A place to be, a place to become

As the new executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Boys & Girls Club, Dhakir Warren is focused on building collaboration between community partners and establishing the club as a space for all Island youth.

“This is a place that is familiar, this is a place that is the epitome of community,” Warren, who served as the administrator of student affairs at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School before coming to the club, told The Times.

During his time on the Vineyard, Warren said, he has heard several stories about kids who went to the club and had their lives changed for the better — whether through the compassion and support of a dedicated counselor, or the structure and sense of togetherness that the youth center provides.

“I always hear things like ‘The club saved my life,’ or ‘The club was a critical part of why I am where I am today,’” Warren said.

One of the reasons Warren said the club is such a beneficial part of so many kids’ lives is because it provides them a comfortable, safe space filled with adult mentors they can trust.

Particularly when working with youth experiencing challenges in their home or school lives, Warren said, trust is essential in building close relationships.

Although students can have close connections with their teachers in an educational setting, kids who come to the club are able to simply be themselves, have fun, and interact with counselors on a deeper, more relatable level.

“It’s that idea that I see you, not just in the moment, but I see you enough to build these deep relationships where seven years or even 10 years later, that connection is still there. That is what genuine and authentic youth work should be,” Warren said.

When kids are outside an academic setting and are in a space that’s all about them, barriers can come down, and they are more open to certain conversations.

In this way, kids are more likely to share their emotions and struggles with their counselors.

“That kid that may have that kind of visceral reaction to an authority figure in the school is not going to have that reaction to their counselor, who is an authority figure, but is someone they can more closely relate to,” Warren said.

With the opportunity to provide such a powerful experience to kids, Warren is looking to take that work to the next level, and create a space that can house programming and youth development and education for the entire Vineyard community.

“The only way to do that is to literally have the space to accommodate that expansion, which allows us to more deeply meet the needs of the community,” Warren said.

With a recently signed land deal to expand the club facilities, Warren and his board of directors are considering all the programming and enrichment that could take place with so much new space.

“Folks often get lost in, ‘Why are you building another facility, why do we need another gym, why do we need another art room?’ We are building a space that can house the heart and soul of what we are trying to do, and that is to deliver programming,” Warren said. “More than anything, this is a place to be — a place to become — for kids all across the Island.”

At a time when helping kids is so critical, Warren said, he hopes to take the many strong youth-serving organizations here and partner with them to provide a comprehensive support system.

Where there would normally be siloes of support, the club is looking to implement collaborative work between organizations like the Islandwide Youth Collaborative, the YMCA, and the Youth Task Force in order to avoid a duplication of efforts.

“We aren’t experts in providing social, emotional support per se to kids, but there are people on this Island who do this work, and that’s where you partner,” Warren said. 

One of the central goals of the club is to strengthen student performance in schools, and with its summer program, Warren said, they are looking to address summer learning loss that can make it difficult for students to keep up with their education.

“Are our third grade kids reading on a third grade level? Because if they aren’t, it becomes harder and harder for them to catch up,” Warren said. “Being able to provide opportunities for them to engage in reading enrichment during the day as part of their camp experience, we are helping to address that learning loss, which should translate into performance in the schools.”

In that way, the club is an extension of the work schools are doing in the realm of supporting academic growth, just through a slightly different lens.

The club’s mission is to develop the entire person such that those qualities and understandings that come from a rich childhood experience culminate in achievement later in life.

Another goal for Warren is to address the issue of substance use disorder early on, and create appropriate programming for kids in third through eighth grade.

“One of the scariest things for me is knowing that we are in a time when our kids are even more susceptible to substance use, and our rural community makes that much easier,” Warren said.

He said that by addressing the peripheral issues that contribute to substance use, such as issues in the family and in the school setting, the club can tackle the problem at its root.

Programming that teaches kids proper decisionmaking and how to build healthy relationships, and bolsters self-awareness, will combat drug use by instilling positive values and a sense of self-worth, Warren said.

“This idea that when kids walk through that door to the high school is when they get introduced to all these drugs and start doing drugs, that’s totally misdirected. They’re doing this stuff in fifth and sixth grade,” he said. “Let’s cut that idea out. If there isn’t already, every school needs compulsory programming for grades three through eight that addresses this.”

Warren stressed that the club can’t meet the needs of the Island community alone, and he is intent on bringing together all the youth-serving organizations to help kids in every aspect of their lives.

“As vested community members, we have to understand that if we are doing this work, we want to have the most impact, and we can’t have the most impact as individual organizations,” Warren said. “At the end of the day, people care, our community cares — we need to come together.”