What was the impetus from working as a program director at a leading non-profit to establishing IAPW?
MT: Working for another non-profit opened my eyes to the lack of dialogue between the administrators & residents of various facilities (transitional housing, for instance). Often times, the dialogue occurs between administrators, whose focus tended to be the needs of the facility versus the needs of the individuals residing there. Meanwhile, adult residents focus on the day to day of getting by, getting on their feet, and understandably so. Therefore, this isn’t much dialogue with the children living in these facilities. So long as their immediate needs of food, shelter, and clothing were met, the administrators had done their job. I began to initiate a dialogue with the children by asking them to finish the sentence “In a perfect world…” The answers I received were amazing! There were such simple requests and desires that were not being met. One particular incident that resonated with me was when a 4-year-old boy told me that in a perfect world… he’d have a blue crayon. I couldn’t
