Hello and welcome everyone to WFHR's Rapids Report for this May 30th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Mail, off here welcoming in the studio some of our
favorite people to talk to. We have the Wisconsin Rapids Family Center in
with us today and it is Kayla, Visitation Specialist hanging out with me.
Kayla, how are you doing? I'm good, how are you? Doing good and
appreciate you joining us as always like to remind the audience that how
much, remind you guys how much we appreciate you and the great work that you're
doing in our community. The vital and important work that is going on at the
Family Center every single day. We greatly appreciate you, certainly appreciate
you being able to make the time hang out with me, answer my silly questions and
all of that. I appreciate you and thanks for being here Kayla. Kayla is playing
hurt too by the way everybody. So I mean all the more reason we really appreciate
you being here. I want to talk about some of the events coming up this summer and
the excitement we have about them and getting to that in just a little bit if you
don't mind Kayla. But before we do, we're kind of talking in our pre-game. We don't
get a chance to hang out very often and I thought it'd be a good idea to get
into your job a little bit and what a Visitation Specialist is. First off, I
think that's a very cool sounding title. I just put that out there. I think it's
great time. But it's in all seriousness, it is one of the more integral jobs
that goes on at the Family Center and we certainly will respect privacy and
all these things. So we're not going to get too in detailed here. But I was
curious and I know the audience would be about, you know, what you do and how
you spend a day in the life of Kayla in this job. Thank you for having me and
yes, I am battling out allergies a bit. So bear with me. I appreciate that. So in
my role, I oversee the Visitation Center that we have at the Family
Center. So in my role, I oversee the Visitation Center which is within the
Family Center. We get referrals for families that need supervised visitation
or exchanges. And I coordinate the setting up of those services and getting
those on our calendar. And then also the communication between the parties that
may have referred. So the court system, probation and parole, etc. And then I
also oversee the visits and exchanges that take place. Certainly, as we can
imagine, a lot of gray area in there as far as, you know, working with people and
all the different things that might come up with that and everything. But I
really do appreciate the look behind the curtain, if you will, at this job and
what that does. And when I say integral and vital, you really hit it on the
head and brought that attention to that and why that is. When it comes to the
difficulty, as an interviewer, my next question is supposed to be what is the most
difficult part of the job. I think that again, as an audience, we can understand
that there's no easy part of the job. But is there a good feeling that comes
from this? Do you have those good moments? Do you have those moments where you're
able to be appreciative and enjoy the job, if you will, for lack of a better
work? Sure. Every day, being able to support
children and the families and maintain that contact is very fulfilling. That's
why we have the center is to be able to maintain and hopefully strengthen that
family connection. I appreciate that Kayla and I admit that I may have known the
answer was coming. But you know, in all honesty, when I talk to people about
volunteering in this community and doing things, one of the times, one of the
little things that can come up, it doesn't come up that often, but with the
family center is, well, you know, it's a very heavy topic. And I think that
people kind of go into it with that mindset that it is, there is almost a cloud
over it or something like that. And it couldn't be farther from the truth. In
fact, I would say the family center is a got to one of the more positive, strong
energies of any building I've been in in Wisconsin Rapids. And certainly the
events are very much the same. And it's always great whenever I have one of
you guys on the air with me and stuff to be able to kind of remind everybody of
that. That there's a reward that comes with this job that is unwordable. There's
no really great way to I put Kayla on the spot there. Unfortunately, there's no way
to really put into words what it feels like to do this kind of work to have this
kind of impact. It's why we encourage people to when we have openings, you know,
think about the family center and this career opportunity along with of course
volunteering, which every event we do, we could always use more hands on deck and
more of the community involvement. Absolutely. One of the best things you can give
is your time. So even if you can't donate materially or with items, your time
is incredibly valuable. And I bring that up in part because we wanted to wrap up
talking a little bit about some of the events going out at the family center
and coming up in July 26th, the touch of truck event. Make sure to save the
date for that. Another one of our favorite events to do. This is a great one. It
brings attention and awareness to the cause and to what is going on over there
and the work. We're able to raise funds oftentimes and certainly awareness for
this. But we also love this event because of some of the things I was saying
before, this is a fun good energy event that people just love and come to.
And even if you've never been to it before, you know what a touch of truck
event is pretty well. And we have so many of our great community leaders and
people involved with this one Caleb. Do we have any anybody written down already
for this one? Not that I have, but Amy has all of that information for you.
And I'm sure that's coming that she's going to be very excited to share all
of that information with you. We also do have the drive against violence
coming up later on at this summer. That is August 18th. And that is a golf
event out bullseye. You know, both of these events, the touch of truck event is
such a great family event. And yes, we encourage you to bring the kids
down. They get to see fire trucks and you know, some of the, I know the wood
kind of shares department loves being down there. I know Sean, he's going to
want to be there. I don't want to speak for him, but I guarantee he's going to
be down there. It means a lot to him these events. So the kids, you know, you
never should never know as a side story. You know, what might spark their
interest and create a lifelong passion for one of these industries that we
could always use people in, whether it's the, you know, the fire department
or police department, or it's a family center itself. But the drive against
the golf, golf events, people show up. People love these things. This community
just is such a big fan of golf and loves golfing. And when you bring in bullseye
golf club, one of our favorite places and a big shout out to bullseye and the
great work they do. This is again, another one of those events that yes, the,
the, the, the theme of the event has a seriousness to it. The events
themselves are everything that makes this community great. They bring in
fellowship. They bring in, you know, people you don't get to see every day and
all the time and you run it back into. It is a great opportunity for businesses
to not only get their name out there, like you sponsor a hole or something
along those lines and having people see your business that might not
otherwise. But a key thing to this that I always bring up and I bring it up in
part to the great businesses that have sponsored with the family center for
all these years, along with many others is the, there's a lot of people out
there that go to school for many years from marketing and all these great
sales people out there. Like got a lot of good ones out there, a lot of
creative ones. I am going to save you a lot of money right now. There is not a
better way to get more bang for your buck and more money for your business and
more attention for your business than attaching yourself to a nonprofit,
especially the family center. You not only show that you care for the
community, but you're standing on the right side of history. If I can just be
blunt about it. And when you do that as a business, you are opening yourself
up to so much more than just sales or finishing in the black. You are showing
your community where you stand with these things. And in this day and age,
especially in communities like ours here in Rapids and even our surrounding
communities in Pointe and Nukusan, Wasad and Marshfield and all that, it means
something. It really does. And the community shows up for these Kayla. They
really do. Absolutely. And we appreciate that very much. We want to encourage
people to volunteer for these events as well. And certainly remind everybody
that the family center has your back. The family center has a 24 hour
crisis line. You can call any time you need 715-421-1511. That is 421-1511.
There are also great services and programs available over at the family
center and great opportunities for you to impact the future right now.
You can show up for these events. We will encourage you to bring the family
to them and certainly let us know if you can volunteer for them. But as Kayla
was touching on before, one of the things, the first things that I did over at
the family center was just, you know, asking around like, hey, can I put some
light bulbs in? You need the lawn mode, anything like that. Those things may not
seem like that big of a deal to you out there. But you do that and it's one
less thing on the plates of the great people working at the family center.
So, encourage you to help out with those things as well. Kayla, before we let
you go, is there a contact number? People can reach you if they have
follow-up questions or should we just send them to the website and the
Facebook page? Yes, the direct number for our program. If there are any
questions about visitation or how to get started,
is 715-424-6185? That's 715-424-6185.
And if you want to reach the family center, I encourage you to bookmark their
webpage as well, familyctr.org, familyctr.org.
Be sure to follow them on social media as well. Share their posts on your page.
You just don't know who might see them otherwise. And Kayla, nice job.
Nice work. You made it. You did it. We appreciate you. Thank you for the
time and we appreciate you all joining us for the conversation. Everybody
and we're here at WFHR's Rapids Report.
