As chief executive officer of Youth Villages, Patrick W. Lawler has led the organization through a metamorphosis from its early start as a small, struggling residential center to becoming a nationally recognized, outcome-based industry leader in child welfare.
Thank you for thinking about becoming part of our force for families.
Youth Villages is a dynamic, growing organization committed to improving the lives of children with emotional and behavioral problems and their families across the United States.
Almost 25 years after starting the company with two small residential facilities, we now help more than 16,000 families every year. We promote a national agenda to help prevent children from being removed from their homes in order to receive help for emotional, behavioral or family problems.
To help children nationally, to change child welfare, children's mental health and juvenile justice systems across the country, we need literally hundreds of people – a force for families – who share our vision and are willing to make personal sacrifices to achieve greater goals.
The future of Youth Villages is directly related to the quality of the staff we hire today. We spend enormous time and resources making sure that we bring the best people, the right people, to Youth Villages and we give them the best training and support possible.
The job you are considering will be hard work. But, in exchange for your effort, we'll offer you incredible opportunities.
If you work for Youth Villages for two years and perform at a high level, you'll have opportunities to become a manager or a supervisor in your program. Or you might move to another program, from residential treatment to foster care or in-home services as one example.
Maybe you'll find that your skills are best suited for our administrative departments: placement, research, performance improvement departments, human resources, finance or development.
We also offer opportunities for geographical change. You may start work in Knoxville, but be attracted to a Youth Villages position in Boston or Tampa. In some cases, we offer relocation packages to help pay for your move.
Youth Villages is one of the few nonprofit organizations in the country that offers the kind of career opportunities usually only found in large corporations.
We promote from within – and promotions are based on a person's performance and education – not their seniority. We help you gain the advanced degrees you may need to grow your career, through our tuition reimbursement program. Our supervisors have even been known to arrange a counselor's work schedule around their graduate school classes. For our clinical staff, we pay licensure fees and provide required supervision during work hours.
We think Youth Villages is a great place to work. We offer our employees every opportunity to learn more, to do more, to be more than they are on that first day that they come to work for us.
If you're ready for a challenge, if you're passionate about serving a cause that is greater than yourself, if you have what it takes to do this important work, you may discover that Youth Villages is the place you're meant to be.
Pat Lawler