The Flawless Foundation: Portland Nonprofit Sees the Perfection in Every Child

Last summer, I was tasked with the job of purchasing and delivering lunch to the teachers and administrators of a special education school in Southeast Portland on behalf of The Flawless Foundation. The first thing I saw upon entering the school's expansive atrium was a little boy, maybe eight years old, lying on his back. Flanking either side of him were two young women in their 20s, para-educators, each grasping one of the boy's arms and and one of his legs, which, at small intervals, he flailed and twitched.

I never found out what led to the boy's restraint. After delivering lunch, the atrium was quiet. But I do remember thinking it was unlikely that this had been the boy's first exercise in restraint.

Incidents like this are common at schools for children who, because they are behaviorally challenging, have been removed from the special education programs at their home schools or at their last placement. Yet each day, their teachers come to school where they are often subject to students who hit, kick, bite and spit at them.

The Flawless Foundation's founder, Janine Francolini, praises these teachers and administrators not only for their resilience, but for their ability to form bonds of mutual respect and love with the students in their care.

"They work under very extreme circumstances," she says. "To watch them come back to work each day with love and forgiveness—wow, that is inspiring."

Since Flawless's founding just over two years ago under the modestly simple yet ambitious motto, "Seeing the Perfection in Every Child," Francolini has initiated several programs at schools and treatment programs aimed at not only enriching the educational landscape for these children—yoga, gardening, music and arts programs among them—but for staff, as well (who also often participate in yoga and meditation classes). Through Flawless, she has also spearheaded efforts to solicit in-kind donations to replace worn and frayed sofas and chairs and outdated tech tools, like televisions and computers. But that, she admits, is only scratching at the surface of Flawless's ambitions.

Francolini moved with her family to Portland just a few years ago. A fourth-generation New Yorker, she has a graduate degree in Elementary Education and spent 15 years in the New York City's private school system, working as a teacher at the early childhood level, then later as an administrator, an admissions director and as an educational consultant.

She says her professional experience bridged her founding of Flawless with that of her experience as a child.

"Looking back I think that I was a child who could have been served by Flawless," she says. "I don't know if I would have had a diagnosis or not, but I definitely felt things intensely and had lots and lots of anxiety." She says her adolescence was a particularly challenging emotional time for her and says a clearer picture formed two years ago when she noticed a lack of resources available to children with behavioral challenges.

"I was called to action, immediately," she says. "My own personal experiences as a child make me very passionate about prevention and giving children tools to live a healthy, balanced life in every way, physically, mentally and spiritually."

Years later, Francolini has found herself as an advocate for children's mental health in the midst of what she calls "a public health crisis."

"To be blunt, many of these children are in the school-to-prison pipeline," she says. "If we invest in our at-risk children when they are younger, we prevent all kinds of social issues, not to mention crime and the costs of detention centers and jails. And of course, even more important, there are the human costs. There is something we can do and it is time to take action in a big way."

So in May of 2008, Flawless was born. "I launched [it] like a bake sale with no plan, and can't believe how fast it has grown," she says. Since then, Flawless has received countless emails and telephone calls from individuals around the country asking how they can replicate Flawless-like programs in their towns and cities.

And just a few weeks shy of its second birthday, Francolini was contacted by The National Association of Special Education Teachers, a Washington D.C-based organization, who bestowed upon Flawless its most distinguished honor, the 2010 Excellence in Special Education Award.

In the coming days and weeks ahead, Francolini plans on steering Flawless to the place where it can generate the greatest impact. In addition to offering immediate relief to the population served by Flawless, Francolini says she's very interested in spreading the philosophy and approach of Dr. Stuart Ablon of Think:Kids, a program out of Massachusetts General Hospital, whose philosophy “Kids Do Well if They Can” aligns with hers.

For Flawless's future, the question posed seems to be to feed one a fish, or to teach one to fish for fish? Francolini says the verb form of fish appeals to her greatly.

In 2009, Francolini teamed up with and began organizing training conferences for Ablon. A national expert working with children with behavioral challenges, Ablon also trains professionals in the techniques of Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS), especially in Oregon where it is at present being applied in systems of care at 27 sites.

In the simplest terms, professionals and parents trained in CPS work with children with behavioral challenges, who, when non-compliant behavior flares up, are invited by adults to collaborate on solutions to better the behavior at hand and to prevent  outbursts from occurring in the future. Through this process, the adult and the child develop a relationship marked by mutual understanding and respect.

This is important, Francolini says, because the causes of outbursts are very often cognitive in nature. In other words, the triggers, or causes, that can affect a child's subsequent outbursts cannot necessarily be detected because they are interior, or rather, invisible, tied up in the neurodevelopment of the child's brain.

Collaborative Problem Solving, then, is seen by many as a healthy alternative to yelling, bribing or punishing a child for non-compliant behavior, especially if the child's neurodevelopment prevents him or her from even understanding why he or she is being punished.

Francolini also says that by spreading awareness of these issues and of the techniques of CPS, the general public can better understand that a child's behavior can stem from lagging cognitive skills rather the favored trope of "poor parenting."

It is thus she leans heavy on her motto, because these are, after all, children in need of understanding.

"Working with the children is a dream," she says. "They are so responsive. Everything we do with them is received with great enthusiasm and interest. And I would like to give a special acknowledgement to the children in our Flawless community, as well as the adults who care for them. It is their resilience and their extraordinary bonds of love that that inspires us, all the time."

To find out more about The Flawless Foundation, visit its web site at www.flawlessfoundation.org, where you can read about programs, watch videos and interviews with notable professionals and view the accomplishments of the children.

Chad Walsh is occasionally contracted by Flawless to write copy, solicit donations and perform a variety of administrative duties.