Leonard Smith was a knowledgeable and respected foundation leader, dedicated steward, and mentor to many over his career. “I will be forever thankful for Leonard’s guidance and incredible mentorship over the years,” said Andrea Cole, President and CEO. His legacy in philanthropy is a lasting impact of dedication and service that the Flinn Foundation will honor and celebrate.
Leonard was involved in philanthropy most of his career, first as the attorney for the Skillman Foundation (1968-1983) and manager of the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation (1974-1983). He retired from law practice at Clark Hill to become President and Chairman of the Skillman Foundation (1983-1999). He guided the Foundation from its formative years with endowed assets of $180 million through the 1990’s as it became a recognized leader in dedicating resources to improving the lives of children in Metropolitan Detroit. At the time he retired from the Skillman Foundation, grantmaking had grown to $25 million per year and assets to over $620 million.
Leonard then devoted himself fulltime to the Flinn Foundation as Board Chairman (2000-2018), President (2000-2007), Chief Investment Officer (2008-2021) and Trustee (2000-2024). He fostered a more collaborative relationship between philanthropy and state government that led to significant improvements in mental health delivery and treatment outcomes in Michigan.
“Leonard’s leadership was a wonderful example of how to facilitate the delivery of mental health services for so many people throughout Michigan. He will be sorely missed,” said Board Chairman, the Honorable Freddie G. Burton, Jr.
Over the years, Leonard served and assisted many nonprofit and philanthropic organizations including the Council of Michigan Foundations as Trustee and Chair, Michigan’s Children as Founding Trustee and Officer, Youth Sports and Recreation Commission of Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park, as Founding Commissioner and Officer, the Grosse Pointe Park Foundation as founding Trustee and President, the Schools of the 21st Century Corporation as Founding Board Member and Officer, the City of Detroit as member of the Youth Commission, Wayne State University Skillman Center for Children as Executive Committee member, New Detroit, Inc. as Trustee and Youth and Education Committee member. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Communities in Schools, the Community Leadership Council of United Way Community Services and the Investment Committee of the Wayne State University Foundation.
A remembrance reception will be held for Leonard Smith on Saturday, February 17, 2024 from 4:00pm to 6:00pm at the Country Club of Detroit, 220 Country Club Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI.
Donations may be made to the East Side Youth Sports Foundation (formerly Grosse Pointe Hockey Association), the Thompson L. Smith Book Fund at the Taft School, or a charity of your choice.
East Side Youth Sports Foundation
4831 Canyon Street
Detroit, MI 48236
The Thompson L. Smith Book Fund
The Taft School
110 Woodbury Road Watertown, CT 06795-2100
Kevin Fischer says finding the National Alliance on Mental Illness was “lifesaving” at a time he was struggling with grief and guilt after losing his son, Dominique, to suicide in 2010. He joined NAMI as a volunteer in 2011 and became executive director of NAMI Michigan in 2014.
“I love NAMI. I would not be here if I didn’t feel as strongly as I do,” Fischer says.
At a time when he felt anger over not being the “protector and provider,” he says NAMI helped him understand that he couldn’t know or predict everything — and that Dominique’s mental health challenges were beyond his control.
“So there’s a great sense of lived experience, understanding and awareness at NAMI. NAMI’s strength is our lived experience,” he says. The organization focuses on advocacy, education, support and awareness — and more than 75% of members have lived experience.
The benefits of this “four-pronged stool” come at no cost to individuals. While NAMI does not provide behavioral health care, it does serve as an access point to connecting people to these resources.
Like many nonprofit organizations in the mental health space, what NAMI needs more of is funding, says Fischer.
NAMI’s organizational structure is unique. There is a national office and state offices. In Michigan, there are 15 affiliates, each of which is independent with its own fiscal responsibility.
“We’re not federally funded. We don’t have a big bag of money. So funding is an issue,” Fischer explains. So, whenever NAMI can support an individual, and that individual recognizes the value of giving back and stays to support the organization, that’s a desired result.
“We need more people to do that,” he says.
During Mental Health Awareness Month each May, Fischer says he gets requests from organizations to present and he always encourages participants to volunteer. “I’m not asking for money and sponsorships, I’m asking you to encourage your employees to join. Volunteer an hour a month. It’s not a big ask,” he says.
Every local affiliate can use the skills people are willing to volunteer — even young people with social media and computer skills.
“Our leadership at NAMI is aging out because we’re not getting enough new people in. And, I can tell you communities would miss NAMI if it wasn’t there. They really will. So my biggest ask is how can you support NAMI? Join. Volunteer.”
The organization’s largest fundraising event is the NAMI Walk, which is important because each affiliate retains 90% of the money raised, more than the typical nonprofit, Fischer says.
“For many affiliates, it’s the largest fundraiser they may have each year. Fundraising is significant. You can’t keep providing no cost programs and community, because there’s always a cost. It’s not free, but it’s no cost to the participants,” he explains.
But even above fundraising, Fischer encourages people to volunteer and help keep NAMI open and available to help people in the community.
NAMI’s strength is rooted in its grassroots advocacy. What differentiates it from other behavioral health advocacy organizations is the lived experiences within. “We are embedded and invested in the communities because they are our communities,” Fischer says. He adds that he personally recognizes the value of NAMI and he wants to give back.
“I tell people I want to be the resource that I didn’t have or wasn’t aware of when I was dealing with my son’s mental health challenges,” he says. “So that separates us, I think, from everybody else that’s out there, is that lived experience and grass roots.”
Fischer speaks from personal experience when he highlights another benefit of NAMI: the deep education that’s available for families who want to learn more about what their loved one is experiencing. And this is especially valuable to families of young adults who are diagnosed with a mental health challenge.
“We are a great complement to your behavioral health care providers, your social workers, because we live in a world now where there’s this big mysterious thing called HIPPA out there,” he says. When health care providers are prevented from disclosing personal information to family members, concerned parents feel helpless in the face of their adult child’s mental illness — not to mention the landscape of the behavioral health care world.
Fischer advocates for providers referring family members to NAMI so they can learn what the diagnosis means — because education can help “lower the temperature in your house where it’s not so combative.”
When a loved one hears teams like anxiety, bipolar I, bipolar II or schizophrenia but don’t know exactly what they mean, they wonder how they can be a better caregiver for everyone involved, including themselves.
“I had no idea until I found myself in that role and I look back and say how could I have been a better caregiver and how could I have taken better care of myself so I could be better prepared for him? NAMI gives you that through education and support,” says Fischer, adding that evidence-based programs and lived experiences can help you navigate.
Kevin Fischer serves as executive director of NAMI Michigan. He encourages everyone to join their local NAMI affiliate and volunteer their time. Learn more about NAMI at namimi.org.
In July 2022, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan (BGCSM) launched a new program in partnership with Wayne State University’s Department of Psychology called Mentally Fit. Embedded into BGCSM programming at all four locations, Mentally Fit provides real-time behavioral health support, social-emotional learning and personal development provided by a 13-person team from Wayne State that includes doctoral and social work students.
Mentally Fit also offers individual, group and family therapy, plus staff support and consultations and psychological testing. “The Flinn Foundation helped us launch our psychological testing programming and we are currently applying to become an autism specialty center so we can test for autism and do evaluations,” says BGCSM’s Executive Director of Behavioral Health Tiffany Abrego, Ph.D.
Mentally Fit is part of the broader BEST (behavioral health, edutainment, sports, talent and innovation) model, which focuses on providing a well-rounded experience for club members. The club implements this model across all its locations, ensuring that every child has daily access to social and emotional learning opportunities.
One innovative aspect of the program is its focus on addressing toxic sports culture. By incorporating affirmations, goal-setting and positive reinforcement with coaches, parents and children team members aim to promote sportsmanship and reduce the “win-at-all-costs” mentality often associated with youth sports, Abrego says.
BGCSM recently received a grant from the Boys and Girls Club of America to support teen internships who will help expand the program’s reach through group activities and by participating in social justice projects. “We don’t want to just be providing services here,” says Abrego. “We want to be able to make systemic changes in the city of Detroit. That is our big goal, to be embedded in every single thing we do, so that the terminology and mental health is an ongoing, open discussion.”
Abrego says she and her colleagues are seeing real change when kids — particularly boys — embrace mental health support and seek out therapists to talk with. The program also actively addresses cultural stigmas, particularly among Black and Hispanic/Latino boys, where expressing vulnerability is often viewed as a sign of weakness. BGCSM aims to create a safe space where boys can build relationships with trusted adults and engage in therapy without judgment.
At BGCSM, kids are also learning about social media. “We’re starting to engage the kids in education on things like critical algorithmic literacy and the ways that algorithms target kids so that certain ads show up so they’re getting certain messages from the media,” Abrego says. They’re also talking about social media aggression. “It’s becoming this place that can be very toxic, and we want to make sure that we’re addressing those issues.”
By being present and available to talk with kids about what they’re seeing online, the behavioral health team offers a safe, judgment-free space individually and in groups. “A lot of the kids are struggling with the same things so we just want to offer open communication,” she says, adding that this is a healthier alternative to internalizing messages as truth.
By the end of 2023, Mentally Fit had served 731 kids. In just the first two months of 2024, the program served 431 kids, showing exponential growth. By taking part in all of the programming kids can experience at BGCSM, the team reduces stigma and barriers to support and normalizes discussions around mental health issues.
“We’re able to really interact with the kids. We’re not just like this elite mental health team off to the side that comes in and saves the day. We’re staff. We go to programming. We serve food. We are there when there are accidents, for Band-Aids. We’re there in the day-to-day,” Abrego says.
Because they’re working alongside other staff at BGCSM, there’s organizational benefit because the Mentally Fit team models mental health support and provides self-care help when any staff member just needs a break — especially in the dedicated on-site rooms that anyone in the organization can access as a safe space.
“We’re able to help with behavior management and model that for the staff so they do learn positive reinforcement and we definitely have seen a change,” Abrego says. “And the staff, too, appreciate us coming through when we do conflict resolution with the staff and in front of the staff. We’re also working on training some of the staff members to be behavioral health advocates so that they can help run our programming as well, even if the behavioral health team isn’t there.”
A further program in partnership with a trauma team from St. John’s University allows the Wayne State behavioral health team to learn coping skill techniques — which they, in turn, can teach other staff throughout the organization.
For such a young program that is expanding quickly, Abrego says the key to success is how the behavioral health team is embedded — and how it works to build lifelong skills for strong mental health through adulthood.
“We’re not just looking at an afterschool program where we help with homework and play. This is a building of character. It’s a building of how to function and become an adult. We’re giving skills that will translate through adulthood. We’re addressing emotional competence,” she says.
Preliminary findings show improvements among the kids in conflict resolution, expressing emotions, managing emotions and using coping skills. And, Abrego says, the team is working to support families and further break down stigma.
“One area we really want to expand on is working with parents. I think we have so much generational trauma that has occurred through families and our parents are stressed to the max,” she says. “A lot of them work multiple jobs, have community violence, domestic violence, a lot of stressors.” While parents may still worry about what they share with Abrego’s team, there is confidentiality in place and never judgment on parenting or cultural practices.
“Each family has their own special ways of interacting, and that is totally fine with us. We are not here to tell you how to parent. We are here to help you in whatever ways you find useful. And we really want to do that,” she says. “We just want to help.”
Learn more about Mentally Fit at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan. Visit bgcsm.org.
Charita Cole Brown was in college when she received her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and even then, she knew that to live well, she would need a plan.
After accepting her diagnosis, she engaged in therapy for two and one-half years. During that time, she took agency over her illness. With therapeutic support, she devised a wellness plan that she relies on to help her defy the verdict of her bipolar diagnosis and live a strong, meaningful life.
“One of the things that is different from some others I know with mental health diagnoses is that I am not waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop,” says Brown. “I don’t live like that because I follow my wellness plan.”
In her wellness plan, Brown prioritizes habits we all need for great mental and physical health. And she has added some personal must-haves, too. When she needs to make a change or add a priority, she adjusts her plan to accommodate that need.
“I have been living well for 30 years,” she says. Apart from one little “blip” involving surgery and too much anesthesia which conflicted with her medical therapy for bipolar disease, Brown says her wellness plan has remained something she can rely on to live her best life.
Here, she shares what works for her.
Sleep. “I sleep well. The most important thing to do is get sleep when you have a mental health challenge. Your brain needs to rest,” says Brown.
Good nutrition. Brown eats well. She even consults with a nutritionist to make sure she’s getting all the nutrients her mind and her body need.
Medication. “I have a psychiatrist because I can’t prescribe my own medication,” she says. “I take my medication.”
Pause and breathe. These are two interrelated things Brown assures people everyone can do. “Take deep, cleansing breaths, not shallow chest breathing. It calms your system,” she says.
Meditate. “My faith determines who I am,” Brown says. “I meditate on scriptures. I will choose and repeat a scripture that applies to my situation until it floods my heart and my mind.”
Accountability partners. “An accountability partner is someone who walks alongside you and watches with you for symptoms as you manage your illness. Everyone can benefit from someone coming alongside them to make sure they are OK,” she says. Brown’s original accountability partner was her sister Valerie. “Valerie was my chief accountability partner until May 2020 when she died suddenly from a stroke. The day after she died, I felt in my spirit that I would live by the lessons she taught me and I would be fine.” Those Brown knows who are living well with mental health challenges have at least one person who supports them emotionally.
Boundaries. This is a relatively recent part of Brown’s wellness plan, added after she read the book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend in 2019, she says. Surrounding her, she imagines a fence with a gate and she decides who comes in and who goes out. “If I need you to go out, I can send you out through the gate. If I want you to stay, you can stay,” she says, adding that this helps her understand that she is in charge of her life — and that the word ‘No’ is a complete sentence. “It’s so empowering,” she says.
Learning your triggers. “If you have a mental health challenge, you have to watch your stressors. It’s sometimes difficult, yet doable. You can walk away. You have to learn to prioritize yourself. As my sister Valerie would say, ‘You can’t control anyone but yourself.’” According to Brown, Val also lived by the adages, “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” and “I don’t have a nickel in that quarter.”
Faith. “I’m a Christian and my faith in God is the reason I am living as well as I am,” says Brown. “Many people that I have met who are managing mental health challenges well, have confessed a belief in God. Not in a denomination, but in God. That’s quite interesting to me.”
Brown admits that not everyone with mental health challenges is living at the level she is. She presents life as not up and down, but circular. “We’re all at different points around the circle,” she says. She credits her ability to survive her sister’s death — and the death of her husband very early in their marriage — to the fact that she was living with a wellness plan.
Learn more about Charita Cole Brown and purchase her book, Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life at chartiacolebrown.com. Read the first article in this series about Charita Cole Brown on the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation website.
Charita Cole Brown does not defy the diagnosis of bipolar disorder she received in her early 20s. But she does defy the verdict of how this serious mental illness (SMI) diagnosis could impact her life.
“I have a severe mental illness diagnosis. And I am living my best life. I want people to have hope and to understand they can live well,” says Brown, who serves as a board member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in Maryland.
In her memoir, Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life (Curbside Splendor Publishing, June 2018), Brown chronicles her experiences with bipolar disorder. She received her diagnosis in 1980 and experienced psychotic episodes in 1982 during her final semester at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She wrote the book decades later in 2015 and it was published in 2018. Brown graduated from Wesleyan with a bachelor’s degree in English and went on to earn a master’s in early childhood education from Towson University in Maryland.
“For me (writing the book) was coming out and sharing my story,” she says, adding that many people live well with a bipolar diagnosis but tend to be among the “silently successful,” keeping quiet because of stigma. The phrase was coined by Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medicine and author of several books, including An Unquiet Mind.
“Media coverage leads us to believe that people with mental health challenges are shooting up theaters and other venues. Many of these shooters are dealing with unexpressed anger. They do not have mental health challenges. People with mental health challenges are more likely to be victims than predators. This is one reason why it’s important for those living with mental illness diagnoses to tell our stories,” Brown says.
Brown tells her story for everyone, but mostly for college students and people of color. According to NAMI, the average onset age for bipolar disorder is 25, but it may occur earlier, which can be especially troubling for college students. because suicide is the second leading cause of death in this age group. Research estimates that between 25-60% of individuals with bipolar disorder will attempt suicide at least once during their lives.
Especially troubling is the fact that Black youth ages 5-12 are two times as likely to die by suicide as their white peers. These statistics have skyrocketed since the pandemic. “This is something serious that we have to look at in our communities and with our kids,” she says.
Brown is very clear that suicide was never an option for her because she carried with her the anti-suicide messages of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, where she attended elementary school. “What you teach children when they are young will live with them. Because I believe life is precious, that’s the message that I share. If today is a bad day, let’s live to see what tomorrow is going to be,” she says.
To help guard against suicide, Brown says we have an imperative to create spaces where people can feel safe — in their own skin and their own lives.
“Two women I know, T-Kea Blackman and Jordan Scott, helm a non-profit called Black People Die By Suicide Too and they’re doing wonderful, necessary work in the black community,” she says, adding that one of the founders, T-Kea Blackman, who has degrees from Howard and Georgetown, survived her suicide attempt and now advocates for awareness. “As successful college graduates, we can experience suicidal ideation,” says Brown.
Brown shares her lived experience of stigma from family members, from her husband’s family, even her beloved college faith community. But are we in a better place now than in the 1980s?
“I do not think we are. There is still a lot of societal stigma. And for me, there was a lot of self-shaming. Why didn’t I talk about it for 25 years? I didn’t want anyone to know,” she says.
As a society, we are still not at the point where most of us would feel comfortable sharing our diagnoses when we introduce ourselves. “We might be doing a little better. I don’t think it’s good enough,” she adds.
As individuals, we can decide how much we wish to disclose and to whom. “You don’t have to tell anyone at your job that you have a mental health challenge, just like you don’t have to tell them you have diabetes. It’s an illness,” says Brown.
In her book, Brown publishes her actual written diagnoses from her hospitalizations to point out the fact that even in the 1980s, it was a belief among physicians that “Black people were not smart enough or creative enough to have bipolar disorder,” she says. “African-American people whose symptoms aligned with a bipolar diagnosis would be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia.”
Brown is aware that bias exists in the medical community — and bias can impact the way individuals with mental health conditions are diagnosed and treated, even today.
So, when she launched her book, Brown stood alongside Dr. Karen Swartz of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Clinic, who champions culturally sensitive approaches and teaches residents to be intentional in their understanding of how different cultures respond to matters related to mental health.
“Doctors create diagnoses based on observation as well as what clients share and compare this information to criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). People can be misdiagnosed and I believe physician bias still contributes to misdiagnosis,” says Brown.
In her role with NAMI, Brown shares her story about living with bipolar disorder as a Black woman to illustrate the expectations placed on Black women to “just keep going, no matter what.” She wants to see that change.
“We need to create a culture, i.e. how we do things around here, in which it’s OK not to be OK. When necessary, a person should be able to say, ‘I am not OK today,’ and then receive the necessary support.”
Learn more about Charita Cole Brown and purchase her book, Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life at chartiacolebrown.com.
Calvin Mann was working in a Ferndale, Michigan, child care center in 1992 when he recognized a stark truth: broadly speaking, boys are removed from education, even at the preschool level. Worse yet, the disparity between Black boys and their white counterparts is notable.
According to research from 2020, Black children are four times more likely than white children to be suspended or expelled from school by age 9 — and, by the same age, 37% of Black boys report having been suspended or expelled, compared to 10% of white boys.
Surrounded by young children, Mann realized the importance of parenting — fathering, particularly — for a child’s positive outcome. He created a goal to support the father-son dynamic through his nonprofit called Encourage Me, I’m Young (EMIY).
From a strong mental health perspective, Mann, who serves as president and founder of EMIY, says boys benefit from a father’s active presence. “Boys who don’t have their father to participate in the early process, cognitively, are impacted,” he says. “The daughter is too, but the boy is impacted more when he has no example in his home.”
Simply put, “society does not take care of its males,” Mann asserts. “If we’re not gladiators or sports athletes or inventors, just being an ordinary man is difficult, and boys see this. This is why, in my opinion, the ages of 5-11 being a suicidal issue for boys is a parenting issue.”
The “average male,” says Mann, feels as if the world no longer accepts them for who they are. Worse still, “our society tells black males that they’re solely responsible for murder in America. And that’s not true. The statistics show otherwise, but we don’t talk about that.” From news media to cop shows, the message is criminals are Black.
From a very young age, Black boys and their sense of self are shaped by these messages, to the point that many 15-year-olds don’t expect to still be alive by age 18, says Mann.
Through EMIY, Mann works to help boys see themselves as future men — who become husbands and then fathers — and recognize their value to their sons. “That’s why the boy in our work is so important,” he says. “To get the parents to 98% involvement and the understanding that there are things you have to do. You can’t get in the way of a boy becoming a man. You want him to be healthy, but you want him to have character and responsibility.”
EMIY also focuses on fathers who are not able to see their sons and are suffering as a result. “They can come and we can put them in a mentoring situation and watch them. Another kid who is not getting fathering can get fathering from them. It will help them and in turn, they have a better approach for how to deal with their children. That’s why we target fathers in our mentoring program,” he says.
These fathers participate in the EMIY Future Leaders Program, a 14-week, 28-session peer mentoring program for boys ages 8-13 that focuses on character pillars, financial literacy and respect. The boys also learn and actively practice mental health-supporting activities like mindful breathing.
“The breathing circles have turned these young men into peace. In all these years, I’ve never had a fight in my program,” Mann says, adding that what could be hostility is instead “I’m sorry,” and “Excuse me.” Directly after their breathing circle, the young men talk about their week — starting with good news. “When good news is the first thing, it teaches you cognitively to train your mind to let positive thoughts be your first thoughts.”
Parents, too, have a responsibility for the full support of the EMIY programs. A recent move toward a small participation fee ensures that all family members have buy-in. “So now, when you have to invest a little money and when you come into our mentor program, you’re signing up to do exactly what we ask you to do as a parent,” he says. This includes at-home evaluations so parents can see the change in the household dynamic.
“By the end of the program, our young men are speaking, talking, saying excuse me. They’re acting out the pillars,” he says, offering a recent example where the participants were challenged on one particular day to be as kind as possible. “Your job is to go to school, make sure you say good morning to your teacher, greet them nice and loud, and offer to help. And all I wanted was feedback from the reactions to their kindness.”
In 2024, EMIY will launch Reading IS Life, a literacy program for boys ages 3-7, which is part of a larger program called Boy Steps.
When young men come to EMIY but don’t have a participating father, Mann steps up. “I’ve surrogate parented hundreds of boys over the 39 years. I got them. We’re going to put them in the right thriving situations,” he says, adding that in 39 years, none of the boys has gone to jail and none has died by suicide. “From the mental health aspects, our boys are thriving.”
“We are now at a growth point in our work where we need more people. We need more funding. We need more resources. But we need more people to buy into family restoration through the boy,” Mann says.
From EMIY’s annual Respect Day to a fundraiser pancake breakfast, to the Smash Suicide Campaign, there are many ways people can participate and help improve the lives of Black boys and help fathers reach their fullest potential.
Learn more about all of the programs EMIY supports by visiting emiyworld.com.
In his 38-year career as a journalist with the Detroit Free Press, Jack Kresnak devoted two decades to reporting on issues impacting children. His focus included “juvenile justice, child maltreatment and the mental and physical health” of children, according to his bio.
Kresnak’s efforts did not go unnoticed. Before he retired from his journalism role, he was honored by the Michigan Supreme Court for the many reforms his work inspired. It was the first time the high court honored a journalist, and the resolution was unanimous.
During even a short conversation with Kresnak, he can reveal very specific details from the work he did researching and reporting issues related to young people and juvenile justice. The stories he wrote brought about systemic change.
“Beginning in January 1988, I raised my hand to cover juvenile court and it lasted 20 years. I knew nothing when I started. Juvenile court is completely different from criminal court and I learned as I went,” Kresnak says, adding that he worked hard to gain the trust of those who are typically suspicious of reporters.
“I was telling stories that were interesting and important and changed how things worked. It was clear what was not working well,” he says.
For context, this was the late 1980s and 1990s, when the system was overloaded with issues related to “crack cocaine and superpredators,” and kids were getting caught up. As a result, youth who got in trouble were sent to facilities as far-flung as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Iowa. Visits to some of these facilities with Wayne County’s Juvenile Court Judge Patricia Campbell helped Kresnak report on where these kids were being sent.
Wayne County, responsible for more than half of the state’s juvenile delinquents, decided to create a system to provide a more efficient and cost-effective way to reform kids who commit crimes or status offenses (things like not going to school or running away from home). Using an innovative computer program, the needs of each child and their parent are quickly determined and a network of private agencies are held accountable for outcomes. “It was a unique and accurate effort to determine a child’s needs,” Kresnak said. Populations of detention centers and training schools dropped dramatically, and juvenile crime decreased.
“There were so many mental health needs out there for children and for this system to succeed, it really needed to get through to the mental health issues,” he says. “Much of it was immaturity, but also trauma and how it impacts children.”
Kresnak continued reporting and sharing stories to shine a light on the needs of Detroit area families. He draws connections between “horrific” crimes kids were committing and the practice of designating children wards of the court because of abuse and neglect. He says it’s regrettable that no matter how much he reported on the horrible abuse a kid suffered as an infant or toddler, “it didn’t matter to legislature. They just put them in prison instead of getting help,” he says.
Inspired by Kresnak’s work, Detroit Free Press publisher Neal Shine in 1993 created a Children First campaign highlighting stories to, as Shine put it, “to get in the game” to improve the lives of Michigan children. One result came the following year when the state created the Office of Children’s Ombudsman empowered to review the confidential records of cases of maltreatment of children involved with Child Protective Services, foster care and adoption. “I got tons of calls for people to look into system failures and there was no way I could look into all of them. Now, I had a place to refer people to.”
The powers of the ombudsman were strengthened through “Ariana’s Law,” as a result of Kresnak’s series on the abuse and murder of 2-year-old Ariana Swinson. Political news of the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election threatened to overshadow the local story of a little girl removed from the custody of an aunt to be returned to her parents “despite their clear lack of abilities and drinking.” Still, the story remained on the paper’s front page each day.
Many articles, fellowships and many, many awards later, Kresnak retired from the Detroit Free Press in 2008 and served as president and CEO of Michigan’s Children, a nonprofit advocacy organization, until 2012.
During his years as a journalist, Kresnak reported on the work of the Skillman Foundation and particularly Leonard Smith, who was instrumental in establishing the foundation along with Rose Skillman in 1960 with a mission to transform K-12 education in Detroit.
Smith went on to lead the Flinn Foundation, working closely with current president and CEO Andrea Cole, who reached out to Kresnak to write about children’s mental health. Sadly, Smith died on January 21, 2024, at age 89.
Seeking his media expertise and judgment, the Flinn Foundation board members asked Kresnak to join the board as a Trustee. “They trusted my abilities and knowledge about the systems that deal with children. They thought I could bring a new voice,” he says. “I was thrilled. I love being on the board. It’s gratifying in a lot of ways and I look forward to continuing.”
As a small foundation, Kresnak says Flinn’s value is in enlisting partners to make effective change in the systems of the state and develop models that can be adopted nationally.
“Andrea is smart and engages with people in Michigan and around the country,” he says, adding that Obamacare helped lift mental health services into regular health care, “as it should be for everyone.”
Kresnak says he hopes through additional grantmaking, the Flinn Foundation can expand financial support to programs in broader geographic areas of southeast Michigan.
He also looks forward to helping Flinn pursue additional work in two areas: first, in the criminal justice system to appropriately treat those with mental health issues. “We’re working to grease the wheels to make sure not to incarcerate those who need treatment, because the issues just get worse, for children and adults,” he says.
Second, Kresnak looks forward to continued work with small agencies to support alternatives to homelessness, especially among veterans. “The whole system could use more public funding to improve access for those suffering, and there is a lot of suffering going on,” he says.
Kresnak wants everyone, particularly those who need access to mental health support, to know that the Flinn Foundation is there, fighting to make sure access exists.
“We are making sure as best as we can as a small funder to make sure the services you do get are appropriate and evidence-based and work to help people get through emotional traumas or mental illness,” he says. “We working to make systems better so that more and more people can get the help they need.”
In addition to his work with the Flinn Foundation, Jack Kresnak continues to write on a freelance basis. His first book, Hope for the City: A Catholic priest, a suburban housewife and their desperate effort to save Detroit, was published in 2015. Jack and his wife Diane have three children and five grandchildren.
When parents, grandparents and caregivers need information and support to solve problems or better understand something happening within their family, they could spend hours searching the internet — with results that may not be reliable or trustworthy, and certainly not customized to their specific needs.
Fortunately, The Family Center exists to help. With a vision to be “the first source for building connected, resilient families who thrive at every stage,” The Family Center links people to programs and resources that are important to them. This includes resources to help families improve and maintain family relationships and parenting skills — plus important mental health-related topics, including mental well-being, trauma and grief and substance misuse prevention.
The Family Center has seven school system partnerships, the support of more than 90 community partners and more than 100 programs and events available to 62,000 residents in Grosse Pointe and Harper Woods communities, with attendance topping 9,000. And, programs are free to attend and often hosted in community organizations that are convenient and welcoming.
“Our mission is to help build happier, healthier families. While we primarily serve the Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods, because we are not a physical center, our reach is far greater. Our resources are available for anyone, anywhere, 24/7,” says Executive Director Jennifer Bingaman. “We continuously seek to understand and support the diverse and emerging needs of our community by proactive empowerment, excellence in programming, building family skills and resilience, and promoting physical and mental health.”
When individual families need specific services, The Family Center can connect them to their Association of Professionals — a group of carefully selected providers, nonprofit organizations, local businesses and other supports.
The Family Center recently launched a new, enhanced website that provides curated information that families can trust. With expertise in the areas of crisis and emergency, special needs, recovery, family dynamics, housing and food support and other community resources, the website offers well-rounded and comprehensive information. An extensive “ask the experts” link offers additional advice from experts in the mental, physical and even legal fields.
“We believe that being curious and learning — about topics that are important to your family — are acts of love and hope,” explains Bingaman. “And, we support families of all kinds: biological or chosen, child-centered or adult-focused.”
The Family Center also leads the Healthy Grosse Pointe & Harper Woods Coalition, a collaborative effort between youth, parents, businesses, the media, schools, youth-serving organizations, law enforcement, religious and fraternal organizations, civic and volunteer groups, health care professionals and state and local agencies. The Coalition is focused on improving mental well-being in the community and to understanding and reducing substance misuse.
The Coalition and The Family Center also partner with local school districts and Kevin’s Song, a charitable organization dedicated to empowering communities to prevent suicide and offer healing to survivors, to coordinate an annual suicide prevention walk and mental health fair. In 2024, the 8th annual event will be held on May 11.
As coordinator of the Special Needs Resource Alliance, The Family Center gathers nonprofits, school systems and service providers to support individuals and families with special needs in southeast Michigan. Goals for the Alliance include raising awareness and developing social and educational opportunities for individuals and families. The Alliance’s second annual Special Needs Resource Fair was held in February 2024.
The Family Center also works with seven local school systems to provide 30 in-school programs to promote healthy coping skills and substance use prevention, plus a variety of custom topics for parents, families, students and teachers.
Preschool Playtime provides weekly social and learning opportunities for toddlers and families to combat isolation and pandemic-related developmental delays.
In response to the shooting on the campus of Michigan State University, The Family Center mobilized a crisis response by coordinating community grief centers staffed by local therapists. The Family Center also worked with CNS Healthcare to establish a hotline for those affected, as well as counseling resources to the Grosse Pointe Public School System and Grosse Pointe News.
The Family Center has hosted two wellness-focused book clubs with a panel of local therapists to discuss two selected titles.
And, since taking over leadership of the Coalition, The Family Center has:
Learn more about all the resources and initiatives of the Family Center. Visit their new website at FamilyCenterHelps.org.
