Our Story

As the Founder of Everybody Matters it’s taken me MONTHS, no joke, months, to write this for our website, and I’ve finally realized why. Normally I excitedly talk ad nauseum about how great Everybody Matters is and how many people it’s helping, but to tell the story of how it started is excruciating because I want to share some fun quip or uplifting anecdote to make everyone laugh and be happy. But the start of this program was not about rainbows and unicorns. And it’s too important to write in just sound bytes.

Everybody Matters was born in the midst of frustration and angst. As a dedicated social worker, who at the time was working within the public school system, I’d finally reached my breaking point. I was scrambling to secure therapeutic services for a young traumatized girl who had been victimized repeatedly but was unable to receive any help. Due to the nature of confidentiality, the details cannot be disclosed, but suffice it to say that time after time doors were slammed in this child’s face and it was simply unconscionable.

I reached out for donations from friends to pay for services for her and one of them commented, “sure, I’ll make a donation, but I don’t understand why you have to ask for money this way. Why isn’t anyone stepping up to help this little girl?” And the only answer I could come up with is, “Because she doesn’t matter. No one thinks that she matters.”

Which led to this Aha moment. EVERYBODY MATTERS!! Duh, of course I already knew this, and I also knew that I was not willing to accept that the barriers keeping her from getting help were insurmountable. I was going to surmount them …. If that’s even a word???

I’d been in the field for over 20 years and knew lots of people who were as passionate as I am about helping these kids and who were willing take right action to get things done! I had the clinical skills, enthusiasm and support, I just needed to lock all these pieces into place.

Piece #1: The School District: I knew of hundreds of children who were unable to access resources, and the school district agreed to support a pilot project in which I could train a team to help those kids.

Piece #2: Arizona State University: I was a faculty associate at ASU, a field instructor for ASU social work interns and a member of the ASU Community Advisory Board. And ASU was willing to allow me to train Master’s Level Social Work interns to provide Advanced Social Emotional Support to children who could not otherwise access resources.

Piece #3: The Model: This model was perfect. The children were able to be seen at school where they already felt comfortable as this is their “turf.” No need for transportation. No need for insurance. The interns had a robust internship and they all were able to see a full caseload of students and learn from them while also benefiting from terrific supervision. I had the skill set to create our proprietary model and orchestrate the program and viola - it WORKED!

Piece #4: The Board of Directors: A dedicated and passionate Board of Directors has guided and supported the progress of the program and continues to become more specialized as the program is expanding.

Piece#5: Financial Support: Both the North Star Foundation and The Virginia Cretella Mars Foundation were early donors to the program and as we’re expanding, Everybody Matters is seeking to build support from both individual donors and local corporations.

It’s important to honor all of the people who have been a part of its creation, because everybody has mattered for Everybody Matters’ success.

In our first four years we will have helped over 2,000 children and trained over 80 new social workers who are being launched into the field! So even though our story didn’t start on a “happy” note, we sure are moving towards rainbows and unicorns!

--Lori Madrid, MSW, LCSW, Founder and CEO

Our Name (The Scribble Story)

What’s in a name?

I keep being asked how I came up with the name Everybody Matters and it’s one of the most beautiful stories ever...

I’d been asked to monitor after school detention, but knowing that punishment doesn’t change behavior, I refused to do that, and instead offered to create an after school class called Skills of Success, which could have a rotating roster based on whomever the principal invited to join me each afternoon.

In this class the students would be able to explore the choices they had made early in the day that had brought them to the class, and we could discuss alternative choices that could help them not being re-invited. It was early in the year so many of the behaviors were pretty serious, as the students had not yet learned alternative behaviors, and I had a group of five pretty rowdy 8th grade boys. They were all very angry, felt they had been wronged and spent the first few minutes loudly expressing their colorful feelings towards the “system” and … well … me.

Once they got the hang of talking more productively about the events that had taken place they actually became excited about learning some alternative behavioral strategies. Because they were so focused, the work was done before the end of class, and since there was some extra time, one of the boys asked if they could draw.

Of course they were allowed to, and then with just a few moments before the final bell, he asked if they could hang their pictures up. I thought this was pretty cute that these tough boys wanted to display their pictures but I scrambled to find tape in time and overheard this exchange:

Rowdy boy 1: I’m not going to hang my picture up. It’s stupid. It’s just a scribble.

Rowdy boy 2: Oh, man, no way. You gotta hang it up … your scribble matters.

This stopped me in my tracks because that is one of the most compassionate things I’ve ever heard a rowdy boy say to another rowdy boy.

So, when I started this program, I wanted to call it, "Your Scribble Matters” but I knew I’d have to tell that story thousands of times….. And so I called it, Everybody Matters instead… and that includes those rowdy scribble drawing boys too!

The Scribble