Jesse Gilliam

This month, KCYDN talks with Jesse Gilliam, Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound.

Tell me about your organization and specifically your program.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound is the largest mentoring organization in Washington State, serving over 2,000 children annually in King, Pierce, Kitsap, Jefferson and Clallam counties.  By matching children with adult mentors in one-to-one relationships, we transform the life of a child (a Little), transform the life of an adult (a Big) and together transform our schools, our neighborhoods and our communities for the better.

Our program is the Advocacy and Community Engagement program, where we do our advocacy and organizing work to create better communities for youth; recruit and outreach for volunteers and youth participants; and also run our special initiatives to support participation of Latino, LGBT, and Native American youth in our program.  We also work with our CHIPP (Children of Incarcerated Parents) program to support young people who have a loved one in state or federal prison.

Why is your program amazing? 

The people in our program make the program amazing.   It’s our job to work to provide the young people who come to the program with the best mentor possible and our staff, Board, and Initiative Advisory Committees (at present we have a Latino, Native, and LGBT Advisory Committee) work to make this a reality.   We work to create successful, long lasting matches that will truly serve to create positive opportunities for youth.

What is your favorite program resource? 

Honestly, it’s just listening to the young people that are in our program and working to change the program to create a program that works for everyone.  We have a match coordinator check in with the adult and young person in each match at least monthly and from that we receive valuable feedback on ideas for improving our program.  It’s been wonderful to have the opportunity to listen to the youth and families we serve and from there develop our program in the right ways.

What is the piece of advice that you have to help guide others who are implementing youth programs?

There is always work to be done so take care of yourself as you’re doing the work – setting boundaries for yourself is a great way to be more effective in the work you’re doing.

Why is connecting with other youth workers important to the work you do? 

Getting support from other folks running programs like mine, locally and nationally – who have more experience, different experience, and less experience than yours, has been so important to me.  It’s great to share stories and also a great form of self care to talk about how to create successful experiences, manage stress, and share ideas. Most importantly, it helps me find resources and programs that I can share with the youth at Big Brothers Big Sisters. 

See previous Youth Worker Spotlights here.