(upbeat music) - So a hundred years of the Judson Center, that is an awfully long time.

Tell me what this centennial anniversary means for the center and for the many, many people that it serves.

- We are so excited.

When you think about being a nonprofit human service provider that has been able to sustain ourselves for a hundred years, that means so much to us.

I think if anything, it tells about a nonprofit that has been creative and innovative over those hundred years.

We first started in 1924, opened the doors as an orphanage for boys and girls.

And the birth of Judson Center came from a group of Baptist ministers that wanted to do good for children.

And we remain true to that to this day.

One of our core programs is foster care and adoption.

But when I think about, Stephen, over these hundred years, the difference that we have been able to make in the lives of so many children, adults, and families, we serve over 14,000 annually.

So think about 1924, small, small nonprofit.

The name was the Detroit Baptist Home for Children.

And 60 years into this wonderful organization, we changed the name in 1984 to Judson Center.

And if I could just share the things that we are sure we have been able to accomplish over the hundred years, which is so remarkable.

And I think that's where all of our pride and joy comes from, to know that being an agency that really believes in working with children and trying to help them find that forever home is so important to us.

But we are about community.

What are other things that we can do within community that is really gonna make a difference and be able to impact so many lives?

Over those years, we've expanded into disabilities.

We believe in individuals with a disability no matter what it may be.

If they're diagnosed with a mental illness, if they're on the autism spectrum, if they are in a wheelchair, that they should be given an opportunity the same as you and I to become an employee one day.

So our disabilities program provides soft skills training, supported employment and help them to find and secure a job.

Then we expanded into behavioral health.

And today, we're so proud.

We have an integrated care model, and we are one of the CCBHCs here in the great state of Michigan, that stands for Certified Community Behavior Health Clinic.

It's an integrated model that includes behavior health, primary healthcare, and substance use disorder.

And then our autism program.

We're so proud that we can make a difference in the lives of so many children that are diagnosed with autism.

We have five locations, and so over those hundred years, we've expanded.

We started right there in Oakland County, in Royal Oak, the corner of 13 Mile in Greenfield a hundred years ago.

We're still there today.

That's our largest campus.

But we have almost 10 locations that are spread over five counties.

We've moved into Washtenaw, to Wayne, to Macomb, to Genesee.

And we have one program, which is a foster care program that is statewide, the MARE, the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange.

We are proud of the success and things that we've been able to accomplish over the hundred years, and the joy that we see in the faces of the people we serve.

- And so let's look forward a little bit, the next hundred years, but of course starting with the next year and the next five years, what are the things that you anticipate that the Judson Center will need or will need to do going into that second century?

- A hundred years from now, we wanna still be an organization that is here doing good in the communities that we impact.

But let's say during those first five years, right now we have a major capital campaign that's taken place, that location, 13 Mile in Greenfield where we've been for a hundred years, we have a capital campaign that we really want to redo that campus.

It is time for a major overhaul, a uplift to expand on that location, to fix up that location, to make sure folks know who we are and what we're doing.

So that's huge for the first five years.

In addition to that, I talked about the CCBHC model.

That is a model right now that was really started by our very own senator Debbie Stabenow was able to get that passed through Congress back in 2015.

Her and Senator Roy Blunt out of Missouri.

That model is being adopted right now in about 40 states.

Everybody loves that model.

So what we see our challenge for the next five years, our largest integrated program operates out of Warren, Michigan in Macomb County.

We are replicating that in Royal Oak.

So that's a part of that capital campaign.

We wanna make sure that we can have an integrated model.

We do behavioral healthcare now, but we wanna expand it with primary healthcare and substance use disorder.

Stephen, when we talk about things that have happened during the pandemic that has impacted us and things that we've learned that needs more attention, substance use disorder.

Our children and our adults, very high in Macomb County.

So high numbers of children and adults that need those services, and we are also gonna replicate it in Wayne County.