Brad Smith, a youth worker at Rumford Group Homes in Rumford, Maine, is the first winner in a new series we're calling "NEN's Best of Child & Youth Care Awards." Smith was nominated by his supervisors, and has the strong support of his peers. Award-winners receive public recognition, a 50% discount to one NEN event during the year in which they are nominated, and a professional development opportunity with NEN. Nominations are accepted any time, and will be presented in the order they are received. To learn about the awards program, or to nominate a youth or child care worker from your agency, click here.

Brad Smith has never told his colleagues about his past. In a way, he doesn’t need to. He brings it to work every day.

Smith, who works with boys ages 13 through 18 at Rumford Group Home’s Transition House, has many strengths: he is a skilled advocate for youth in team meetings; takes every opportunity to teach youth new skills; facilitates anger management and independent living skills groups; trains new staff members; and is highly committed to his management team and Rumford co-workers.

All good things, to be sure. And what makes them possible is his overriding passion for the job. In large part, that passion grows out of his childhood involvement with the system he now works in. Smith spent his early years in rural Maine, where he lived with his mother and siblings while his father was away fighting in Vietnam. When he was 6 years old, his mother suffered a cerebral aneurism that left her disabled and unable to care for her children. Smith was sent to a residential facility in Dover, NH. For several years he moved between foster care and group homes. His experiences as a child in the system shaped his personal values and directed his career.

As an adult, Smith returned to rural Maine, where, at the prompting of a friend, he applied for a job at Rumford Group Homes. That was in 1997. He has worked at Transition House for seven years, the longest of any current staff. For a model, he has turned to his memories of Chris, a youth worker who was important to him when he himself was in the system.

Smith, who is 38, is quick to say that he “had a lot of really good staff people who taught me everything I needed to know.” But Chris was special. Chris took Smith bowling with a league every week for three years. It was a chance to succeed at something new, and Smith did: he consistently earned the most improved player award and, when he was 13, his team won the league championship. It didn’t matter that by this time, Smith had been transferred to the care of a different agency. Chris continued to pick up Smith for bowling, and – more than that – to check in with him in all the ways that mattered. It was a long-term relationship in a temporary-feeling sort of life.

Today, Smith follows Chris’ example. He gets to know the youth he works with. From the very beginning he notes the boys’ interests and makes sure to strike up conversations about them later on. Smith believes in the power of the therapeutic relationship. It is important to “go where they are because sometimes they can’t meet in the middle,” he says. “The core thought process is not about a job, but about caring for kids.” Smith doesn’t hesitate to remind his co-workers about what they’re really trying to achieve with their clients. It’s a quality that his supervisors admire.

Though he cares deeply for the boys in his program, he knows “you can’t do it for them, you can’t make them do it.” Unlike less-experienced youth workers, he accepts that young people have choices, and if they don’t make the right ones, it’s not a reflection on him. His goal is to help the young men he works with become motivated and self-sufficient, and that can happen only when they raise their own opinion of themselves. “If you increase their self-esteem, the rest of the stuff comes along,” he says. “At the core is the desire to be welcomed and wanted by others. To meet this need is so important for these kids’ development.”

Of all the qualities that make a good youth worker, Smith says the two most important are patience and vulnerability. Sometimes that means being willing to say to youth: “I’ve made a mistake, I’ll do better.” It’s about being a role model; being willing to do anything you expect youth to do, including apologizing. “I’m not above anything I want them to do,” he says.

It’s also critical to keep developing professionally: “I don’t consider myself employee of the year,” he says. “I’m always trying to do better.” He continues to attend trainings, and also helps to train new youthworkers. He’s a member of Rumford’s Continuous Quality Improvement Training sub-committee, which works to maintain a high quality of care.

After all these years caring for young people, he’s learned to take care of himself, too. Vacations are for re-energizing. “People can’t treat others any better than they treat themselves,” he says. And he pursues his own spiritual path. He has studied the Kabbalah for 20 years, where the emphasis, he says, is on giving and putting others first. Somehow, that’s not surprising.