William Gladden Foundation

The seed for William Gladden Foundation was planted in 1974, when William H. Gladden, Jr., Executive Director of the Pennsylvania George Junior Republic School for Boys died in a plane crash. William D. "Pappy" Gladden, Sr., the Executive Director of the Republic during Waln Brown's 18-month court commitment, asked Waln to continue the Gladden family tradition of helping troubled youth.

Upon completing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Waln left the Office of Corrections Education, Pennsylvania Department of Education, and took up residence at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, and then pursued a post-doctoral fellowship at the Sonia Schenkman Orthogenic School, University of Chicago.

In 1982, Waln completed his autobiography, The Other Side of Delinquency, Rutgers University Press, 1983, and borrowed $5,000 to pursue Pappy Gladden's mission by incorporating William Gladden Foundation. The loan was paid in full, plus interest, in six months from sales of the booklet, What Parents Should Know About Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice.

In 1985, WGF received a grant from the Child Abuse Task Force of York County to research, publish and distribute the booklet, The York County Child Abuse Handbook. The booklet was adapted for a national audience and marketed to professionals.

In addition to developing and marketing educational materials, WGF pursued research grants. In 1985, WGF received a grant from the Dauphin County Juvenile Probation Department and a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime & Delinquency in 1986. These research grants provided an opportunity to study the outcomes of 1,000 former court-adjudicated delinquents and learn how some overcame their childhood problems while others did not. The findings were published in academic journals and the book, The Abandonment of Delinquent Behavior: Promoting the Turnaround, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988.

In 1986, WGF received its letter of tax-exempt status as a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization from the IRS.

During the mid 1980s through the early 1990s, WGF pioneered the youth at risk marketplace by publishing an array of educational materials for troubled children, their families and professionals. We marketed nearly one million catalogs per year to schools, courts, private and public agencies and organizations nationwide. Unfortunately, however, with success sometimes comes greed, and the nonprofit mission of WGF was usurped by an unscrupulous businessperson who cloned our materials, stole our customer mailing list and informed our customers that we were out of business. The confusion created in the marketplace ultimately devastated WGF publishing.

In 1997, WGF received grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Milton Hershey School to form the World Organization of Resilient Kids (WORK), an international volunteer organization comprised of former youth at-risk that have successfully mastered their childhood difficulties and who apply their experiences and expertise to help troubled children and families learn how to overcome their problems.

WGF continued to advance its mission through grants from the Evaluation and Advocacy Group and W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 2001, and Operation Outward Reach and the Staunton Farms Foundation in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

In 2004, we rededicated WGF to the mission of providing information to kids, parents and professionals about child and family issues through www.williamgladdenfoundation.org. We are updating, editing and translating our extensive library of educational materials to the Internet and providing a public forum for the exchange of information and ideas.

The Google Foundation awarded WGF an AdWords grant in April 2005 for free keyword advertisements in the Sponsored Links section of their search engine. The $720,000 grant continued until November 2006, drawing over 1.2 million unique visitors to the website. In 2005, the foundation also received a general operating grant from the Gladstone Tipton Foundation.

Additionally, WGF supports the efforts of Michigan State University School of Social Work to identify former youth who experienced out-of-home placement and provide them educational opportunities so they can contribute their experiences, knowledge and expertise to improving youth services. WGF also supports the effort of Dr. John Seita to provide former foster and out-of-home placement youth access to decision-making bodies that formulate programs, policies, practices and procedures about the welfare of children. We believe that this obvious neglect of client perspective is a reason why many troubled and disenfranchised youth continue having problems as adults. It is time to hear their voices and learn from their unique experiences and expertise.

Through a 2006 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to the Michigan State University School of Social Work, Dr. Seita and Dr. Brown continue to collaborate in their shared interest of helping foster kids and other children in out-of-home-placement successully transition to adulthood.

To quote Pappy Gladden, "Troubled kids need advocates, people who truly believe in their potential and see past their problems."

We continue to embrace Pappy's wisdom and to promote his values through the William Gladden Foundation.