“Empowering Youth and Families: A Conversation with Bryan Wright, Founder of Dynamic Family Solutions”

[00:00:05] Jake White: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Party Talk where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. I’m so stoked about today’s episode, because we get to talk with my great great friend, Bryan Wright. People think we are brothers actually, what’s up, Bryan? How you doing?

[00:00:19] Bryan Wright: Brothers if not cousins, like closely related to some degree.

[00:00:25] Jake White: Exactly. And people, our names too is like Jake White and Bryan Wright. And so even we’re going to talk about everything today, Bryan and I actually co wrote a curriculum together that’s being used all across the country. He is a master of curriculum, writing. If anybody has questions, I send them to him. And so for everybody here who’s listening, you use curriculum, you might even write them. This is going to be a great episode just to get inspired on what you could potentially do with one. And then I actually want to share some of the work that Bryan and I are doing together for our peer led program as well, where we teach students how to throw massive events without any drugs and alcohol, because in his neck of the woods in northern Wisconsin, this thing is popping off. It is so fun. We’re really excited where this is going. And we’re just really pumped to share. Yes, all the encouragement because these young people are ready to make a change. And this is proof that if you give them the opportunity, they will run with it. So Bryan, just give us the background on who you are. And what you do?

[00:01:30] Bryan Wright: All that excitement. That was the best intro, it should be amazing intros. I’m super bummed first of all, that you invited me on here to be able to come and hang out, chatted up and talk all things of what we’re getting to do and be able to share that with everybody else, with your audience and with anybody that’s listening, because it is super exciting. If you couldn’t tell a passionate Jake already is and how much he’s already doing. It’s just really awesome to be able to get to share that and continue to spread the Good News and the amazingness. I’m Bryan Wright, and I’m currently the founder and owner of “Dynamic Family Solutions”, where we provide second chance, opportunities, youth and families that are struggling or enduring, the never ending shortage or slew of issues that just continually keep impacting you. And we tried to be able to provide opportunities to be able to learn, grow and healthily be able to figure out how to navigate this crazy world of everything, everything we have, and how do we do that. And I’ve been a prevention educator for the last 15 years, working in the fields of domestic and sexual violence, and roads, working with those families and the youth. I just knew there needed to be far more done on the preventative side and trying to be able to create curriculums that were truly impacting and reaching these families and kids with where they’re at versus just being so reactionary, like we always are in society. And that’s the really unfortunate part. So we’re as an agency, as a company really trying to be able to provide as many healthy outlets, tools, programs, curriculums, just whatever it is, we can creatively come up with, give these kids a preventative chance or preventative opportunity to be able to learn, grow and get the messaging that is needed, before it gets to the point of locking up, labeling or charging the kids.

“Peer-Led Sober Parties: Empowering Students to Create Drug-Free Events”

[00:03:33] Jake White: So I remember we both went to school at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, and our paths got crossed because I was hosting a silver party for our town and it was just a really unique one. We set up this 300 foot slip and slide down a hill. We had music, we had games bubble soccer, a bunch of community partners, and he was incredible. You know, Bryan, I love this memory because there was this 300 foot slip and slide that weighs a ton. I don’t even know an actual 2000 pounds It might weight but it might be tons. And we could not lift it, there was so many trying to push it and lift it and Bryan gets up there with his big muscley football, wrestling body. I don’t even know what he does, what he eats. But he lifts this thing into our trailer. Like, it was easy. And then all of us are just wide eyed like who is this guy? And Bryan, it’s just a funny story. But I also remember when you were in school, you were going to become a police officer. I love this story. Can you just take us to that moment when you realize that you might not be a police officer, might do something different?

[00:04:46] Bryan Wright: There were several moments and I feel like we all have those areas within our lives as to where we just knocked on the head a little bit as to alerting you, as to where you’re supposed to be and where your passion lies. And I had several of those things that had happened or occurred because my whole family is law enforcement, my father, my uncle, my brother’s everybody is wearing a uniform and trying to be able to and I wanted to follow the footsteps, i would it. And I really started working as an intern, I started working with restorative justice programs and practices. And we got into the school, we got into one school in particular in Oshkosh. And we started working with these kids. And I just started seeing one story after another. And just one situation, I remember how this one kid had wrote out an entire suicide list of all the different ways of how he was going to take his life and this kids in seventh grade. And I’m saying like, how do you get to this stage in your life? That young and you’re thinking of creating this list, and then you start hearing about the family settings, and the A scores, the adverse childhood experiences, I had another set of students, the stories are just limitless, where some of these kids are caught smoking marijuana to the playgrounds, and then you bring in the parents and you try to be able to talk in regards to like, what’s going to happen the next steps, how we do these restorative practices? And just having the parents more upseted the fact that their kids had stolen the weed from their purse than at the back that they were even smoking it. And, these little stories that just continue to keep occurring as I was working directly with the youth within the schools, trying to do the restorative practices, and then working collectively with not only the kids, but the families as a whole. And starting to just see, these are the kids that are inevitably going to be the ones that I’m going to now be trying to lock up and arrest or that are struggling so much now already and I just couldn’t see myself, now all of a sudden being in the position of trying to arrest or charge these kids, when they’re just trying to make through and get through where they’re at. And when you see third and fourth generation of abuse and trauma and just those adverse childhood experiences. And you see how many of these things are so preventable. And how many of these areas as to where we need to get to these kids before we do lock them up, label them and just charge him as a criminal. It’s just so fundamentally important, and we can’t just be reactionary, as a society, we have to be preventative and we have to get to these kids young, early often and just younger and younger.

[00:07:43] Jake White: I feel like you had this personal realization that your gifting could be used to prevent it. And that’s your spot, like you said, that’s where your calling might be, that’s where your fit is. And watching you is like, this is definitely his thing. This is your calling. Because I just want to celebrate you for a second, you were flown out to France for an international award, you’re given for your work in prevention and restorative justice. So even just seeing that, and then helping and partnering with people like myself and many others to writing their curriculums that are getting incredible results and making a difference in young people’s lives, so they don’t have to relive that situation over and over. But hopefully their families and the students can improve and learn. So can you tell, you probably have a list at this point, what curriculums do you have, what topics do you cover so far?

[00:08:45] Bryan Wright: Like I said, there’s not a shortage or there’s just so many issues that every year continue to rising or the numbers just aren’t getting any better when it comes out relationship. I really tried to be able to create as many curriculums as possible to just cover every one of these areas that are so commonly prevalent, and one of the biggest ones that continued to be on the rise. When I was working for reach counseling, sexual abuse, in Neenah, Wisconsin, was the social that the issues revolving around sexting and dealing with students that were constantly sending, receiving or distributing sexually explicit or nude photos or there were the last few the collection of kids that were doing the data saving, where they were pulling together, all the kids photos, all the girls photos from all over the counties, there’s like five, six different counties. And they were saving them on their phones. So I really worked hard to be able to develop a social media sexting platform to be able to help curve and offer it as a diversionary and prevention curriculum for the schools. We, Jake, you and I, we got to partner with our beyond drugs and alcohol program because we all know how much the vaping issues have continued to be on the rise and just knowing how much we’ve partnered and work together in the past, doing the sober party during the 300 foot slip and slide, which was just incredible, I could not have found anybody more passionate and perfect to partner with to be able to create a curriculum to help alleviate and stop kids and to be able to get them to see the different picture. And we recreated the proofs method. Every one of the curriculums we have, we created an acronym to be able to build into that platform. And we recreated the proves method that you can have a sustainable, healthy lifestyle without drugs and alcohol. And our curriculum proves that. And that’s been a huge, huge success. From that curriculum that we had, we actually partnered with a company out of Arizona, the Center for gaming impact. And they helped us to take that physical curriculum, our vaping drugs and alcohol and turn it into an actual online student platform. And then that student platform was then turned into an app where now students are able to be able to access, enroll, and get all of this supportive and encouraging messaging, right on their phone, I always tell parents or anybody for that matter, out of the 1000s of horribly awful apps that your kids can download access or get into, now you can download one incredibly supportive app that you can put in the middle of all that, that gives motivating messages, that gives positive support, allows students that are struggling with the same issues to be able to collaboratively connect on a positive message and to support each other, which is incredible, having that and being able to have that in front of them 24/7 and knowing that you provided that, that is just so worth it. We just developed and built out truancy curriculum. So we’re working on all issues trying to get kids it’s called showing up. And that is the number one question that we’ve asked ourselves forever is how do you authentically get kids to truly want to show up, participate and be engaging in work and be a part of creating the life that they want. And our curriculum has really been able to get kids to actually start showing up, which has been really awesome, when you trying something showing up, and they don’t show up. It’s not. It’s doing what it’s supposed to. And it’s working, we’re getting the results that we were hoping to see. And we just got some really positive feedback actually last week, where one of the facilitators said, she immediately called her youth supervisor and was like, that was the most I’ve ever seen these kids open up, they were engaging, you could see the wheels in their heads turning. And the activities just got them thinking and the discussion questions in the way we build them out is developed in a way that gets the kids to immediately just connect, relate and engage. We have the social media sexting or beyond drugs and alcohol, we have vapping. And we have the truancy showing up. And then we just developed our life skills, curriculum. So we’re teaching all things, budgeting, financing, it’s how to be able to make money, how to be able to not only make the money, but to be able to budget it, to make it work for you, how to leverage it, and to be able to create passive lines of income, and really being able to sustain these kids for a future that they don’t have to continue to stay where they are or feel like they’re stuck living paycheque to paycheque. And then on top of that, once you have the money, creating the healthiest lifestyles of themselves, and then how to market themselves, how to resumes, cover letters, 30 seconds elevator pitches, which I always say are just so fundamentally, how many of us can actually like authentically pitch ourselves in 30 seconds or less. And one of the coolest areas that I say, if you had the opportunity to meet a celebrity that you love, and all of a sudden you found out this celebrity has a position where they just lost somebody, and they need that position filled. Would you pitch that person in 30 seconds or less, because this person needs millions of people, you pitch them in 30 seconds that will get you to stand out in their head that will make them be like this person is right here.

[00:14:06] Jake White: That’s incredible. And that’s just like a small example of your creativity. And why I think you’re so effective at developing curriculum is because you’re also in the field, implementing them, testing them, working with groups. And so you see what the students need and what they relate to. And then you help build that out. And the funny thing is, like we share a Canva account. And if you don’t know what Canva is, it’s like an online design platform, and you can build anything. And this dude creates more content than I have ever seen in my life. Like new tools, new resources, new tips, new slides, like everything is being updated constantly. And so you never wonder, is this an outdated curriculum that we use from 10 years ago or is going to be outdated tactics and strategies, is like no, this is Bryan Wright. This is dynamic family solutions. This has been updated within the last couple of months and tested, implemented by yourself in the field. So I think that’s what’s so cool when we even built ours is like having our own basically a board game that you can play in a life sized classroom, or different modules and scenarios that really get students thinking. And while they’re having fun, they’re learning. So different things like that, that I really admire about your style that I’m just like, yes, he’s got it.

[00:15:37] Bryan Wright: Always be creative. As a prevention educator, that was the number one thing that I got the most tired and fed up with, was sticking all of this money into these curriculums. And then I remember having to wait six, seven months to be able to just get a curriculum, and then all of a sudden, I would read through it, and I’d be like, this was terrible, I have to read through it, I’d only ended up using one or two of the activities, and then the rest of the time, it would sit up on my shelf. And I wouldn’t use it. And as an educator, I thought, well, I basically just came to the realization that if you really wanted something, you just had to create it yourself. And I know for a fact that every single one of us has to creatively, cleverly come up with new ways to present activities, or come up with ideas. And every training I do, I always tell individuals that I know that you probably have 10, 15 activities that you’ve done or ran, whether  this would be a cool curriculum, but you never had the tools or the skill sets to be able to bring your activities to wipe. And that’s been one of the coolest parts, is being able to collaboratively connect with those that do have these ideas, or that do have these activities that are like, this is the coolest thing in the world. And I’m like, well, then good kids need that, we need to get that out there then, if you know that it’s effectively working, then I love partnering with agencies, companies and be able to help, to be able to develop, build out and take you from start to finish with how to get it from just the concept to creation and get your curriculum, so you can hold it in your hands.

I just partnered with Tara out of Greenlee County to do the social media or the truancy curriculum. And she said it’s always been her dream to be able to hold a book of hers in her hands. And just last few months, we were able to have the instructor manuals and the student workbooks printed off and she was holding it in. It’s just one of those areas where you have the knowledge and you have that skill sets and you’re creating, you have to creatively come up with these activities. Because you are the ones in the trenches, you are the ones hearing the messaging, the content, you know what these kids need? So that’s what I love doing, is being able to hear that creativity and help you to bring that to life. And continue to just keep creating things that need to be out there to keep helping, it’s all we can do, we just keep creating the helping stick.

[00:18:01] Jake White: That’s the cool thing about the curriculum too that we have this experience. It’s like how can we share it and let other people run with it. And I was in the same situation, I was out speaking at schools, and people were said, this is an awesome message, and we want to keep it here longer. What do you have for us? And so I was like, Well, I guess I’m calling my friend, Bryan, because this is what he does. And the impact has been incredible. And I want to pivot now to to talk about because with our work together, we have our curriculum beyond drugs and alcohol. And then we’ve got the speaking platform to go along with it. And we also have a peer led program. So it’s very holistic, where it’s not just this one and done program that you get, and we’re gone. It’s like you have options to actually keep this here with our curriculum, and with our peer led program. So I’ll tee it up, Bryan, and then I want you to talk about how it’s going at the schools that you’re implementing it on, because, we went to northern Wisconsin a few months back, and three middle schools, robust the schools, all sixth through eighth grade. We had this huge, awesome event and assembly, both sides of the bleachers were filled, we brought it in the drum set, the big key hook, we get them involved in, and we delivered the message on drug prevention, just like we do, and the students loved it. And no surprise there. They love it. And at the end, we gave them the call to action. And this is something we always ask the school, do you want and have the capacity to support students, if they want to keep this message, and host fun drug free events in their community. Because they’re the ones who are going to keep this message living on and impact their friends, we more than I could have one day. And so they said yes. And Bryan, I’m going to leave it to you from here. Tell us the story. We met with students that day, we did our initial training, had some pizza, and then you ran with it. Tell us about that.

[00:20:15] Bryan Wright: The platform that you’ve been able to develop in the way you’ve been able to engage with the kids, had them, onboard them upon elsewhere, it’s amazing. Like you said, when you give kids the flexibility and freedom to be able to run with a concept or idea. And then to see where they pick that ball up and just how far they run with it, is phenomenal. So we did have our peer led groups, where we met with 26 students, where we fed them pizza, and we just talked all things, sober parties, and how to be able to put this into actual practice, how to implement this and how to be able to do this, as to where you now can pick this up and just start throwing your own parties and bring that into your own area. And the kids were just super excited. And what we had cleverly come up with was a $500 Sober party pitch contest between all three of the middle schools and so these school’s, all cleverly, creatively within their own peer led groups. Because each school sent 12, 13 kids to be the leaders and being able to pick up with this, run with it. And so we tasked them to be able to cleverly come up with the best theme, the best solutions, where to hold it, when to host it, where you’re going to have sponsor and just all these different things that we tasked them with, to be able to cleverly come up with the best, basically like Shark Tank pitch contest, and then we had a grading scale, where whichever school had the highest points and pitch at the end, that was to be able to win that $500 Visa gift card where they are now authentically going to be able to get, throw their very first sober party and it’s coming up actually already this Thursday June 8, and these kids, the theme that they came up with one was water park in your pocket, it was just so awesome.

I didn’t think that one could be, I really didn’t think that one was going to get beat out but they wanted to do all things waterpark, waterslides, water balloon fights, and have it at one of the parks. And then all of a sudden the other school came up in and they pitched me the title and the theme of the party that they came up with was titled glow hot and when I heard that you immediately like what a glow? What do you mean? And they said we want to combine Hawaiian theme with glow party and what they did, they mashed up. So all things Hawaiian that are going to be decked out in all things, low gloss chicks and clothe beams.

“Empowering Middle School Students to Prevent Drug Abuse and Plan Drug-Free Parties”

[00:23:04] Jake White: So Bryan, what I loved about it too is they had already had the connections for sponsors, they had thought of the venue, the date everything, when they wanted to do it? Like they were so thought out.

[00:23:22] Bryan Wright: It was mapped out to a tee. They have a campground, Evergreen campground, one of our students, their parents are oldest, and then on our board, and the second the daughter had went to them and said, Hey, we have this concept. And we have this chance to win this contest. And the parents were immediately on board, what do you need? Than list of 100 things, like let’s do this, like what do we got? What do we need to do to ensure and then from there, it was just so incredible to see the other kids be on board with we have the campground, we have the theme, we have the date, the time, all the biggest parts of throwing any party, even coming together. We’re going to get to fly you out and surprise the kids because the kids immediately were like, where’s the drummer guy? Where’s Jake? We want this guy to come drum for us again, he does such a cool presentation. And the kids just loved it. And they said, they loved you and wouldn’t be a party without you.

[00:24:25] Jake White: It was so sweet. And what else was really cool is that the students are just taking this and owning it. And what’s great is the adults that are in the back seats, so Bryan has been the face and the cheerleader, the champion, to keep them excited from the ground up. And he’s also in connection with because the health department for their county was the one who funded me to come into the area to help get all the schools together. And so Bryan’s been keeping the relationship on the ground with the health department, with the different grants, writers and different people in the area. There’s Police Department, people on board, different agencies, and people who work with youth that are just ready to support these students, because they know how important it is. So if someone doesn’t have a ride, to the event, they’re already thinking about how can we get students transported there? How can we have positive influences, like the police department who are in drug prevention field. And how do we integrate them to the event. So we’re basically relying on the students to give us all these ideas, relying on the adults to help, support these students and their ideas, and bring other people to the table, so that if they need somebody to come there, just grill hot dogs are like hanging out, we got someone there or something crazy, like they mentioned in the meeting is the police department said, Hey, we’ve got a dunk tank, if they want to dump us at this event, we will bring it and set it up. So just all these parties invested, this whole community is getting together around something positive. And what I love too and I’ll mention this about your pitch contest idea, Bryan, is what you did is you brought the three schools together, where they got to pitch a massive idea, only one got to win. But you set up the culture that, hey, only one team is going to win. But we are all one team. So we’re all going to the party, this is all of our parties. And next year, we might be able to hand this off to a different school who hosts the big event next year. So just realize that you really can’t lose, you can’t lose when it comes to this.

[00:26:44] Bryan Wright: And when the other schools see what they came up with. And they creatively work, that’s going to really amp them up next year to try to come up with a better theme. And then every year, you can just continually recreate that contest. And then it’s going to be huge, these kids are just going to become so competitive, as to where a lot of them were sixth seventh grade. So they have a couple more years to be a part of it. And they continue to do that. And it’s cool to see the support and knowing that the kids, that was the first thing we said was, if you agree to this, you’re agreeing that even if your school doesn’t win, you’re still going to like and the other schools had so many sponsors and support systems as well that they’re going to be able to bring into this party now. And collaboratively mash that all together where it’s just crazy to see where it’s coming up with, the pitch to the dank and so it’s fun. It’ll be cool to see the next few years and how excited these kids get into it. How they continues to boom.

[00:27:42] Jake White: People asked me this question too, though. So Jake, when you work with students, are you just working with colleges because that’s where you started, throwing these college house parties. And that’s the crazy stories, like it works in college. And so the thought of thing now is, what we’re learning is that middle school is really the place to start because these Students are starting in sixth, seventh grade. But they can keep this platform through middle school, through high school, even through college. Like imagine being a young person being told that drugs could potentially harm you and your friends, and you want to now make a different choice. But you wonder, Well, how am I going to make friends and feel good and deal with life? Well, there’s hundreds of students that I party with, that can do it drug free, too. So now I prove that I can. And no matter what, whatever stage I’m in, that’s really the dream of our platform is, students will have so much fun without it, they’ll learn how to develop real coping skills, so that when it comes to getting offered those things, they’re like, Hey, I don’t really need it. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t really need it. I’m going to have fun without it. And be accepted.

[00:29:03] Bryan Wright: Just watching this idea and your concept and how you were able to bring that all to life. And to be able to hear people talking about your priorities on the Oshkosh campus and just how successful they were. And teaching that to kids and giving them that outlet. And giving them that ownership, it’s so incredible. And I love watching these Kids, we’re going to have our meeting tonight again, and all of them and you’re instilling them, some of them are coming up with marketing strategies, sponsorship strategies, where they’re learning how to be able to pitch to these businesses, to be able to get all the stuff promoted, when you’re teaching that in sixth grade, how to do that, they literally become a little party planners. They’re going to be such a resume builder already.

[00:29:59] Jake White: And it’s something that they’re excited about. It’s extracurricular, this is beyond their classwork. So this part of experiential learning, entrepreneurship, like building real life skills and marketing skills, yes, no doubt, this is going to pay off for the rest of their life. And at the same time, we get to do drug prevention in a fun way.

[00:30:22] Bryan Wright: It’s one of the best ideas that if you’re going to hit on anything, you’re going to hit it on, and why not provide an alternative outlet to this degree? That’s almost like a no brainer. It’s one of those things where you’re like, why? That is cool to do.

[00:30:43] Jake White: This is great, Bryan. I’m going to cut it short. We could probably talk all day, actually. We do have to meet with these students about their party later. So we’ll end it here. Bryan, if someone wants to check out dynamic family solutions website and all that stuff, how we can learn about your curriculums, and then to be in touch with you about anything that you’re doing. How can people do that?

[00:31:05] Bryan Wright: Yes, thank you so much. We’d love to be able to help creatively, cleverly, come up with some curriculums, and create your own curriculums. You can go to dynamicfamilysolutions.net. We’re not a dot com, dot com’s are old schools, as to helped people to remember that. bryanwright@dynamicfamilysolutions.net. You can hit us up, go to our website, I can email the dynamicfamilysolutionsllc@gmail.com. I know that’s a long one. But that’s our company name with the llc@gmail.com. And we really look forward to being able to continue to support agencies, companies and anybody that has these concepts or ideas or just wants us to bring in what we’ve already done. To be able to help with those issues, the sex team, the healthy relationships. I’d love to throw some sober parties in your areas, you bring Jake and I, to your areas and I’d love to be able to continue to keep spreading these curriculums and the messaging. We’re all here for the same cause and purpose, to better benefit these youth, families and kids the best way we can.

[00:32:17] Jake White: Well, Bryan, it’s a blessing to work with you, man. Honestly, throughout the last five, six maybe more years, it’s absolutely pleasure and for everyone listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Party Talk. I hope you feel empowered to do great work in your community. If you found this episode helpful. Please help other people find it by sharing it, by tuning in on Mondays and then by leaving us a review because that’s how people will find us. So anyone you know who works with youth, who cares about drug prevention or the surrounding topics that it touches. We’d love to see on the show. So you have a great amazing, wonderful day.