care.

00:38:25.990 --> 00:38:29.420
Wow, what incredible work and what an amazing thing that you're doing.

00:38:29.420 --> 00:38:57.878
As somebody who comes into an organization like that, who is the first woman and the first outsider, in a way, to step into a leadership role, you know how much change did you bring, or did you need to bring, into an environment that I don't want to say could have been stale, but might have had a myopic view and was probably ready for some change and new ideas.

00:38:58.251 --> 00:39:01.094
Outside of the use of the bathroom obviously change and new ideas.

00:39:01.173 --> 00:39:10.552
Outside of the use of the bathroom obviously, yeah, you know, um, I, you know that's the.

00:39:10.552 --> 00:39:11.353
That was the challenge, right?

00:39:11.353 --> 00:39:12.617
You know how do you come into this organization?

00:39:12.617 --> 00:39:15.623
It was founded by Franciscan friars over 40 years ago.

00:39:15.623 --> 00:39:20.838
They ran the organization until I, the day I started, it was run by Franciscan friars.

00:39:20.838 --> 00:39:22.300
Until the day I started, it was run by Franciscan Friars.

00:39:22.300 --> 00:39:25.625
They had established what is now.

00:39:25.625 --> 00:39:44.536
I mean literally they are the very first permanent supportive housing provider, not just in New York City, not in New York, not just the country, but arguably the world, like they started the movement of permanent supportive housing for people with severe mental illness and histories of chronic homelessness.

00:39:44.536 --> 00:39:47.907
And you know it's by all measures.

00:39:47.907 --> 00:40:01.094
It is an organization that has been extraordinarily successful and all of the other supportive housing providers all around the world are modeled after the work that they started 40 years ago.

00:40:02.056 --> 00:40:12.547
That being said, change and growth is necessary for anything to continue to evolve and survive and adapt to the world.

00:40:12.547 --> 00:40:43.521
And when I was interviewing with the board, that was both my biggest challenge and biggest opportunity.

00:40:43.521 --> 00:41:02.688
You know that ourselves, with where you know, the current funding and policies and rules and regulations were, I mean, you know, I say this with a whole lot of love but my predecessors as priests kind of kind of approached it like, yeah, what are you going to do to me?

00:41:02.688 --> 00:41:11.231
You know what I mean.

00:41:11.231 --> 00:41:14.869
And so when I came in and they were saying, oh, don't worry about that rule or regulation or whatever, I'm like no, no, no, no, I don't wear the collar.

00:41:16.432 --> 00:41:17.896
I don't have special disposition.

00:41:17.896 --> 00:41:18.840
I play by other rules.

00:41:18.840 --> 00:41:20.592
I have to play by the rules.

00:41:20.592 --> 00:41:24.956
And they're rules and I'll go to jail for you, no, no, you're not going to do that.

00:41:27.092 --> 00:41:29.556
So you know, so it's been.

00:41:29.556 --> 00:41:34.070
You know, like I said, it's my greatest challenge, my greatest opportunity, but I'll tell you what.

00:41:34.070 --> 00:41:39.336
And this is going to sound just awful, but it is the truth.

00:41:39.336 --> 00:41:43.302
I started in January 2020.

00:41:43.302 --> 00:41:50.331
Less than two months later, the world changed COVID hit.

00:41:50.373 --> 00:41:50.996
yeah, covid hit.

00:41:51.989 --> 00:41:54.032
COVID hit, the world changed.

00:41:54.032 --> 00:42:06.115
So in those two months where I had promised my predecessors that I would not make any drastic changes for at least six months, Right.

00:42:06.115 --> 00:42:09.449
Don't think you're coming in there and you know it all you know.

00:42:09.449 --> 00:42:13.782
Sit back, learn, observe, give yourself a chance.

00:42:13.782 --> 00:42:15.735
You know all those sorts of things.

00:42:15.735 --> 00:42:18.032
Promised Fine, listen.

00:42:18.032 --> 00:42:20.259
Two months later, the world changed.

00:42:21.210 --> 00:42:22.614
I say months, I meant weeks.

00:42:23.197 --> 00:42:30.139
Right, right, right, exactly, and you know what we all needed to change together.

00:42:30.139 --> 00:42:40.070
Everything about what we did needed to be looked at, relooked at and adjusted almost on a daily basis.

00:42:40.070 --> 00:42:49.007
Things were moving so fast and trying to figure out how to help keep 255 people healthy, and that's just the tenants.

00:42:49.007 --> 00:43:08.000
You know we had 60 other staff that we're also trying to keep healthy and and, quite honestly, that that people who thought that the organization couldn't change and that the tenants couldn't handle change and that the systems that we worked in could not be changed, Wow.

00:43:08.601 --> 00:43:09.161
Guess what?

00:43:09.161 --> 00:43:10.652
We all had to do it?

00:43:10.652 --> 00:43:13.800
No one had it, no one had a choice, and so I.

00:43:13.800 --> 00:43:35.472
That really helped me become integrated into the organization, cause, first of all, you know, I was here every single day, with all of my staff in it, doing what needed to get done, so I was learning how to do the job from the ground up, and so that helped to establish trust.

00:43:35.472 --> 00:43:56.148
It helped people realize that we could change, and so, as we found our new normals and I, and as I have been able to help integrate new opportunities for the organization, people are a little more open to it, because they saw what we could do.

00:43:56.148 --> 00:43:59.054
They saw the resilience and that we could.

00:43:59.054 --> 00:44:01.836
We could not only survive but thrive.

00:44:01.836 --> 00:44:11.190
You know one of the things that we're super proud of, and this is totally because you know the relationship that our staff have with the tenants.

00:44:11.190 --> 00:44:29.556
But you know, in COVID, people who were homeless, mentally ill, were amongst the highest impacted by the death rate, by, you know, outbreaks within facilities like ours and deaths, and we had no COVID deaths.

00:44:30.630 --> 00:44:32.277
Wow, that's impressive, my God.

00:44:32.650 --> 00:44:35.550
Yeah, we had 95% vaccination rate.

00:44:35.550 --> 00:45:07.371
So people who are by nature distrustful of the medical system because of the interactions they've had with it over the years and you know paranoid about like what's in that vaccination and watch television and see you know powerful people talking about like paranoid about what's in that vaccination and we were able to help people get 95% vaccinated and we had no COVID deaths.

00:45:07.733 --> 00:45:21.500
And that was that was the true Testament to the value of how this organization does its work and how they, you know, develop trusting relationships with with the tenants.

00:45:21.500 --> 00:45:22.282
It was amazing.

00:45:22.710 --> 00:45:22.849
That's.

00:45:22.849 --> 00:45:23.833
That is amazing.

00:45:23.833 --> 00:45:25.539
Amazing.

00:45:25.539 --> 00:45:31.356
Talk about your roles and responsibilities, like exactly what do they ask you to fundraise?

00:45:31.356 --> 00:45:33.340
Is that handled by somebody else?

00:45:33.340 --> 00:45:48.114
Are you just, are you more in line with just care of the day-to-day clients, making sure that they have what they need doctors, psychologists, what have you Talk about those roles and responsibilities?

00:45:48.114 --> 00:45:50.141
Because someone like me I have no idea what you would be responsible for.

00:45:50.141 --> 00:45:50.724
It could be anything.

00:45:50.724 --> 00:45:54.199
They could ask you to get through red tape and do some political stuff for all.

00:45:54.260 --> 00:45:58.632
I know, so talk a little bit about exactly what it is that you focus on in this role.

00:45:59.213 --> 00:46:20.463
So what I focus on is a couple different fronts, right, so my job is to help ensure that the staff who are working directly with the tenants, and so that could be case managers, social workers, psychiatrists, medical doctors.

00:46:20.869 --> 00:46:22.313
And you said it was about 60 people.

00:46:22.675 --> 00:46:25.590
About 60 staff and what I you know.

00:46:25.590 --> 00:46:32.655
I mentioned all of sort of the kind of professional level folks, but we also we run three buildings, right.

00:46:32.655 --> 00:46:35.706
So we have three buildings that we own and operate.

00:46:35.706 --> 00:46:37.490
They're all over a hundred years old.

00:46:37.490 --> 00:46:45.291
Each building has anywhere between 80 and 90 tenants who live in them and they're hard, they're hard on the building.

00:46:45.291 --> 00:47:02.197
So we also have a very full building staff building maintenance, porters, janitors and every single person in this organization plays a critical role in helping to make sure that our end goal is met in terms of helping people stay healthy and safe.

00:47:02.197 --> 00:47:11.572
And my job helping to make sure that our, you know, end goal is met in terms of helping people stay healthy and safe and my job is to make sure that they have the resources they need to do their jobs well.

00:47:11.572 --> 00:47:33.958
So that could be, you know, fundraising is a huge part of that right, more so for me than it was my predecessors, because my predecessors, you know, they had 40 years worth of turning to their parishioners, their faithful parishioners and who had the collar.

00:47:34.380 --> 00:47:35.864
And I'm like I don't have the collar.

00:47:35.864 --> 00:47:49.536
So I need to find out different ways for this organization to raise money, because it's just a different world, right, I don't have access to the same people, so fundraising is a big part of it.

00:47:49.536 --> 00:48:06.389
You know, even though this is and has been an incredibly successful organization, it was very much a mom and pop organization, and so, you know, when I came in, the budget was maybe four and a half million.

00:48:06.389 --> 00:48:44.130
It's now almost eight million, and so, you know, helping to get additional contract dollars from the city and the state, helping to raise money through private fundraising and through foundations, and then building the infrastructure to support all of that right and I think that's been a big part of this work as well is bringing in infrastructure, having a human resources person, having a finance person, having someone who you know oversees the construction of the buildings.

00:48:44.130 --> 00:48:53.250
We just got a $22 million loan from the city to renovate all three of these buildings Wow, I was going to comment on that.

00:48:53.851 --> 00:49:03.523
I spent the better part of maybe 30, 32 months just trying to get that loan to come through right.

00:49:03.523 --> 00:49:05.766
The red tape has been insane.

00:49:05.766 --> 00:49:17.914
You know, another part of what I'm trying to do is not just, you know, make sure that what we're doing now is great and wonderful, but also trying to figure out how do we increase the impact of our work, how do we serve more people.

00:49:17.914 --> 00:49:21.842
The organization has had these three buildings for 40 years.

00:49:21.842 --> 00:49:30.577
The organization has had these three buildings for 40 years, but would like to expand and do more work.

00:49:30.577 --> 00:49:37.405
So getting learning about New York City nonprofit, affordable housing development.

00:49:40.173 --> 00:49:40.916
It sounds exciting.

00:49:43.052 --> 00:49:48.273
It's fascinating and not for the faint of heart, I mean, it is.

00:49:48.273 --> 00:49:58.641
It is hot throat and, um, you know, I'm lucky that I've been able to connect and surround myself with, with consultants who can help me to do those things.

00:49:58.641 --> 00:50:08.836
But uh, yeah, I I spend a lot of time just keeping a lot of plates in the air and in many ways, I see myself as kind of a web.

00:50:08.836 --> 00:50:15.958
I'm a conduit for helping to connect people with other people to help make sure that they're getting whatever needs they are met.

00:50:15.958 --> 00:50:28.054
So, yeah, I'm kind of approaching this job from multiple fronts and for me it's really important to stay connected with the work, so I more my personal social work skills by sitting in on, you know, meetings.

00:50:50.371 --> 00:50:51.817
Sure tap into your roots again, yeah.

00:50:52.289 --> 00:50:57.802
Yeah, helping people to think about things in a little bit of a different way and hopefully helping to make a difference at that level.

00:50:58.510 --> 00:51:16.144
I find it a bit ironic that you say that You're obviously in a, you're in a profession where there's a great deal of the notion of altruism and giving, and yet you say that the notion that you say that trying to go out and finding, finding housing for you know, in such a, such a field, it's cutthroat.

00:51:16.471 --> 00:51:26.445
I just find that very odd and ironic to say you know I, so I guess how do you say these sorts of things?

00:51:26.445 --> 00:51:46.771
So you know, we were looking for a building and, you know, trying to find a building, that, where you can, you know it needs to be 60,000 square feet and it needs to be able to, you know, have these offices and each room needs to have a bathroom.

00:51:46.771 --> 00:51:48.516
You know all of these different things.

00:51:48.516 --> 00:51:52.835
And there's, you know there's zoning rules.

00:51:52.835 --> 00:51:55.503
You know, is it zoned for residential, is it not?

00:51:55.503 --> 00:52:02.239
You know, and we're trying to find this in Midtown because that's where we've always historically worked and we have a good thing with the community.

00:52:02.239 --> 00:52:03.643
And we did.

00:52:03.643 --> 00:52:08.119
We found something and we, like, had to keep our mouths shut.

00:52:08.210 --> 00:52:20.318
We couldn't talk to anyone because we didn't want anyone else to know that this building was like up for sale or going to be up for sale, right, because we're like this is ours, this is ours.

00:52:20.429 --> 00:52:21.650
We don't want anyone to have it.

00:52:21.650 --> 00:52:22.773
And do you know?

00:52:22.773 --> 00:52:31.202
No joke three years I mean three years of working on this project and a huge for-profit developer swooped in.

00:52:32.063 --> 00:52:32.684
Oh my.

00:52:32.704 --> 00:52:33.625
God, I'm sorry.

00:52:45.530 --> 00:52:53.409

The Power of Social Work: Christina Byrne's Mission to Transform Lives

Listen On

Recent Episodes