Below is an automatically generated transcript.

Well, hey Maddie, how are you doing?

I'm doing well. I'm so excited to be here. How are you?

I'm doing great. I just had surgery as you know.

Yes,

so um, I feel euphoric

Ooh, I love that. That's a powerful way to describe how you're feeling.

I just remember that you pastor to and some other directors and myself were on a conversation and you saw me at a very, very bad day. I just got denied for the third time from insurance that my surgery's not gonna happen. And I just remember your response. It just touched me so deeply. You literally hugged your entire laptop. in order to give me a digital hug, and I cried the entire evening. Thank you so much for that. I felt so

course. Of course. It's. Wow. It's making me feel emotional thinking about it. And you know, when I was reflecting on mental models before we logged on today, you know, I think it kind of goes just in line with how I was created. Like, it's so important to me that I see people affirmed for who they are.

And so I think just the spirit was tugging on me and I, I want you to feel seen. You deserve that. Everyone deserves that. So

Thank you so much. And it's interesting thinking about feeling seen, like I'm not a Gary Chapman, five love languages kind of person necessarily, but when it comes to what makes me feel loved, It's that if people follow up, if people make me feel seen,

but when I think about a deeper, isn't this like a deeper rooted thing that everybody just wants to feel seen and belong?

I think, yeah, when we strip everything down, a lot of what's at the core of our longings is needing that acknowledgement and confirmation from the world that we exist. So, yeah, I agree. And I think, you know, if we got really philosophical about it and stripped down those five love languages, they are about, you know, this is a pathway to making me feel the most seen. .

So can you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Sure. That's such a big question. Um,

but yes, I think the first title that's coming to mind, and I think it's just Run of mind lately for me is I'm a sister, and I'm a daughter. I lost my dad earlier this year. Um, so just still grieving through that. And I'm a wife and I'm also still a PhD student and a full-time DC government employee. .

What makes you view yourself as a, as a family member first?

I think because those are the titles that've I've held the longest. And they're the most consistent. And, I think being a sister and a daughter led to who I am today. But my work and school titles, those are more outward reflections of where my journey has taken me and less so who I am

Do you see your work titles at all intertwined with your vocation and your calling?

So when I was younger, I was the person who liked to take a lot of personality tests, . So this could all be a, you know, a self-fulfilling prophecy, . But, um, I think because I'm like the middle child, I feel like I'm very much a helper. And you know, like the person in the middle that's trying to help keep the calm and tries to see both sides of stories and conflict.

and so I think that that, led to me becoming a teacher and why I enjoy being in community with people and hearing people's stories and trying to figure out how I can best partner with them. and then along that journey of being very pro personality tests, when I, learned about, you know, in the church there are a lot of tests that you can take to learn about your spiritual gifts, and I have seen a lot of overlap.

but then again, like I said, I don't know if like my, disposition or like joy of personality tests kind of maybe informed my results, but it all kind of, centers around like mercy and hospitality. So I see some parallels there, but I think I would have to think more about how independent those manifestations are.

So you were saying that you're doing a PhD. That's pretty impressive. What, what are you doing? And why are you doing a PhD?

It's like all great questions. I feel like the long I'm in the program, the, more cynical of an answer that I tend to have, but because it's you and I adore you, I'll be clear , the PhD I'm pursuing is in public policy and public administration. and I also have a master's degree in public affairs, which is the same thing, public policy and public admin kind of mixed together.

but my initial inspiration for pursuing my PhD was, I've always worked for nonprofits and I love this like, mission driven approach to, waking up every day, going to work with other folks who are passionate about an issue. but then I started to get kind of frustrated on two fronts, operationally, Folks who tend to go into nonprofits don't always have like the business acumen side of how to keep an organization going or like meeting goals and things like that. So that's just been a challenge that we've had in the nonprofit space. And so, on one hand I was very interested in sharpening my skills so that I could bring that back to the nonprofit world.

As you know, a really good evaluator, a really good strategic planner, a really good manager, a team builder. And then the other side of it was the theoretical nature of the nonprofits that I've worked for have all been anti-poverty, nonprofits and focusing a lot on children and families. And then not only doing service in the community, but thinking about how we can advocate for legislative changes at the state, local, and federal level.

And I, I found myself getting really frustrated with that work because it seemed like we were unable to relate to the communities that we were serving. And also advocating for what I consider bandaid solutions instead of uprooting what the real issues were and thinking about how we could really promote, a revolution or a shift in the way that, anti-poverty measures are approached.

So with all that being said, I thought, this is why I'm getting my master's to get the, you know, the, the hard skills of like, you know, that I mentioned as far as the operational piece, but then this PhD, I really wanted to think more about this, uh, systemic and structural issues that we're really keeping folks impoverished in the United States.

What makes you so passionate about. Anti poverty or ending poverty? Exactly.

well, I've always been really passionate about anti-poverty because of my upbringing. So like, I was actually born in Philly, that's where my parents and my siblings and I lived till I was about five years old. And then we moved to Charlotte. So my parents are both originally from North Carolina, um, but they relocated to Charlotte.

And then from literally like kindergarten up till my sophomore year of college as an undergrad, we experienced homelessness in housing and stability. So like even my transcript from like kindergarten through 12th grade, I'm enrolled in a new school every single year.

that's because like we are moving in, you know, living in homeless shelter one year or half a year, and then hotels, living with friends, things like that.

So, you know, the more I articulated through school and the more that folks started to learn about like my background, they would always say, Wow, like, you made it out, Or like, Wow, like, how did you do this or do that? And I don't know, I, I feel like I started to take on the barriers that people gave me because of their assumptions and not really knowing that, oh, because you know, my family is poor and homeless, that

getting a master's degree or PhD were unattainable. So, um, yeah, I think that knowing how I felt living in those spaces and being sensitive to. You know, what my family was experiencing and internalizing the trauma of homelessness and housing instability. I just feel really called to change things for the families that are really vulnerable right now. And if it's ending homelessness, then that's what I want to pursue.

Or if it's just, ending child poverty, which, you know, millions of children are across America, experienced poverty every day, then that's what I really wanna be committed to as far as my life's

Wow. First of all, I'm so sorry

that you had to go through. That , going through homelessness. That just sounds like a lot.

Yeah.

You have all the reason to be salty about that, but you're such a, a kind person. Why, why did you not become salty?

I think, I think it's a number of reasons. despite what our living situation was, I think on one end, my dad, you know, anytime he was in the picture, because there were times because of our living situation, he was in and out of our life on a consistent basis. But anytime he was around, he was always showing us, Alternate paths.

He always had us going hiking and going to events all around the city or you know, anytime he ran into money, he would say, Okay, like, we're gonna drive to Louisiana and like, see what life is like down there. Or We're gonna go to the beach this weekend. Even though that may have been all the money he needed for us to probably, you know, get a little bit more stability that week.

He really wanted to expose us to, other walks of life, other types of people. And I think that that helped probably combat this fixed mindset that, especially as a child when you're developing your worldview thinking, Oh well this is it and I have to accept that I'll always live in this broken down apartment or this shelter, this old hotel room.

Um, because we were seeing always that there were. Other opportunities.

Right.

you know, I think there's a, there's a downside to that. There's a sense of me always longing for adventure that can be to a fault, right? Like never being satisfied or feeling like undeserving of stability sometimes, you know, because of this transient nature of, my upbringing.

But I think another reason is really finding Christ and at a young age, having exposure to, you know, there's always this friend who was so consistent and always sees you and always loves you. And I'm like, who is that? Who is this friend? You know? And, I remember there were times where I'd be so upset or so frustrated and then I would just like open the Bible and just read, um, as, uh, very specifically Psalms 27 about being confident and like, you know, always having God there despite, your parents.

Even if they're not there, he will be there. And I'm confident of that. I think creating this routine where I was just constantly trying to fall into his arms when again, going back to this middle Childness being a sibling, I always frame it like my brother and my mom were very close and my sister and my dad were very close.

So it just kind of left me feeling like I had to perform for attention. and so I would just randomly open a Bible even if I didn't know what I was reading because I so believed in, there's this friend who really sees me. and going back to the sense of wanting people to feel seen, I think it's very rooted in that stage of my development.

And yeah, I think that those are reasons why my brain kind of combated any fixed mindset around, you didn't choose this and now, but it's your fault. And like, you're stuck here and this is all, all you'll ever have. I think that those were just two influences that come to mind when I think about why my mindset shifted, or how I got to where I am.

And that also makes me angry, you know, like there's a lot of, like, I have anger toward myself about that too, because even though my siblings and I grew up the. we lead very different lives today. We have different opportunities. We internalized our upbringing very differently. And then even, you know, I've worked in shelters here in the district and when I see the children, I very much want to, for them to know that like, this doesn't have to be it, but there are some, like I've worked with elementary age, middle school age, high school age, all living in shelters here in DC and it hurts to see the fixed mindset setting in already for them. And I'm like, well, why me? Like why couldn't all of the children that I lived within the shelter all have the same opportunity? Why couldn't we all kind of have a little less bitterness toward our past? And how can we help the children that are experiencing it now. Like that's that double edged sword I think of.

Now having more stability in my life and having this amazing opportunity to pursue a PhD where I'm like, I'm so thankful and grateful, but like, why God? Like, why not all of the children? Why not all of us? Kind of thing that I still grapple with.

Seeing , that young teenagers go through that fixed mindset already.

They have to overcome a mental model that may, correct me if I'm wrong, it, it's not going to, lift them from poverty. It's literally a mental model shift that may make your quality of life better. But it's not a promise of like, well, if you shift your mental model, you're gonna get a PhD.

Like Maddy, how do you think or how do you approach kids that age with those fixed mindsets what mental models do you see in those kids and how do you help them overcome that?

so I think research would tell us that opportunities like play therapy, allowing children the, space and giving them the tools to see that what they're experiencing is not normal. Because I think a lot of trauma becomes normalized. I mean, in media, in politics, like in in politics, we see it all the time, right?

If you just pull yourself up from your bootstraps, you'll be fine. But we know that that's just not the case. And to your point, like shifting your mindset isn't going to equal freedom. It doesn't equal a drastic change in your outcomes, especially if once you bring in intersectionality, right?

When you think about, okay, not only are you now combating poverty, but you could also be combating a lot of things based on how you look and how the world receives you. So depending on the age, it really varies on how we can really make an impact on how youth are combating the mindset that they're kind of absorbing, right?

And it's about giving them an opportunity to articulate what they are feeling about their situation. And what they think about it. Otherwise, they're simply, from my experience, going to mirror the energy of the adults around them. So for example, my mom is very, expressive in her negative emotions.

So like, I saw her cry a lot when we were little. and so that meant to me when I would look around, Oh, I should be very sad about the, the way that we are living. Whereas there is a child that I worked with, a couple years ago here in DC at a shelter who. Whose mom was just, she expressed really different energy and emotions and she's like, you know, yeah, we live here now, but we won't live here forever.

And her children had that very resilient type of spirit too. and never felt sad or embarrassed or ashamed about living in the shelter. whereas I remember trembling at the school bus stop anytime the bus was pulling up because we were the shelter kids getting picked up. And I feel like I was mirroring the shame and negative feeling that, the adults around me were exhibiting because, children, as they're developing, they're learning from us how to conceptualize and make sense of the world around them.

And so I think, like for me, and what we were trying to do with an organization that I worked with, while we were bringing in the play therapy, is empowering the youth to articulate how they're feeling and what they're thinking about their experience. So that's allowing them to act out, scenes from, what's happening in, in their family unit.

that's presenting them with arts and crafts opportunity that allow them to occupy their hands while you have a conversation with them. giving them different words to describe sadness. Is it overwhelmed? Is it that you're feeling anxious? Are you feeling embarrassed? expanding their, their toolkit on words.

it can be really powerful. and a lot of that can be done through, literature, like reading, all that type of exposure. And again, like when I think about my own experience, like my dad was always like reading the newspaper with me, or like reading, blogs and posts, things that were going on in the world, Always expanding my toolkit on.

What life is like and how I could, communicate what I was thinking and feeling.

I feel like I keep on saying I'm so sorry. I, I'm just seeing a young Mattie shivering. When you get picked up, I'm like,

Terrible.

Yeah, But it is, you know, and comparing it a little bit to experiences that I have had myself, like in, early nineties, The golf war broke out and we lived in Israel at that time. So my brothers and I, we went to school one day and we all had to pick up gas masks because, maybe a rocket would land.

Wow.

so we, got the gas mask. I remember that. I felt super claustrophobic in those gas masks. And then when you go outside to play as a kid, you know, you play with marbles.

So I'm seven or eight years old. You play with marbles. You have, your gas mask with you, and then the air raid alarms go off because, A bomb is being launched at, at Israel at that moment. And we all run to our homes and sit in a room that is completely gas sealed, looking at the news with our gas masks up.

so when I say this out loud, that sounds terrible, but I grew up thinking that was normal.. It was just like one day I explained this to a person and they're like, Wait, you were in Israel during the Gulf War wasn't Saddam Hu saying throwing rockets at Israel at that time?

There must have been terribles. Like, Well, no, no. I mean, we, we all went through it and then I explained what happened, and it just all of a sudden hits me. I'm

Mm.

that is terrifying. That is trauma worthy stuff. And just because an entire nation had to deal with that doesn't mean it's less trauma worthy or so.

So, connecting that to your field. In my field, thinking about how to find words for it in, in my field is like overcoming these mental models means that we give language to those mental models. That is so important that kids know at a younger age that was not okay, I need to talk with somebody.

And that will just in my opinion, that that would just mean that we can find healing at a younger age. And then we don't normalize trauma, but we normalize talking about trauma.

Exactly.

Are you researching how to do that specifically or so and are you, what can you share?

So a part of my dissertation is thinking about trauma informed policy making. So once again, going back to the space that I work in is typically. We have this outcome, right? We have poverty. okay, now how can we like fix it and make the poverty hurt a little less? but my dissertation is more so thinking about families within the shelter, right?

So if we know that the outcome of the trauma and compounding the trauma itself is experiencing homelessness, and now I'm living in a shelter, How can we ensure that that trauma is not further compounded by the environment of the shelter, but then also that the child talks about it. So one goal of my dissertation research is to, have therapy mandated in family shelter so that children, get the therapy and the counseling that they deserve.

at that really critical age, a lot of public health services related to behavioral health focus on the adults, especially within a shelter setting, right? We wanna make sure mom is okay. We wanna make sure mom has the tools to get rehoused, but the child, once again, is observing and absorbing the trauma right along with mom.

and there's also research that talks about how. Just witnessing mothers going through trauma can traumatize their children. Right? And we know that adults can share trauma, right? Vicarious trauma. Then why aren't we thinking about that? Developing brain, making sense of the world through a mother experiencing trauma is something that I'm advocating for.

because yes, we can even talk about it at the intersection of race and, mental health and seeking out therapy, being very stigmatized in the black community. But we also know, like our, even thinking about DC in particular, that the fastest growing in largest population of folks experiencing homelessness are black families with a single mother head of household.

So if we know that they're black, they're young, they're, resource, impoverished. and also probably carrying these heavy stigmas around mental health and making sense of trauma, then why aren't we combating that right? In the institutions that they are, being housed in. So once again, uh, I just think that children experiencing homelessness should be guaranteed.

There should be an entitlement package to fund mental health services for them. the mothers still deserve it. They need it. They're, you know, social workers and shelters, case workers and shelter, but not all shelters have opportunities like that for children. So I most recently conducted interviews with shelter administrators and counties that touched the District of Columbia.

And out of the seven that I spoke with, only one had opportunities in house, in Shelter for children. So that right there, we just, we don't think about children being homeless in the United States. When we think about homelessness, if our mind doesn't go to another country, it's gonna go to probably white male vets that we see on the streets.

But we don't think about the black children, the brown children who are, numbering thousands in our district who aren't getting the services they need to combat the, the real trauma that they're experiencing. So, early intervention I think, is so important, and that's really what we should be focusing on in homelessness or poverty, anti-poverty work, because the trauma's either gonna be repressed.

Or it's gonna manifest into, what we call the, cradle to prison pipeline. You know, there are these things that are constantly pulling people closer to imprisonment or death, and often there are black folks who have experienced a lot of trauma but haven't acknowledged or just don't have the resources or tools to work through that trauma.

, we talked a little bit about the mental models that kids have to overcome and the mental models that shelter workers have to overcome and, and like shift, but, Right.

Yeah. Oh, there's lots of bias cuz we're all human. One, we're all human, right? So I'm coming in as a staff member with all of my bias toward this undeserving population. the mother should have worked harder. How could you let your child be in this situation? And now I have to help you and then once again, bringing in those intersections like, wow, what if there's a same sex couple?

What biases am I bringing in and how is that impacting how I serve this family? What if there's someone who, has a different experience than me because of their race or their gender, Anything, their, their religion? how do we feel about folks accessing homeless services if they aren't American citizen? So many, so many problematic models that we can bring in,

, there's this metaphor that I, I really love about like, planting seeds, so like planting seeds for the future. The work that I'm doing now is planting seeds for future.

I will never see, well, who's going to be harvesting? It's gonna be the folks who are children today.

it's a very humble standpoint that you're forced to take because there's no way that you're gonna see results this year. especially not in policy.

Yeah.

So how do you, how do you deal with that? How are you okay with being part of a chain versus the short term fix that this generation seems to want?

I think that's most recently what I've had to come to terms with. And it was hard. It makes me angry and upset, sometimes, But then I look at my niece and she's eight, and I would be devastated if any of the negative things that have happened in my life happened to her. So if it means that by her 10th birthday, she will have, The same address and that sense of stability, for the rest of her childhood.

Like then those are wins to me. Martin Luther King and a lot of civil rights icons from the sixties and seventies talk about this long arc to freedom. And I get impatient with not being at the end of the arc. You know, I want, I want everything that they dreamed of to be realized today, and it just isn't. And if those big thinkers and big dreamers and big doers were okay being just, one little, they were one period at the end of a sentence along this arc to freedom, then I, I have to be okay with it too. They made huge impacts. But the world and the visions that they have, we don't see fully today. and so I'm okay at just being a few steps along, the road just putting more seeds in the ground because they're next to their seeds and yeah, it hurts and it's frustrating. another part of my research is thinking about how the, the manifestation of homelessness that we're seeing today is still really rooted in the practice of slavery that our nation had.

And I think once we have the courage to really face the deep racial in class tension that we have in America,

then we are going to be stuck putting bandaids on issues that just need to be uprooted. okay with that. Every election when I see more young people running, I get more okay with it, when I see churches like the table where people have experience hurt and doubt in the church, but have the courage to come back together and, you know, given another try, then I feel more okay with it, but it's hard. It's hard.

So making people feel seen. I love that. That's the root of your work. And that's, it's beautiful work.

I appreciate that. You're so kind to me. Always

It's easy to be kind to you because you invite kindness. you have all the right to be. I get so emotional now. You get, you have all the right to be salty. You have all the right to be angry at white people . You have all the right to be angry at America, at dc, but you invite kindness because of the way you convey yourself and you conduct yourself.

And it's not your responsibility yet. You do it

I try, I try,

. What do you have to say to all the Mads that are listening to this episode right now?

Uh, all the Mads that are out there, I would just say, Keep your eyes on the sky, like just keep looking for the light. it's always gonna be there, you know, any pockets of joy that you can get to fuel you clean to them. And the world doesn't get to decide what your outcomes are just because of where you started.

It's all up to you. It's all up to.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show.

Of course. Thank you for having me again, so honored. This was such a joy. Definitely the highlight of my week, so thank you.

yeah. I'm excited because I was just going through, I have this simple note of like, Oh, who am I gonna ask on a podcast? I'm like, Maddie, she's gonna say No. We talked like once. And then he's like, Yes, let's go

Yes, yes, I, I would never say.

Take care of yourself though. You have to say no. Every now and then.

that's true. I've been working on my helium hand, but, this was a good choice. This is a good Yes, because sharing space with you is, it's replenishing. So thank you. I don't feel tired at all.

I'm happy to hear that. When we're 80, And we're looking back at, at our lives and when we're able to see where on the arc of social justice we, we were, I hope we can rest a little bit,

Absolutely. Oh, very good. I, I do too. And I will make sure we have matching rocking chairs by then.

Yes, please.

Pink and black rocking chairs.

Pink and black and listening to Black Pink if they're still around.

well, we will have the Greatest Hits album on repeat.

That's right, That's right.

Oh, I just adore you. Thank you so much.