Deon Price 

Because the consequences that you face are a lot more severe. So, you got to be a little bit more diligent. You got to be a little more critical about your decisions, because things will happen a lot worse for you than they were for me.

Paul Meunier 

Hello, I'm Paul Meunier, the executive director of the Youth Intervention Programs Association. And I'm a youth worker at heart. How lucky am I, I have the privilege to meet youth workers from around the globe and learn their stories and share them with the entire world. I'm glad you're listening because together we'll learn how their life experiences shaped their youth work. As you listen, I encourage you to consider how your experiences shape what you have to offer young people. Welcome to this edition of The Passionate Youth Worker. Hi, everybody. For this episode, we're joined by Deon price from California in the United States. Deon has dedicated most of his adult life to the field of Youth and Community Service. Through his organization, This Youth Generation, he has delivered motivational talks and workshops to youth, parents, educators, and youth workers. His brand of motivational comedy is delivered with both humor and professional precision. Deon, thanks for being a guest on the podcast.

Deon Price 

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Paul Meunier 

It's so cool to have you here. I'm so eager to dive in and learn more about you. So, let's get going. Right away, I'd like to just find out how come you decided to dedicate most of your adult life into helping other people and specifically helping young people?

Deon Price 

It became an organic transition for me, building off of what I've experienced in my upbringing, that really was a challenging upbringing. And as I be, I went to college to get out of that environment. I joined an organization in college fraternity that started doing volunteer work in the community that I left up in northern California. And we started doing community work in Oakland and San Francisco in some of the troubled areas in northern California. And I saw that some of the youth we were servicing was experiencing the same things I had left in a challenging environment that I left in LA, the poverty, the gang violence, the abandonment, the addictions, and all those things were still surfacing with the youth that we were serving in northern California. So that kind of became my I adjusted my college background into my studies. And that became my life's work from that point on.

Paul Meunier 

Got it. Cool. So, it started off by volunteering. Was that accidental, or was it very intentional? Did you think, I see these young people needing help, I want to get involved in some way? Or did somebody just say, Hey, we're doing this thing, do you want to help out?

Deon Price 

Well, part of the college fraternity Phi Beta Sigma I was a part of in San Francisco State. That's the first thing we did. The organization's background is culture for service and service for humanity. So you pledge to continue that work. And naturally, it became part of my studies. And it really I had a heartbeat for the work, because it was really connected to my culture, and my background. And I really developed a real strong and sincere passion for wanting to improve the quality of life for young people. And that became my personal mission. And I connected it with the organizations that I've worked with from that point on.

Paul Meunier 

That's awesome. So did you know right away, when you started doing that volunteering that you kind of like this is pretty fun to go out and connect with young people. Did you just get that built-in passion right away?

Deon Price 

My background, I started dealing with the things that I was experiencing with by humor, right. So, the hardship that I went through, I dealt with it, me and my some of my family and my older brother, we still dealt with by using humor. Everything's not a laughing matter but we'd use humor to help minimize the effects of a very dysfunctional, and pretty much tragic upbringing in environment that I lived in. But it was humor that gave me some of the anecdotes and the sustainability to overcome some of those challenges so you don't self-destruct. I had an alcoholic mother, no father, and growing up in LA, it was the worst time in history to be in LA during the mid-80s, during the heart of the crack epidemic, when many people believe the worst time in history. I was going to high school at the time. So, my motivation was I gotta get the hell out of LA somehow, some way, right? So right after graduation, everybody's like, Hey, what are you gonna do? We celebrated soon as I graduated, the first thing I did, I had a bus ticket from Atlanta, to northern California. So, before we celebrated that I had a backpack full of the only thing I had was some shoes, backpack, and some cookies, and I was out of there right after graduation. See, and I took it from there when I came up here, and start using those same humor as a stress relief. So, I started doing little, little bits here in some of the local comedy clubs in Oakland and San Francisco. And I found that I was telling the same stories at night as I was in the volunteer work. And when I started working for juvenile halls, I was using those same stories, to link and connect with the youth. And that kind of became my teaching style and my approach to connect with young people. Using humor.

Paul Meunier 

That's great that you can use humor to describe some of those situations that actually sounds kind of awful. I can't imagine growing up in LA during the times of the riots and all that kind of stuff. And how did you avoid not getting pulled into that lifestyle of drugs and violence and gangs and which was so prevalent, it sounds like?

Deon Price 

Everywhere you went it was a mess. And, and it really came by fear. It was just became a teaching school. I was fear is really thought as a weakness for some, but we teach it as a strength because it's a sign of protection. So, me not being afraid to be afraid, and let people know I'm too afraid. I value my life, because I saw some tragic things happen. So, my peers would say, Hey, let's go here. I said I'm not going there. Why? Because I'm afraid for my life. And I wasn't afraid to tell them that I was afraid. In high school, I went to Dorsey High School, which is an area where it predominantly gang area is. Unfortunately, I lived on a completely other side of Los Angeles. So, I literally had to take a bus ride 45-minute bus ride to another area that was opposite of this. And they were gang rivals, I couldn't wear my school colors. Right? Because if you're associated with this high school, they must think you may be a part of this gang. So, I couldn't wear my own school colors. I couldn't wear red, could wear blue, couldn't wear black, because those were associated with gangs. So, I mean, really, I just wore plaid. Plaid, I had to be plaid, I wanted to be totally safe, right. And I literally had to change clothes from what time I got from my high school, to my home on the other side of town. So, it was fear that drove my consciousness. So, I had my head on the swivel, I was always conscious, I was almost paranoid about going to social places. So, one day, I was invited to an event after a high school football game. And all my friends were saying let's go over here. Well, this party was on 54th Street. And one of the largest gangs in LA at the time was called the Rolling 60s. So, I'm like uh 54th's pretty close to 60th ain't it. I'm not going. Oh, you a punk, you scared you, said y'all can call me whatever you want to, but I ain't going to no house party on 54th Street. I'm not doing it. So, I swallowed my pride. And to this day, what happened that evening was tragic. Someone came up and was shooting at this event. And unfortunately, several people was killed and a few other people injured. It's a notorious event that happened in our history in the mid 80s. And it was me not being afraid to let people know, to separate yourself from your peers. And those kinds of stories, those types of anecdotes is what drove me. What protected me was seeing what was happening and not being afraid to say, hey, you know what, I don't want that to happen to me. So, I'm gonna use my precaution and separate myself from some of those events.

Paul Meunier 

That's a wonderful perspective, to let young people know you don't have to be afraid to say you're afraid. That's a real sign of strength I believe it's to be truthful and honest. And what a great lesson you can teach young people and your story about that is really inspiring in terms of anchoring the idea of how your willingness to be afraid, saved your life, it sounds like.

Deon Price 

Yes indeed. After literally several times, not telling young people, you're gonna get invited to one of those parties today. That happened 30 plus years ago. Is that happening today? Absolutely. And for the young people I speak to even today, I say, mind your thing, monitor your environment, make adjustment to your environment, and know when to separate, right. If you can't control the environment, then you separate from it. And that's a lifesaver to my young people that I speak to today. Just get a feel for the environment. You got to monitor the environment because there may be some hazards in that environment you may not be aware of, but monitor your environment and know when to separate.

Paul Meunier 

You talked about your upbringing was pretty tough. You had an alcoholic mother, father that was absent. Can you talk a little bit about your family and how you persevered in that kind of environment?

Deon Price 

And I did and detailed I actually all of these experiences is depicted in a book called Raised in Hell that I wrote about since 2004, about six or seven years ago, and it all breaks it down Raised In Hell that the human hardship was dysfunctional upbringing, and the main characters in the story besides myself is my mother who went through this stuff and my older brother Herman, who sacrificed his young adulthood to help be a father figure for us, right. In that example is that it was those extended family members that supplemented what we did not have, right. So, he really set a foundation of what family what family should be and how you take care of business and go to work every day, he gave me a little bit of a clue of what stability looks, like him and his wife. And that gave me a little bit of an idea of what it should be. So, when I got to of age, I had a little bit of an idea because not having a direct father but having a father figure was golden for me.

Paul Meunier 

When you were younger, if you can think back, did you have resentment about that? Were you mad that your dad wasn't there? Were you mad that your mother was an alcoholic?

Deon Price 

At some point, I went through a transition where I hated what not my mother, but I hated what she was. Because we was very dysfunctional, were very unfortunate. There were times where we were not allowed to go to social events because my mother's alcoholism would surface and it was embarrassing, where she would get intoxicated and start acting out. And it was sad to see me as a seven-year-old, monitoring my own mother's behavior, and not being able to fully consciously play and interact as a young kid, because I gotta worry about my mother losing her mind because she drank. Her drink of choice was called a Screwdriver, you know what a screwdriver is? I do, yeah, it's Vodka and orange juice. So, me being a kid, I thought it was just you know, vodka is clear. So I didn't know what she would drink what I thought was orange juice, but I didn't know it was laced with that Russian vodka. And she would drink but I thought this morning, I'm gonna lose her mind, start cussing people out, start throwing knives at people. And I'd be like, What the heck is in this orange juice that's got these people losing they mind. And I really had this phobia of orange juice until I was about 12 years old. I'd be on my family. They say Deon you want some orange juice, I'm like no it's bad so I'm slapping it outta people's hands. And I'm over at my uncle's house one day, my uncle said I don't I don't know what's going on with this boy, but he pour out one more card and I'm gonna smack the hell out of him. I was twisted. But you know, I use some of those lighter moments that we transition. As my older brother would say we better laugh about it than cry about it. So, we use those trying upbringings you know, to shed light on it and kind of roll with it. So, I had no resentment for my father. I had no resentment for my mother, because even though she was in that condition, she was also loving. But she just had this condition, which I knew later called alcoholism, which is just a disease. So, I can't charge someone for illness. That's how I saw it, as an illness. So, I didn't have any resentment for her.

Paul Meunier 

Wow, that's wonderful insight on your behalf. And to be able to do that at such a young age is really, really shows how resilient you are. You know, your brother Herman sounds like a wonderful guy. Yes. You know, the fact that he set the example for you. And it goes to show how just one person in your world can really make a difference. It sounds like Herman was instrumental in helping you turn out to be, you know, an adult that is fully developed and found your niche in the world. And he sounds great. Do you still connect with Herman now?

Deon Price 

Oh yeah, to this day, I talk to him at least twice a week. To this da., he really exemplifies unity of family. And he had a young family. He was 20 years old when he took on this responsibility. And he had a young wife and a family of his own. He was coming to get us every weekend, from South Central LA to his home in Compton. But he didn't realize just those little weekend getaways was something that literally could have saved our lives to get us out of the mess we're in, but gave us a little balance, right. And it really just set the tone for being responsible, right. And I have that to this day. When you have kids of your own. It makes you a better father, makes you a better husband, makes you a better family member because ultimately, he said we're responsible for stabilizing our family. At 20 years old. I remember the epitomizing moment when my mother had, it was an event where she due to alcoholism had a confrontation that led to her being arrested right in front of me at five or six years old. Police came arrested my mother due to a domestic violence issue with my sister, and we were going on the way to some foster unknown foster care. My brother was the only one old enough he was 20 years old, just about to be enlisted in the army. And he had a five-year-old little brother and my other brother who was older than me is eight. So, we had a five-year-old, eight-year-old and these people are asking him, do you have the stability to take on these young people, these younger brother and sister. He had no stability. He was just going to the army himself. So, he called every family member that we knew. And I can never forget this but he was in tears because none of our family uncles were either willing or able to take on. And at that time in the 70s foster care system was not as sophisticated as it is now, it was kind of a dark hole for young people. And I remember his eyes and his face, he just broke into tears. And he could not do anything because they wouldn't give a 20-year-old, who barely had his own stuff together, custody of two young people. So, we literally, and this is written in the book, how they pulled us away, and I'm hysterically crying that knowing these strangers are taking me and to see him break down for losing his younger brothers, it was an emotional tough example. That moment propelled him to be the responsible individual. He knew if he had to be the pillar of strength, because we had no one else. So, it made him the man that he is, seeing him lose his family like that. And he the rest of his adult life, he was that responsible, stable figure for us.

Paul Meunier 

Sounds like a great guy. You might just be so proud of him and love him so much.

Deon Price 

Yeah, you know, I teased him because he, and the other lesson, he says little, he's a little, he's a small guy. He's not like five, you know, five. Right? But he also gave me a message that no matter what your stature is, you can maintain respect. He's the most respected individual in all of his community. And he's not that big. I always tease him because he's five' four". And every time I tell the story, he gets shorter and shorter. But it's a good example of no matter what your statute is, how you represent yourself as a man is how you get and maintain respect. And that's another life lesson for the young people I work with today.

Paul Meunier 

Well, thank you so much for sharing your story about your early years, it's been really inspirational to hear that. We do need to take a short break but when we come back, I'd like to talk to you more specifically about your youth work, so we'll be right back.

Deon Price 

All right.

Jade Schleif 

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Paul Meunier 

And we're back with Deon Price from California, in the United States. Deon, right before the break, I said I want to dig into a little bit about specifics in regards to youth work. I just want to know from your perspective, how do you know when you're successful when you work with the young people?

Deon Price 

Our work is organic over time, right? We plant seeds. And I always use the illustration of planting the seed, we have no control the way it's growing. Our job as youth workers, parents, and mentors, is to plant the seed. And hopefully that seed will become fruited. And it will result in that individual improving the quality of their life. And we have to be okay with that. We may not see the immediate results. So sometimes I don't see it until years later. Very recently, I'm at I work at Larkin Street Youth Services and I'm walking down in the tenderloin area of San Francisco, which is, it's kind of a challenging area. And this young woman looked like she was in her early 30s maybe, walked up and said, Hey, you're Deon. I said yeah. Do I owe you money or something? Right. She said No, you ran a program years ago, called the Stars Program at the YMCA. I'm like, wow, that's gotta be almost 20 years ago. You kidding me? Yeah, she remembered the Stars Program was the life skills program. I was running facilitating in 2002, when she was in middle school, early middle school, right? This young woman saw how she took those things that we learned and she gradually advanced herself and got into the career, and here she is, a 37-year-old grown woman remembering those seeds that we planted over 20 years ago. And that's the reward. That's why. I see that quite often in our line of work. And sometimes, unfortunately, I don't even remember the young people because now they grown people and some young man with a full beard and a family. Hey, Coach, I'm like hey and I was like the last time I saw you, you was 10 years old. And those are the real rewards when these people have really grown into independence, and the quality of their life is healthy. That's it for us. That's all we have. And I think that's the fruitage of our labor.

Paul Meunier 

When you have those moments and you meet somebody that you used to work with, like this young woman you're talking about, how did that affect you personally? What did that do to you emotionally and to help kind of build your passion for young people?

Deon Price 

It's validation. It's validation because this work of youth work is very challenging, is risky, is high risk. It's emotional, it's political. And there's a lot of failures. And my 30-plus years in this business, unfortunate to countless funerals and have lost many of young people who have not survived the environment that we have, unfortunately created for them. So, but those four or five that has been successful, is the fruitage and the validation that we are in the right line of work, and I'm making a difference. I always equate youth work to like the game of baseball, always use, like the sports is that the transition. So, if you're in a baseball game, you have to bat 10 times, you either gonna strike out or get put out, at least six out of the 10 times. That mean only four times you gonna make something happen. If you do it three times, you're great. If you do it four times, you're phenomenal. And I compare that to youth work. It may work with 10 young people, not all of them are going to receive the information. Not all of them are going to respond well. Some of them are not going to be successful, some are going to end up incarcerated or in violence or in addictions and unhealthy lifestyle, and unfortunately, some of them are gonna lose their lives. But the 1, 2, 3 or 4, that will be successful, you have to drive and live with that type of inspiration that everyone you touch can possibly be one of those three or four, right? And that's how we go, we cannot be overwhelmed by the failures. But we've got to be inspired by the successes.

Paul Meunier 

It's a great way to look at it. And I think a lot of our listeners can relate to some of the stories you talked about in regards to failure, or even being at funerals of young people. I, too, have had that experience. You're so positive and energetic and you use humor so well, how do you keep focus on if you're going to strike out six or seven times that you go to bat, how do you keep a positive attitude and look for that 20 or 30% of success rate?

Deon Price 

Well, you don't focus on the six negatives. Focus on the positive. This next time, I struck out nine times. But this 10th one, I'm hitting it out of the park. You gotta have that mentality.

Paul Meunier 

You do yes.

Deon Price 

Every young person that you speak to, this one is going to take this information, and it's going to reach their heart and their spirit, and it's going to improve the quality of their life. You have to think and be positively sure that you're planting that seed. It may not grow immediately, but it's going to be in there. And I've seen that as well. And I also equate it to a farmer. When you plant a seed, you got to cultivate the land, right? If that soil is not healthy, the likelihood of that seed that you planted is probably not going to become fertile, and it's not going to grow. In the same sense some of our young people are just not ready to receive this information yet. Right. They may be too hard-hearted or too hard-headed or hard-hearted to receive that information at that time. But that doesn't mean that their soil, their mindset won't be ready at a later time. I was a late bloomer at times. There's still some things I'm learning right now, that was planted in me years ago. And I'm just now understanding what that is. There was a coach of mine years ago that sat my butt on the bench and humbled me. I thought I was a superstar little basketball player. This man set my butt on the bench and made me sit there and I had all my friends at the game, Deon sittin' on the bench, right. This man I was a pretty good ballplayer because I missed a practice a day before the game, right? He said you think you bigger than me. be a good thing and he sat my butt down. And I was steaming mad, hot as fish grease, we ended up losing a game by three points. And I was averaging at least 10 points a game so he literally sacrificed the championship game to teach me a lesson. And what he did was that was middle school. After that I never missed another practice. I never missed a game, all through high school and in college, I show up. And even today, I don't miss work. I show up. This man, little did he know he planted a seed in me that will make me a very dependable and 100% showing up person. And I pass that on. He had no idea what he'd done. But he taught me a lesson. So, I carry that with me. We plant these seeds, and it may not become fertile til later but it's in there. You never know.

Paul Meunier 

Your coach set you up for success. He taught you a lesson that probably carry today. And earlier you made a reference to we set young people up to fail. Yes. And I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit more. What do you mean by that?

Deon Price 

What I mean by that Paul, is that they have no control of the systems that they're growing into. And I mentioned this also, we have no control to the family we're born into, we have no control of the environment we're forced to live in, right. So, for our generation has created an out of reach economic system. The education system is almost out of reach financially, the housing market, at least in California is ridiculously high. So, that's no fault of their own. Our generation did this out of greed and irresponsible leadership. Right? So, for example, when I was 19, I got my first apartment for $650 bucks in the peninsula of northern California. $650 bucks a month for a one-bedroom apartment. My first car was a VW Bug, you know, I paid $400 bucks for 50, for a low of 1000. I had a car and an apartment, right? To this day, can our young people from my own 19 17. And my young people, can they do that today? In California, that same apartment, literally that same apartment building I had in 1991 that was $650 a month, you know how much it is now in California? It's 3, $2900 a month for the same apartment, and ain't nothing changed but the paint. All they did was change the paint. That's only 25 years ago. Now can our young people survive with $3,000 rent, and education, I went to college San Frisco state $50 a unit now it's 5-6-700 dollars a unit. Education out of reach, housing is out of reach. So, it's much more difficult for them to survive than it was for us. So, we got to be a little bit more diligent, a little bit more patient, we've set them up for failure. In my opinion, when I speak to young people, one of the first things I do is apologize to them. I say I'm so sorry, that you guys have to live in an environment. But I'm gonna give you the tools necessary to help you thrive and survive in this mess that we've created for you.

Paul Meunier 

I agree with you. And we're probably the same generation. I think our generation has done a terrible job of taking care of communities and young people. I don't know what we do to correct that for them because their deck is so stacked against them. As soon as they're born.

Deon Price 

Yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately. And then the consequences are much worse as well, because we've risen the stakes on penalizing and putatively dealing with the young people, middle school, we got into fights, but you weren't get arrested and thrown in jail for getting into fights. The consequences are much more severe. Part of my passion for young people, particularly young males, is that you have to be smarter and wiser than us. Because the consequences that you face are a lot more severe. So, you got to be a little bit more diligent, you got to be a little more critical about your decisions, because things will happen a lot worse for you than they were for me.

Paul Meunier 

It really goes to show how important having somebody in your life like your brother, Herman, is because you really have to make a lot of progress in a very short period of time to as a young person these days, to put yourself in a situation where you can receive the thing, good things that come to you. Because if you're not ready for that, you'll miss all these opportunities that go by you. And I'm so grateful that you're doing the kind of work you do. Do you have anything in particular that young people have taught you that you maybe didn't know about yourself? But as you worked with young people, it became clear what you understood was kind of a moral or a lesson that you learned?

Deon Price 

Just to not assume that we understand their culture. We have to be embraced. Each generation has their culture and their identity and all those things. We have to be respectful of that. We had it in our generation, we had the Jheri curls and all these weird fashions, right, right. But each generation has its thing. So, what we do, unfortunately, with adults, with our egos as adults, we try to impose or press their culture. Now, there's some things that we see that may be a hazard, we gotta respect their culture, and not oppress their culture to a degree where it used to create a disconnect the relationship. So, I encourage parents, and even instructors, and when I speak to a group of educators, we have to embrace the modern youth culture. Don't disconnect from it. If you don't know the culture you're working with, there's a cultural disconnect, and you will not be an effective youth worker or even a parent. And I even looked at my parents. My mother had no idea what fashion trends were she because she was unfortunate. She bought me some upside-down Nikes one day where it was go this was goes up, right, she bought me a swoosh was going down. Do you know I went to school with those.

Paul Meunier 

You're lucky you came home, you know, right!

Deon Price 

Upside down like oh, they will call Ekins right. Ekins is Nike spelt backwards and upside down. So, and I didn't know I was dyslexic at the time so it looks normal to me. So, I brought these Ekin’s upside down I was traumatized. These kids tease me all day long and I'm throwing the shoes away. The point is my mom had no idea how much trauma she could cause by not understanding the culture of that youth generation. Here it is fast forward, my kids are now. Now they have Nike, they have Jordans. They have Shaqs. So, I was buying my kids Shaqs. And I think she killed those they was no good. But I didn't know that you will get clowned or disrespectful wearin' Shaqs in high school, you can wear them in middle school and show up my high school campus in Shaqs, you're gonna get clowned like I did. So, I had understand the culture. I had to buy the Jordans the shoes. The point is we have to learn the culture, each environment, if you don't adjust to the environment, you will become a casualty to it. So, I encourage teachers that have been in a generation and field for years, humble yourself enough to take some time learning language, learning music, learn with the trends, learn the fashion trends, and learn to connect with the generation that you're working with. You'll be a better effective parent or youth worker. In order to be a director to them, you got to connect with them. That's what I learned from youth - learn their culture.

Paul Meunier 

It has been so wonderful getting to know you, Deon, I am so grateful for all you have done for young people. For so many years, I think about the seeds you've planted and how many of them are probably sprouting just as we're talking. And thank you for all your service to our young people and making this world a better place. Despite the fact that you had a rough start, you really have persevered and are a role model for all of us to look up to. And I love your sense of humor as well.

Deon Price 

Thank you for that.

Paul Meunier 

So thanks for being a guest. I really appreciate it.

Deon Price 

Right on, right on. I appreciate Thank you. Thank you for doing this, though. The Passionate Youth Worker is something that that we need to use to help inspire people around the world. We're working with the greatest resource in the world as human beings.

Paul Meunier 

Couldn't agree more. Before we go Deon, what words of wisdom or inspiration would you like to leave with our listeners?

Deon Price 

I would like to encourage youth workers to don't fall out of love with the work. There's a reason that most of us got into this work, you fell in love with the work and whatever organization you're with, be it a school district, be an organization, nonprofit, there's gonna be drama, there's going to be challenges, and you gotta hate the job sometimes. But love the work. I always say, you can hate the job, but love the work. Do not fall out of love with the work and the reason you got into this business. It's almost like a marriage. There's a honeymoon period, you get married, you're all excited, right? The first few weeks or even few months, you're in the honeymoon period, then you realize in a marriage and you don't feel like everything about this person, right? It's the same thing and you do not fall out of love with the work. Knowing that you can hate it. Love the job, hate the job, but love the work and keep that passion over and over again, so you can continue to affect lives and inspire young people.

Paul Meunier 

If you would like to share your passion for youth work, we'd love to spotlight you as a guest. If you have feedback about the show, please let us know. Just visit training.yipa.org. That's training.yipa.org and click on the podcast tab. This podcast is made possible in part due to a generous contribution from M Health Fairview. I'm your host, Paul Meunier. Thanks for listening to The Passionate Youth Worker.