Josh Gardner (00:00)
So Charlie, you've got a pretty cool history in mental health and working in supporting children who have mental health challenges. Tell us more. What sparked your passion for this? How did you get into it?

Charlie Falatea (00:12)
 You know, at first, when I first got into the industry, I was going to school at the U. got married so young, my wife and I decided we'd get married and I went to, I was going to school, I was working, my wife was pregnant early and I just heard of a job that allowed you to do your homework. lot of football players and students were working there and allowed you to do your homework while you worked on a graveyard shift.

What ended up happening was that I started to get familiar with some of the kids that we were working with. And one by one, one time in particular, a kid was going through a particularly rough time and I came in and ended up speaking with him for a few hours that night. I felt really good about the conversation, but it wasn't that big of a deal to me. And the next night he was there waiting for me. And it was a supervisor that leaned into me and said, hey man, once you get connection with the kids,

it's good for you to be able to build that. so being a football player, know how strong relationships are to people in leadership positions. And so I try to build a relationship with this particular young man and ended up being that I found out that I was good at this. And so after several months of working on this grave shift, what would end up happening is that I would start to have people sort of lined up waiting for me to speak to me.

And then I tried to day shift and then I tried to swing shift and I found that I had a really strong niche for being able to connect with kids that were struggling and being 19 years old, time not knowing. I thought, man, holy cow, I feel like I'm talking to myself. I feel like I'm talking to something that I was dealing with just a couple of years ago or just even in some situations like a year ago, a year before I started working in the industry. And so that's what really sparked my love for working with kids.

was that I have an ability to connect with kids more easily. And I think one thing that makes me unique specifically is that I can read between the lines of what a kid is trying to say. I always felt like there was kids that felt misunderstood, and I, for some reason, was able to understand that.

Josh Gardner (02:16)
So you talk a lot about relationships there. How do you use relationships in the treatment process to produce outcomes?

Charlie Falatea (02:23)
 You know, it's a, The treatment world has a strong sense of what boundaries should be. know, As soon as you get into treatment training, you get taught that these are the boundaries, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And I take my relationship-based programming sort of to a, from a different perspective. I open up on what we should be doing. I think that genuinely caring for kids, letting them know that you genuinely care for them to help build a relationship.

before you start to draw some rules and boundaries and limitations. Obviously, there are some black and white rules. There's some lines in the sand that have to be drawn for what you can and can't do. I think those are innate for everyone that's here to really help kids. But when you open up to truly, sincerely caring about a kid, things work a little different. For example, do you mind if I just give you an example, There's this idea of what it means to have

Josh Gardner (03:14)
Go for it.

Charlie Falatea (03:19)
 to keep kids safe, right? When you get into the treatment world, you just get so inundated with, hey, this is for your safety, hey, we're doing this because we wanna keep you safe. What I like to do is look at the care first. And if you are able to genuinely talk about care versus safety, safety is gonna be ingrained in the process. When you genuinely care about people, you make sure that they're safe. You just don't have that be the only thing that's in mind. I think sometimes our industry gets a bad rep.

because we do things, sometimes things that we don't feel comfortable with, thinking like this is for their safety and mine. When you come at it from a care perspective, you allow yourself to have both things in mind. You genuinely care about your son and you're taking your son on a drive to California, you'll do things differently rather than just keeping them safe. If you were just keeping your son safe in a car, you buckle him in,

You make sure they're settled, you get in the car and go and drive for 12 hours. When you care about your son, you make sure that they've got something to do, they've got something to eat, that they feel comfortable, they've got enough AC or heat. And so those are the things that we miss out on if we're only focused on safety versus care. And I think relationships have a big part of that.

Josh Gardner (04:33)
So relationships are built on trust and you've got this cool saying, trust in, trust out. Tell us more, what does that mean and how to use it in treatment?

Charlie Falatea (04:42)
 To me, When you're trying to establish the foundation of a relationship, I think all kids are assessing whether or not they can trust you. And the idea that sometimes we come up with as adults is that, no, trust me because I'm here to help you versus if I build your trust, if I trust in you, then I will get trust out of you. And it has to start with the person. Most of the time for me, it just has to start with the adult.

And establishing where the lines of trust can happen. Sometimes it's within the particular person, sometimes it's within a specific process, but you always get trust out when you put trust in. You just have to extend the olive branch in order to do it.

Josh Gardner (05:22)
That's awesome. Charlie, in treatment, we end up using pretty sizable teams of people to conduct treatment. So we're not like a technology company where you build up some kind of a code base and then it performs a function. We actually have to instill a skillset into people who can then deliver this care around the clock. So what do you do to rally your team around the common cause and to lead from the front and make sure that you're not the only one who has all this knowledge and wisdom in your head?

Charlie Falatea (05:53)
 My ideology for building a team, I get from football. I played football when I was young. I've coached high school football for the last 20 years and football has a reputation of developing strong culture. And I think that's where we start with being able to rally groups of people around a common cause in residential treatment. I start with football culture. There are times when we, know, in a team that isn't really functioning well, we do things like we put our hand in the middle.

and we say what the goal is for the day and it's that goal on three, one, two, three at break, very similar to what a team would do. And so in order to make a team want to follow a specific mission, there's one thing about the leadership of the team that has to matter, right? The leaders cannot be the exception, the leaders are always the rule. The standard is the standard, sort of like it just takes what it takes. And so in order to get a kid to trust you, does that have to be established within an hour period or can that be

being with a kid that's dysregulated, upregulated, not wanting to be a part of a group, and you being there with that kid for a particular lengthy piece of time. And to me, the answer to that is yes. When you truly care for a kid, when you're trying to develop culture, then it takes what it takes, and we will be the ones that facilitate that. And so I think rallying a team around a common cause, if you use cultural building, trust relationship building exercises around the team, then it's easier for them to see.

the benefit of the cause.

Josh Gardner (07:13)
And you've had the opportunity to work with a lot of different organizations in behavioral health. And even recently, you could probably pick the organization that you'd like to work with. What about Havenwood Academy makes it interesting to lead this new division? You know, we've run a girls program for about 12 years now. You're going to take the helm and open up our boys program. What's interesting about Havenwood that stands out as, yeah, this is the organization I want to partner with and open?

Charlie Falatea (07:39)
 You know, think Havenwood stands out in two phases for me. One, the people are extremely genuine. You guys have built something together and have stuck in it for this long of a timeframe. People genuinely love and care and trust each other that work with each other. And I think that's always an important thing. always, to me, you always want to build a system around people. The second thing is the system, the systemic approach that we have at Havenwood in all of the other entities that I've been a part of.

It's just top tier. We have systems on top of systems and not necessarily for the ability to inundate people with busy work. It's really to be able to say, if you do A, B, and C, then 99 % of the time you get D. If you do these sort of things and follow this criteria, the kids will be able to understand and identify with you. And I love that you don't have to just rely solely on great people. You actually have a process and a system in place.

to create great people. One of the things about leadership, and Josh and I have talked about this, is great leaders take the time to make other leaders. And you do that really well when you have a system in place that promotes that.

Josh Gardner (08:47)
Yeah, I love that. Talk about your own personal values and what keeps you locked in on this mission of providing mental health services to teens.

Charlie Falatea (08:56)
 Man, there's a strong part of me, I'm a devout member of my church, and there's a strong part of me that knows that that's the foundation of everything that I do. In my church services, in the community, I'm always working with kids. Even in fact, in our church, we call it a calling. And for the last 15 years, my callings have always surrounded the youth and developing youth and...

So on a personal and professional basis, as a high school football coach, I get to see kids that are struggling with anxiety, depression, family issues, trauma, PTSD. I get to see this play itself out in real life. And so when I come to work and I see kids that are a part of a system, I look at it from a perspective of, I actually know the counterpart of you that's out in the real world struggling this in high school that has no resources.

that doesn't have people that they can trust, that don't have people they can talk to, don't have strong family ties or beliefs. And so I think my core stems from that, from my personal beliefs in being able to work with this population. Many times have I been able to leave, been offered ability to leave the industry and get to something that's quote unquote, maybe a little bit more stable, not under attack. And what keeps me here is this core belief that this is something I'm meant to do.

Josh Gardner (10:19)
Charlie, what do you think the industry gets wrong?

Charlie Falatea (10:23)
 Man, that's a tough question. think one of the fundamental things that I kind of touched on this earlier, one of the fundamental things that we as an industry get wrong sometimes is safety over everything else. I think back, when you've been in this industry for a long enough period of time, you can look back and work as you've worked with the kids and felt like, cow, I can't believe I used to do that. But it was really normal for...

treatment back in the day and it's nothing egregious, you know, it's more so like hey, you know a kid had to contract for treatment or for care before living goal of a physical intervention and those sorts of things or the the response or the the belief that I had to engage in a physical intervention if you know, I felt threatened or if a kid was amping up and and so those are the sort of things that when safety is the number one responsibility

that we have that I think as an industry we get wrong, we miss out on some of the care. I'm not a big fan of all of the advocacy groups that are out there to shut down treatment and there's a lot of points to the advocacy groups that I understand, that I relate to, that I can say, I don't want that either. There's a lot that we can really join in on together and say, bad treatment's not meant to be, that we get the opportunity to work with.

precious lives at age 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, years that the kids will remember all throughout their lives. And it's our responsibility to put our best foot forward.

Josh Gardner (11:50)
Yeah, So there's a very vocal population of individuals who have been in treatment as teenagers who feel that their treatment experience was negative. There's also a large population of folks who feel like it was life-changing. How do we make sure that we deliver the life-changing experience that they'll remember forever positively?

Charlie Falatea (12:09)
 good question. I think when you are really concerned about the total outcome, the big picture of a child's life, then you're always searching for moments of impact. And moments of impact create positive moments of impact, create the ability for a kid to remember us with fondness, with kindness, and for the development of the support that we've given them versus negative moments of impact,

life impact moments, just have the ability to make you always go back to that one day where Charlie didn't treat you as kindly as he should have, where Charlie dismissed you, where Charlie didn't engage like he should have engaged in a conversation with you. And so I think that that's the biggest thing. I look at my life and I can remember the most impactful moment of my life happened with my older brother who has just passed away and

⁓ we, before he passed away, we were driving in a car, we were listening to music and he was checking in with me about my life. And he asked me a couple of questions that as an older brother to a younger brother were probably just another day in the park for him. But for me, we're so impactful his response to those moments. And now that he has passed away, I look back and I think like, Holy cow, like if I didn't have that moment, would my life have changed this, this much as it, as it has.

Josh Gardner (13:29)
And so as an organization grows, a lot of those big picture focus moments can get lost in the compliance and the systemization of the organization. How do you grow an organization that retains that relationship focus, the trust focus, and that big picture holistic healing focus, even as it gets larger and more complex?

Charlie Falatea (13:53)
 You know, I think one of the ways is to identify lanes. This is the way that I've been able to see has been the most successful, is that you identify lanes where people are responsible for, and you have between those lanes the ability to communicate so that they fed each other. If you only have somebody that's focused on a system, then you miss out on the care, and you have all this system that doesn't support the care, and then you have these other people that are just hyper-focused on the care.

and if the care and the system can come together, then you get the big picture, you get the outcome that you want from a kid that is within treatment for a certain period of time, as well as you have people that are really impacting their day-to-day life, their moment-to-moment life. So I think the answer to that question is based on the people that are providing the care.

Josh Gardner (14:42)
Yeah, so you'd assemble a team that involves individuals who can quarterback all of those different initiatives, maintain the compliance and maintain the relationship focus.

Charlie Falatea (14:53)
 100%.

The hard part is, Josh, think that sometimes organizations want everybody to do both of those things. I need you to do both of those things. And even though that can work, get really great people that are able to. It also works when you have people that communicate really well together but are solely focused on their responsibility.

Josh Gardner (15:11)
What would you tell a parent whose child is struggling with a mental health issue? Maybe they've been in and out of psychiatric hospitalization, maybe they've struggled with self-harm or substance abuse. What would you tell them?

Charlie Falatea (15:27)
 I think because I have an opportunity to see this in the community with people that just don't know, One, there are so many resources out there. Free resources, insurance resources, obviously private pay resources out there for families to get to, and they just don't know about it. And two is to alleviate the shame that you might feel about it. When you get out of the idea that my son or daughter

is having issues and they might be an outlier and there's some shame, maybe some pride and embarrassment that's associated with that. When you get out of that moment, then you really can dive into, well, what support can I give or what support can I get? And I think when families are in that mode, they realize that there's support so much closer than they imagined that they would just reach out. There's family support, there's people always within a family group

that have dealt with something similar and were too ashamed to say it or just have experience in dealing with that or helping you with your child. And we miss out on those resources if we're just never willing to speak up about it.

Josh Gardner (16:32)
You've got some really cool specific tactics and tools that you've taught to our direct care staff and our organization. Maybe touch on some of those and tell us more about Allow the Climb and how you utilize this behavior extinction intervention to help teens to learn to self-regulate.

Charlie Falatea (16:52)
 Yeah, I think Self-regulation is the answer. When you look at the statistics of treatment of kids that do really well in treatment and if they go home to the same environment, there's a honeymoon phase and most of those kids, they re-offend or they get to a moment where family's like, shoot, we're right back at square one. And so one of the things that we've been able to really hyper-focus on over the last several years is how can we teach a child in that moment without much support around them?

to just get to a point of regulation so they can advocate for themselves appropriately. So self-regulating. And one of the things that I've seen in treatment happen is that as kids get upregulated, they become dysregulated, the space around them and the environment sort of closes in, right? Staff get closer, rooms get smaller, or hey, let's stay in this area for a period of time. And what seems to happen is that that doesn't.

do what we're wanting it to do, which is to decrease, get it back to a point of baseline, doesn't decrease their upregulation, it increases their upregulation and so it sort of keeps them at a steady increase. So we put together a system that we say, how about if we allowed the climb of their emotional regulation, of their emotional state, their growth. And so instead of saying, hey, you got to this point, we need to cut you off and

kids get dysregulated throughout the whole day, right? If you cut them off early, you give them something and then later on in the day they're a little bit more dysregulated. You give them something and then later on in the day they're a little bit more dysregulated. It ends up being span of a long period of time. What Allow the Climb does is it says, instead of closing in space, open up the space. Instead of saying, hey, you're upregulated, dysregulated, stay in this room, we say, hey, you seem to need a little bit of a break. Why don't we find something for you to be able to do? Let's get you outside. Let's get you on a run. Let's get you hit in the bag.

Let's do something to open up the space. Well, I've got this issue. No, no, no, but we don't have to worry about that issue right now, right? We're not concerned about the issue. We're concerned about getting you to a point where we can address the issue. And so this developed several years ago. I was working at a program where sports and exercise was a big key indicator and we used to get the kids outside to run when dysregulated. And so we would just not even in the midst of ⁓ sort of this tension building.

We wouldn't address it. We'd say, hey, let's get outside and let's just let you run. You put some headphones on, you run back and forth. And what happened was, as soon as those endorphins were released, they got to a more regulated state, they'd come back to us sweaty and winded and out of breath and be like, okay, I think I can talk to you now. And so we saw this happening on campus. And one day a family called and said, you know, we knew that letting our kid come home this weekend was a scary thing.

and we knew it would be rough. And within hours from being home, my daughter got dysregulated and we started to argue. In the midst of that, she just sort of like a timeout, hold on. And she went outside. didn't know what she was doing. She just said, give me a minute and went outside. And for 20 minutes was just running wind sprints up and down in front of her house and came back in and said, okay, I'm ready to talk that. Sorry, I wasn't regulated. I got to get to a point of regulation.

And so we knew that this could work. And I have had story after story of just identifying what a kid is looking for, what do you want to have happen, what is your baseline of coping mechanism that you can get to, and how can I get that to you more in a preventative way? And so, Allowing to Climb does that. It helps us find a way, a mechanism that the kid will naturally get to that they have access to at home, get them to a point of self-regulation, address the issue, and...

It seems to be something that families really enjoy. I use this as an example sometimes I tell parents like hey just close your eyes for a minute and Describe the last time that you were really upset. Okay, they you just like Bad day at work argument between the two of you or something and you were really upset and I have parents I'm just close their eyes and like okay I can remember it and then I start like kind of screaming at them. Hey calm down Hey, you need to chill out calm down. Take it easy and I get this drawing

I get that that doesn't work. Has that ever worked for you? That would never work for me to calm down. And in a sense, that's what we're asking kids to do. When they're the most upregulated, dysregulated, we close in their space and we just keep telling them to chill out, calm down. And that just can't work. so normal, healthy, functioning adults, you find something that you can gravitate to that allows you to be able to cope with the way that you're feeling and get back to a baseline. That's what we just try to provide for our kids.

Josh Gardner (21:24)
So let's double click on this because I think there's some really useful day to day tactics parents can implement that are gonna help them a lot in their family. So let's say you have a toddler—three years old, four years old—and they are upset at dinner. You know, like obviously we have a lot of experience implementing this in a really acute space with teens in inpatient treatment. What about, you know, you just got a parent at home and they've got a young child and they are struggling to navigate this escalation over just simple things?

Charlie Falatea (22:01)
 So I think one of the things that we do with young kids when parents are dealing with these sort of tantrums or dysregulated behavior is that we're trying to rationalize with them. We're trying to speak to them. We end up talking a lot to a kid that's upset. so I think minimizing the communication helps. And I've seen this happen. I've done this with my own kids. It's sort of clear cut. Hey, I just need, this is what we need in order to move on. this, you're upset about not wanting to leave the table.

or I don't know, what's an example Josh that I could use? You're upset about... ⁓

Josh Gardner (22:33)
Yeah, you know, I know just my own four year old, we've got a lot of frustration around dinner. And so it's like, he wants to keep playing with his Legos and we've got dinner on the table and we know what's going to happen is he's going to get in bed and he's going to be upset because he's hungry and we're trying to get him to eat, but he doesn't want to do that right then. And so we can get this power struggle and he's getting fussy and upset.

Charlie Falatea (22:56)
 Yeah, There's a couple of different ways to attack this, right? For me, like, okay, Parents are parents, and there's no judgment for different parents that say, hey, this is dinner, right? And this is dinner time. And if you're not going to eat during dinner time, then you're to go to bed and be a bit hungry. And for some parents, for, you know, Obviously, for a healthy amount of time and healthy amount of space, that can happen. There's that realm of just being able to say, draw short lines.

For us at Havenwood, or actually for us in treatment, I think that's more along the lines of what we wanna do with kids is be able to say, this is what we have provided times and meals and square meals and snacks. Those are the things, like This is what we're providing and it all fits your needs and to be able ⁓ to fit into a healthy diet for you, then we would promote you or we would encourage you to eat that during these times. There's also this idea of

Okay, what do you do Charlie? If that's the case, what do you do if a kid just won't eat? Well, what is your primary objective? If your primary objective for a kid that's not eating, which sometimes happens, is to get them to eat, then I would say use the highest level of reinforcer to get them to eat. And when you use the highest level of reinforcer, meaning like this is exactly what you want to eat, then you give it to them. What we struggle with is that that can't be the case all the time, right? So something that we do in treatment is when we're using a high level of reinforcer,

we're also reinforcing it with medium levels of reinforcement, like a ton of positive praise. What else do you want? You've got extra time on this system because you ate the entire meal. That was an important aspect to it. And then you have to be able to say, well, this is, you get the same amount of praise by not just eating what you want, but by eating something that's just provided. And we know, and studies will show, will tell you this, Josh, is that kids really want connection. You know, This generation of kids may not know how to obtain the connection that they want.

But they really want that level of connection. And so the more that I engage with you for doing a certain thing, I likely will get that more, that behavior out of you repeatedly. And so you take away the top reinforcement and you give the connection piece, the praise, the time with dad, the time with mom for eating the meal that is set. And then all of sudden that reinforcement becomes enough. It doesn't have to be just

all donuts and pizzas and chicken wings. It doesn't have to be that all the time because now instead of exactly what they want to eat becoming a power struggle, they look forward to this connection and time with

Josh Gardner (25:24)
That's great. Really useful information. So wrapping it up, we're coming up on time here. What do you want your legacy to be in behavioral health?

Charlie Falatea (25:32)
 I think when people look back at time that I spent helping or being within behavioral health, I want them to remember or to think of me as somebody who genuinely cared, who didn't have all the answers, who often was wrong, but was able to communicate and be sorry for the things that I have done that are wrong, for the miscommunications. I want to be remembered for somebody that made an impact because of how much I cared.

Sometimes care looks differently. Sometimes we in this industry, we make it seem like care can be identified as one thing or another and that's just not the truth. Care is care. And if I genuinely care, even in the most heated situations, you would know that care is the background of that. That's what I want to be remembered.

Josh Gardner (26:17)
That's—you always share this famous Dion Sanders quote and I would love for you to share it again.

Charlie Falatea (26:22)
 Yeah, know, Dion Sanders, he, when I was very young, I heard Dion Sanders say, when you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you play good. When you play good, they pay good. And, you know, I think it's such an important aspect, especially when you're talking about people that are working in a health industry, and sometimes put the people that they're working for, and they're serving above themselves. And the hard part about that is that if you don't feel good yourself, it's hard to relay.

how important it is for other people to feel good about themselves. so we use this quote often in an idea of like, is how you have to take care of yourself. Because when you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, then you'll play good, which means that you'll work with me as the person you're asked to care for good. And then if we work well together, if we're good, then we get paid good. And paid doesn't mean financial compensation. It means that you're feeling really good about

the work that you've done and I feel really good about you and trust you as an adult that's been here to support me.

Josh Gardner (27:28)
I'm O'The Man, super excited to see what you do at The Boys Program, and thanks for coming on the show.

Charlie Falatea (27:34)
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.