Pam Darnall has worked with Family & Children’s Place since 1994 and is the president and CEO. She was named president and CEO in January 2014, and she is in charge of the organization’s general direction, leadership, and coordination.
FCP has been assisting children and families in our community for 139 years, dating back to 1883, when the agency assisted homeless children in finding a secure and caring home. Today, all of our services contribute to making our community a better place for everyone.
Below are highlights of the interview:
Tell us about yourself and your story before joining Family & Children’s Place.
I grew up with parents who never completed high school and who worked minimum wage jobs their entire lives, and even though they did their very best and loved my sister and me, there were times we did not have all we needed. I put myself through college and relocated to Louisville in 1985; worked full time with the state as a Child Protective Services Social Worker; and earned a Master’s degree by attending graduate school at night at Spalding University. After 10 years with the state, I joined Family Place, a small nonprofit, to lead one of the 3 services. I eventually became the Executive Director in 2001. After a few years, I got to know a colleague, Dan Fox, who was also the Executive Director of a nonprofit, Family & Children First. By 2007, Dan and I had begun working on how we could merge both agencies, and in 2008 we officially merged to create Family & Children’s Place. The merger plan also included the succession plan for the transition of Dan’s retirement in 2013, at which time I transitioned from the COO to the CEO.
Tell us more about the company.
We provide best-in-class services, some of which are only provided by FCP. We work with families in their homes, helping them realize their own strengths, to ensure their children are safe, happy, and healthy and have every opportunity to thrive. This includes providing Head Start/Early Head Start in homes and in childcare centers, as we believe every child should have every opportunity for the best early learning possible, despite where they live or the lack of resources in their family. Our mental health services assist children and families hurt by child abuse, family violence, or trauma to help them have the hope and healing they need and deserve. Our Child Advocacy Center services help children and young people hurt by sexual abuse and human trafficking, and provide services specifically designed to meet their needs. This includes partnerships with our local law enforcement, the prosecuting attorney, special medical services, and the state authority responsible for investigating all child abuse cases. We help children and youth in out-of-school programs to learn to make good choices in life, to understand how to manage conflict without violence, and to help them succeed in school and in life.
What are your responsibilities as the president of the company?
As the CEO, I am responsible for assuring all operations continue, including all services /programs, financial functions, IT, facilities, HR, and the critical fund raising for our budget of $9.8 million. In addition, I am responsible for working collaboratively with our Board of Directors, who are the governing body that is responsible for governance, overseeing the policies and strategies of the agency to fulfil our mission.
How do you ensure that your organization has a culture of integrity and innovation?
I meet with every new employee to get to know them a bit and to share some key components of our collaborative leadership across the agency. In this meeting, I explain that I would never ask a staff member to do something I am not willing to do, or have not done in the past, and I share my experience that has helped prepare me to lead FCP. I also share how our senior leadership works together to make decisions for the agency and that the senior leadership team and I get significant input from various sources to help inform the decision process. Decision-making begins first with understanding the impact on people—our staff, the people we serve, our board and our entire community. We adhere to excellence, but we are not perfect, nor do we pretend to be. I share the agency’s strategic plan with each new employee, so they understand our goals and our values. I will also share how FCP is focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the specific goals related to DEI in the strategic plan.
What have you failed at and how do you overcome challenges?
If we aren’t failing at anything, we aren’t taking risks, and some risks are worth taking even if they fail. Failures almost always include opportunities to rethink, try new ideas, and new strategies for success. Early in my career, after 10 years with child protective services, I entered a preliminary program of courses for law school, which was extremely competitive, and I missed the needed score to advance by 2 points. But that forced me to really reconsider my professional life and pushed me to take the risk of a new job managing a program at a nonprofit of which I knew nothing about. So that failure was the first step to a career in the nonprofit sector helping children & families in crisis, and that failure was necessary for me to become the CEO of Family & Children’s Place.
Kindly describe how you will specifically know what success looks like for you.
I think it is easy to “succeed” when there are no challenges. But real success, to me, is when the entire team, all staff, are working collaboratively together, addressing and managing the multiple stressors and challenges we face daily, focusing on what is best for the children and families we serve, and all commit to adhering to doing our very best every single day. This includes keeping diversity, equity, and inclusion front and center in all that we do, from staff and board of directors’ recruitment and retention to leadership opportunities, providing services for people served, and governance for the agency that are culturally competent. One of the greatest experiences is when a child and their family have progressed on their journey of healing and recovery and they transition away from needing our services—that is the ultimate success!
What advice would you give to the next generation of female leaders?
Seek advice from trusted female leaders; be yourself in everything you do; and never, ever apologize for doing a good job, being direct and assertive, and expecting what you’re worth.
What are your future plans to sustain the company’s and your success?
We are investing more in our employees across the agency, with a focus on those who work directly with children and families; one of our core values is that we recognize our employees as our most valuable asset, and we work hard to provide them with the tools they need to succeed.We are also being intentional about our diversity, equity, and inclusion at Family & Children’s Place and are developing specific action steps to achieve specific DEI-related goals in our agency strategic plan. We celebrate differences and welcome everyone and are working to make sure FCP is a valued workplace for all staff.
We continue to develop collaborative partnerships with our community to assure FCP has the resources needed to help the children and families who need our services.
Webite: familyandchildrensplace.org
