419 – Matt Shepherd of Emporia, KS, Owner of Midwest Evaluation & Research, Father Of Twins, One With Developmental Delays

Transcript:

Matt Shepard is president and CEO of Midwest Evaluation and Research

Matt Shepard: I used to joke that my daughter had the highest level of self confidence that was possible because how many times I had told her she was beautiful when she was growing up, that she definitely had to think that she was the most beautiful girl that ever walked the planet. Right. So even if that has diminished some, I think that built up, that level of self confidence and self worth.

David Hirsch: That’s our guest this week, Matt Shepard, president and CEO of Midwest Evaluation and Research, helping improve community based organizations, foundations and schools. Matt is married to Brend, and they have two adopted children, including one with developmental delays. We’ll hear about Matt’s work and his family on this special Father’s Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Dad to dad, you’re not on your own.

Matt Shepard: We walk this road together, heart and whole.

David Hirsch: Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast launching national tour in May

David Hirsch: Hi, I’m David Hirsch, host of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Two brief messages. First, I’m thrilled to announce our new book, Dads Raising Children with Special Needs and Disabilities. A Guide for 21st Century Dads is now available for pre order on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other sites. See the show notes for additional information and how to pre order. Second, the Special Fathers Network us tour, will be taking place from May 21st to June 21st, Father’s Day. The tour will start in Maui, then Anchorage, and then to Milwaukee and all around the US by RV to all 50 states. The purpose of the tour is to strengthen and grow the Special Fathers Network and to promote the new book. We’re still looking at confirmed venues for the tour and we can use your help for more information and see how you can help. Please see the show notes or simply go to 21st centurydads.org through every season, in every stride, great dads are present. 247365.

David Hirsch: Now let’s listen into this conversation between Matt Shepard and David Hirsch.

Matthew shepherd is the father of two adopted children with special needs

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Matthew shepherd of Emporia, Kansas, who is the owner of Midwest Evaluations and Research, an organization that, amongst other things, evaluates federal healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood programs. Matt is also the father of two adopted children, including one with developmental delays. Matt, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Matt Shepard: Well, thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to it.

David Hirsch: You and your wife Brenda have been married for 35 years and are the proud parents of two adopted children, Jeremy, 26, and Bonnie, 25, who has high emotional Intelligence as well as developmental delays. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Matt Shepard: I grew up in, Witchita, Kansas. I’m, the middle child of five. I have two older brothers and two younger sisters and both of my sisters were adopted and one is the, special needs herself.

David Hirsch: What type of special needs does she have?

Matt Shepard: An intellectual disability.

David Hirsch: Okay, so you had some early exposure to the world of disability.

Matt Shepard: That’s right.

David Hirsch: Being the big brother, if you will. Out of curiosity, what did your dad do for a living?

Matt Shepard: My dad was an aeronautical engineer. So he worked for Boeing and Cessna and the others in Wichita building planes.

David Hirsch: Did he fly planes at all?

Matt Shepard: He did not fly planes, no. Just. Just did the math.

David Hirsch: Okay. How would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Matt Shepard: I would say it was solid but complicated. I guess I would say parents got divorced when I was 13. My father passed away when I was 22. But I can never say that I liked him a lot, but he was very, a very driven man, a very hard working man. I learned a lot from him and I loved him a lot and I think we came to have a good understanding towards the end of his life. But it was a good relationship overall, I’d say.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, it’s probably a, whole other podcast interview if you want to take a deeper dive on that. That’s what I sense. And also, being the product of a divorce and being pretty complicated relationship with my dad, I can relate. You did mention that your dad was driven. He’s hardworking. So comes to mind is that he had a good work ethic. So that no doubt is perhaps where you got some of your strong work ethic. Any other important takeaways, lessons learned as it relates to your relationship with your dad?

Matt Shepard: well, in retrospect, as I’ve worked in the fatherhood field, I began to understand that, you know, what makes a difference in someone’s lives is the presence of a father. Right. And so I don’t think it is essential that people feel like if they’re failing is not something that I want. People, people shouldn’t worry about that. There’s no such thing. In Most cases, like 99% of the time, you, you can’t be a bad father in that your presence is counterproductive to the positive development of your child. And so all the research talks about the involvement of the father. They don’t say the involvement of a super dad. So

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Matt Shepard: any dad being involved with their kids lives is a really a positive benefit and As I look back on it, there was a lot of positive benefits from my relationship with my dad, even though sometimes it was tumultuous.

You got your BS in psychology from Wichita State University

David Hirsch: My recollection was you took a BS in psychology from Wichita, State University. You got your master’s in clinical psychology from first Hayes State University, and then you got your PhD in psychology from Wichita State University. I know that there was some work, involved, between those educational experiences. How would you capsulize your career trajectory?

Matt Shepard: I would say I’ve probably had four careers in my life.

David Hirsch: Okay.

Matt Shepard: The first was just business, operations and management, owning a small business, doing lawn mowing when I was a young child, and then doing a lot of managing positions in different positions. And then I did had a service, delivery position where I would do, primary counseling and therapy and other kinds of social service work. And then I did research after that. And then I had a job telling other people how to do research, so kind of overseeing. So then now I’m in a position where all of those things kind of combine.

David Hirsch: So I’m sort of curious. How did you and Brenda meet?

Matt Shepard: Well, Brenda, I was working in a convenience store, and she came walking, across the parking lot after midnight trying to buy beer. And I wouldn’t sell it to her, so that’s how. Because she couldn’t sell beer in Kansas after midnight at that time. So that’s how we met.

David Hirsch: And the rest is history.

Matt Shepard: Yeah. She ended up getting a job with me at that same place. And so we developed a relationship.

David Hirsch: I love it.

So let’s talk about special needs. What’s the backstory to your parenting journey

So let’s talk about special needs. on a personal level, I’m sort of curious to know. What’s the backstory to your parenting journey?

Matt Shepard: The backstory. So my wife and I were not able to have children, easily. Let’s put it that way. And so we had been married for, at least five years before we got serious about, trying to have children and went through ivf, a couple of times trying to have a child. but it didn’t work. And for a variety of reasons, we decided that, you know, we wanted to do something else. So then we started doing foster care for a while, and then from that, finally had the opportunity to adopt. And so we adopted after we had been married for 10 years.

David Hirsch: And did you mention they’re siblings? Biological siblings?

Matt Shepard: They are siblings. They are biological siblings, yes.

David Hirsch: Okay. Beyond the experience that you described with, one of your younger sisters having intellectual disabilities, did you or Brenda have any other connection to the world of disability or special needs?

Matt Shepard: Only with my sister so my sister, and she’s actually like three weeks older than I am, but, you know, still my younger sister. And for a while I was kind of responsible for her benefits as her payee and a lot of other kinds of involvement in that respect. but that had been it until we adopted. and I guess we did have a special need girl that we had fostered for a while, so we had a little bit of experience.

David Hirsch: So what is Bonnie’s diagnosis and how does it come about?

Matt Shepard: She’s diagnosed with a learning disability and some intellectual delays or disability. She has some chromosomes missing and nobody can actually tell me what that means. And then we’ve kind of stopped caring about beams. So, she just is who she is and. And we just run with it.

David Hirsch: So at what age was that diagnosed?

Matt Shepard: It was apparent from the moment we adopted her. She was delayed at six months is when we. She first came into our lives. It wasn’t clear at that time to what extent that was nature versus nurture kind of things. but she. It maintained. So there. We’ve always been clear that there was some level of disability. I think we’ve probably. She started going to special services at the age of three. so it was pretty clear by that time.

David Hirsch: And was she mainstreamed educationally or not?

Matt Shepard: For the most part, yes.

David Hirsch: Any fears or concerns that you had early on as relates to those conditions?

Matt Shepard: Terribly. I mean, they really didn’t scare us or kind of wave us off. I do wish that, I had had the foresight to do a little more investigation about services and, you know, things like this, the peer support and mentoring and, other kinds of things, because it seemed like we had to learn everything the hard way. You know, for example, it took me a long time to realize that I needed to get my daughter on a list to receive Social Security benefits and other things. And I had wasted like 10 years. And, she could have been on this list. So we waited. It took forever and a day, you know, because the list is so long these times to get waiver benefits for her to actually get residential services or day services or other kinds of things that she could have gotten a long time ago if. If I had actually known that she needed to have her name on some list somewhere. So things like that. It was just a lot of stuff to learn. That would have been nice to have somebody show me the ropes on that.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, that’s not, an isolated situation. I’ve heard that over and over and over. was there some meaningful advice that you got? along the way that, you know, help put things in perspective,

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David Hirsch: I guess I would say.

Matt Shepard: I got some advice from my mother, and she had, you know, had two adopted children, and she raised a whole set of grandchildren and yet another great grandchild. And so that was really. Is there. There’s no difference between a biological child and an adopted child in terms of how much you love them and the feeling and the connection and the bond. And so just to treat them like you would. I would say the other thing, and this may be specific to not only, adopted children, but special needs children, is I think they may have actually gotten a little bit lucky in that I didn’t put my personal expectations on them. Like, well, I got a PhD, so I said, you should get a PhD you know, that kind of a thing. because I always realized, you know, they had their own specific, unique kind of material to work with, and. And so I was just happy to let them find their own way.

David Hirsch: That’s a really good insight, Matt. I wouldn’t have thought about, and I don’t think it’s come up a lot, is that, your biological children, you might think of, you know, being genetically connected, right? There’s this expectation that this is what mom and dad did. Maybe you could do the same thing, and that might not apply, like you were saying, for kids that were adopted. So thanks for the important insight.

Bonnie and Brenda say special needs youth are incredibly vulnerable

Not to focus on the negative, but, what have been some of the biggest challenges that you, and Brenda have encountered along the way?

Matt Shepard: One of the biggest challenges, and again, this is probably something you’ve heard before, particularly when we’re talking about Bonnie and special needs youth is just how vulnerable they are, right. And how, easy it is for someone to take advantage of them and how hard it is to protect them 24 hours a day, seven days a week from all of the harm that might befall them. People with that are incredibly vulnerable. They’re, like, up to 10 times as likely to be sexual assault victims. And then both the males and the females, have higher rates of unplanned pregnancies, STIs. All the kind of bad things that can happen to someone happen multiplicably more to people with special needs than they don’t. There’s no prevention, right? There’s no programming to teach them, hey, here’s what a healthy relationship looks like, and here’s when you should say no, and all of those kinds of things. So that level of protection from, you know, the Internet and predators and guys who want pics and all that Stuff that was probably the biggest challenge that we had.

Bonnie says there is a stark difference between resources available in rural areas

David Hirsch: Any supporting organizations that come to mind that, Bonnie has benefited from or your family’s benefited from?

Matt Shepard: Yes, and I would say there is a stark difference, as there is with everything between, you know, the resources that are available, in rural areas of the country and those in more urbanized areas of the country. And so we’ve lived in more of this emporia, which is kind of a rural area for 15 years now. And so there was a big difference between when we moved here, what was available and, and when we lived like in Washington D.C. or Wichita or there’s some other kind of major markets. And so, early on, you know, places in D.C. the school systems, the, I can’t remember the name of the local foundations and other things had services available for us and we were able to, to, to tap into those once we moved here. There was a lot less the school system itself and some, programs that they had, like a transitions program for kids after they’ve graduated high school. Those were great. But for us to get anything else, we really had to go kind of out of our way. And I remember a couple of times, like driving my daughter to Illinois to go to a summer camp. Right. Because there just aren’t no summer camps in Kansas for, for kids with special needs that we felt comfortable with. So I would say what we’ve had luck with here is really the special education cooperative that kind of covers a multi county area here has been our biggest support.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, one of the things I’ve heard you say, and I’ve heard before is that, if you are near a large urban area, there’s a lot more services, like you were saying when you were in D.C. or out east than it might be in rural areas like you find yourself in now. My takeaway is that parents in rural areas need to be more intentional seeking out those services.

Matt Shepard: They have to be more intentional. And nowadays the aspect of virtual support and services increase every day. And so I think taking advantage of that is really important as well.

David Hirsch: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs

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David Hirsch: needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a great dad coin. Thank you.

You founded the Social Innovation Laboratory that focuses on helping disadvantaged populations

Now back to the Conversation.

David Hirsch: So one of the things that stood out from our prior conversation and the research that I’ve done is something called the Social Innovation Laboratory. And I think you were touching on it a little bit. It’s an organization, a not for profit, that you founded and you were the board chair for a long time. My understanding is that there’s three focuses. Hunger, mental health, and positive youth development. And I’m wondering, what problem were you trying to solve when you founded the Social Innovation Laboratory?

Matt Shepard: The problem, that I’ve been trying to apparently solve my entire life, some level, is to help kind of disempower, disenfranchise populations. And so it turns out that everything kind of strikes through that chord. That’s really the, mission of my business, and the way that my business does that is by helping nonprofit organizations that work with those populations do a better job. And so the idea behind the Social Innovation Laboratory was that same mission, but its goal was to make better programs. Right. The areas that we focus, that we started with were literally just based on my background and the background of the board members at the time and our interest areas. And along the way I think I would fit into that, positive youth development, a primary focus around special, needs. And we really were interested in kind of pushing forward, the resources available for that, subgroup. So.

David Hirsch: And what makes Social Innovation Laboratories approach meaningfully different from other, call it social impact organizations?

Matt Shepard: Yeah, again, I would say our model is not to be engaged in direct services. It is to come up with a way or a solution to a problem and then to get as many other organizations as we can to implement that strategy. So we’re trying to be a think tank around social programming and then to communicate that information to the rest of the world. So the kind of work that we do really is focused in on again, along with my, my skill set about researching alternatives, testing those things, improving it, and then disseminating the findings.

David Hirsch: Is there an example that comes to mind?

Matt Shepard: I can give you two examples. One is we have a successful program around food insecurity around summer feeding programs. Turns out that summer feeding programs are not really well utilized by kids who could use them. About 7 to 9 of kids who are eligible for summer feeding programs actually use them. And so we did a program to look at why aren’t youth utilizing summer food programs. And we came up with a program model we call that pop up Restaurant, which is really, treating a summer feeding program like a restaurant where kids eat free. And so we did that and we had four times as Much utilization as other programs, and then started to disseminate that information around, the United States and tested other programs and partnered with big agencies to kind of get that off the ground. one of the things that we tried to do, which I alluded to earlier, was I do a lot of work with this positive youth development and relationship kind of programs. We tried to do a program, we submitted a proposal, what we call the Bonnie Project, surprise, surprise, which really was to focus on using research to develop an evidence based program for youth who had an intellectual disability or developmental disability so that there was a better way of kind of communicating to them information about sexual teen health, teen pregnancy and that kind of population, so speaking to them in a way that they would understand. so that was another example. We didn’t get that funded. We’ve tried a couple of times, but we may try a third time to get that going.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well thanks for sharing those examples.

Where do you see the biggest opportunity for social innovation and how is the lab preparing for it

Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for social innovation and how is the lab preparing for it?

Matt Shepard: The social, innovation is doing great. And that’s why I think we’ve talked about the fact that I was, until recently, until about three or four months ago, the board chair of that and I’ve just recently stepped away, which is in part to give them the freedom to grow. And they’ve got a whole new cadre of board members and, and some build some fresh excitement in there. And so that not every idea has to be my idea the way I want it. You know how that goes. And and so I think there’s, there’s a lot of opportunities, particularly in the positive youth development arena. That’s where we’ve had the most traction. We’ve done a lot of, a lot of projects across Kansas and Colorado and Ohio and Texas. I think there’s some great things ahead for that.

Charis Place Home for Women helps women with disabilities live independently

David Hirsch: So I’d like to take a little bit of a deep dive into this, Charis Place Home for Women, another organization that you’ve led.

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David Hirsch: What need did you see that led to the creation of the Charis Place Home for Women?

Matt Shepard: So as our daughter got older, I think that we had a lot of the same questions or concerns that other people have, like who’s going to take care of my daughter after I’m gone and how is she going to survive in the world and who can I trust with her life, you know, long term to support her? And so I think we struggled with that for a long time and again with the lack of resources that were really available in Our area, Charis Place really is a non, profit dedicated to supporting the improvement and quality of life of residents of Charis Place Emporia. So Charis place is the 12 unit apartment building that we bought and we’ve turned into originally was a closed residence just for women 18 years or older who had a development or cognitive or other kind of disability where they could live in a safe, supportive environment, with kind of, you know, dignity, friendship and supportive services. So kind of for women who are on the edge of being able to live independently with the right level of supports. We have since started letting men into the unit as well, but it’s still kind of the same mission. So that was the goal and so this, that was our way of saying, well, you know, where is she going to live and how’s she going to be safe? So we’ve started a place where we had this community where she, and she’s lived there now for. She moved in in 2020 I think, right when we bought that building. So she’s been there as the longest term resident and has done really well I would say, as compared to our other opportunities. So that was the impetus behind that. We have this whole system of getting them furniture in a bed and plates and dishes and towels and rugs and everything else they can need to furnish that place. off the bat we provide free WI fi.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well thanks for sharing. I love to hear stories like that.

I’m wondering what advice you can share with parents who have special needs

I’m thinking about advice now and I’m wondering what advice you can share with parents who, you know, maybe didn’t sign up for a child with a disability but you know, find themselves in that situation.

Matt Shepard: So you know, I was thinking about this before your call and it’s interesting because I have a whole career path of fatherhood kind of stuff and then I have this whole non, profit avenue towards special needs and never twins. The two have intertwined and I thought, well, why didn’t I think of that a long time ago? That seems pretty obvious now, looking back on it. But I would say the advice that I would pull from the fatherhood stuff is relevant to this population and so be involved. Right. People who listen to your podcast or people who go to father programs, fathers in particular, and I’ve visited a lot of father programs, there’s a desire there to be involved. They want to be in their kids lives, they want to do better, they simply need the skills to do it. People who go to father programs are feeling like, wow, I really am not doing a very good job here. And there’s this feeling of guilt and shame involved in that. And it’s like, you know, I think my kid would be better off without me being around. And I think that’s a big falsehood. that’s a false narrative that no one should ever believe. Your kid’s never going to be better off with you, not in the picture. And so there’s that. And I think there’s this idea that you’re not feeling alone. I think it’s a lot of isolation, particularly for fathers who kids have special needs, because there’s just, it’s not as common as being a father. And you know, not only do you feel alone because you’re feeling as a father, but you don’t know what to do with this kid in special needs. And maybe somebody would be better off to do this, you know. And again, I think that’s all false. I think the key point that the research shows is that being involved, showing up, doing your best, is incredibly helpful no matter what that best looks like. So that’s item number one. And number two, I think, is that raising children, in particular special needs children, is a team sport. And that, you know, you have to do as much as you can do in partnership with the co parent, whether you’re married or divorced or, you know, whatever it is, get in there, be involved, go to the doctor’s visits, go to the school IEP meetings. You shouldn’t have a clear delineation of responsibilities in that because everybody needs to be involved in at all hands, some level. You’ll have to have some of that, but the less that you have to divide things up, the better. And the other thing I would say I have found in my experience with my daughter is trying to maintain, a level of trust. And really with her, it’s almost having a poker face. She can tell me anything she wants to tell me and I’m not going to get upset or act shocked or devastated or surprised. Now that may be different than me and her arguing about whether or not she wants to go to her program or not, right? But when she tells me, hey, I did

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Matt Shepard: this or that, then you have to be able to maintain that level of shock. So I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that where she will feel comfortable telling me stuff, even though, you know, she may hide it for a while, but eventually it all comes out. So that just maintaining that level of always having a positive interaction, always telling her she’s doing well, never going a day without saying you love you, never going, I Used to joke that my daughter had the highest level of self confidence that was possible because how many times I had told her she was beautiful when she was growing up, that she definitely had to think that she was the most beautiful girl that ever planet. Right. So even if that is diminished some, I think it, that built up that level of self confidence and self worth. So that’s my advice for what it’s worth.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Some pearls of wisdom. Thank you for sharing.

Matt is part of the Special Fathers Network mentoring program for fathers

Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Matt Shepard: you know, I, I, we hadn’t talked about this, but I’m more than willing to be a mentor for your in this group and to be more active in this group, because I think what you’re doing is great. And I wish I had known about it earlier because you’re going to use some of that, insight for somebody who’d walked the path before me, so.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, we’re thrilled to have you. Thank you for being part of the mentor program. And I often hear that, for more seasoned dads like yourself, I wish there was something like this when I was a younger dad. Right, right. I was just slugging it out of my own, trying to figure it all out. And there weren’t a lot of people in my friend group, guys I went to school with, guys, I work with, guys in the neighborhood that could relate to what was going on. So, you know, you just don’t have those deeper conversations forming those relationships that, you know, you look backwards and say, hey, you know, coulda, woulda, shoulda. So again, thank you. let’s give a special shout out to Kenneth Braswell, who’s the host of the I Am dad podcast for helping connect us.

Matt Shepard: Yes, thank you, Kidney.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to contact you, what’s the best way to do so?

Matt Shepard: You can, always contact me through my website for, at Midwest Evaluation and Research. my contact information is all there. that’s probably the easiest way to. Or I’m on LinkedIn, as well.

David Hirsch: So I’ll be sure to include that information in the show notes. That’ll make it as easy as possible for somebody to follow up.

Matt Shepard: Matt.

David Hirsch: Ah, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Matt’s just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, Please go to 21st Century Dads.org Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Data dad Podcast. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads foundation is a 501c3 not for profit organization, which means we need your help, to keep our content free to all concern. Would you please consider making a taxactable contribution? I would really appreciate your support Matt. Thanks again.

Matt Shepard: Thank you dad to the dead.

David Hirsch: You’re not on your own.

Matt Shepard: We, we walk this road together, heart and home.

David Hirsch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support support other dads. To find out more, go to 21st

David Hirsch: centurydads.org and if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com groups and search dad to dad. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to david21stcenturydads.org the dad

David Hirsch: to dad Podcast theme was written and performed by Shane Madden. The show is produced by me, Tom Couch. Tune in again next week for another intriguing conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

Matt Shepard: Through every season, in every stride, great dads are present. 247-36524, 7365.

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