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SHE KEEPS FAMILIES TOGETHER

Better Together CEO Megan Rose leads an organization focused on keeping children out of foster care by giving families the support they need. | BY ANNE REED

On a hot July afternoon, in the height of Southwest Florida’s COVID-19 wave, Megan Rose is on the road, fitting in an interview during her packed work day. As the CEO of Better Together, an organization that works to help families in crisis, Megan has seen an increase of 155% in calls for help since the start of the pandemic.

One of those calls involved Krystal and Jack — a story that was shared by Better Together through its social media pages and website, bettertogetherus. org, documented through the lens of photojournalist Kinfay Moroti. Krystal moved to Fort Myers from Pennsylvania but struggled to find a safe place for herself and Jack, her 1-year-old son. Better Together volunteers provided a safe, loving family for Jack while PHOTO BY AMANDA INSCORE Krystal and Jack’s father worked with Megan, her staff and volunteers to was born in Orlando and grew up in rope for two years as she pursued her secure employment, create a budget and the North Port area. master’s degree in human services with find housing. “When I grew up there, there wasn’t a concentration in family and group

And, on the day of our interview, even a high school,” Megan remembers. dynamics and leadership. Megan was headed to Krystal’s new “It’s been nice to see it develop over the “I actually went to school to become home for the big reunion. Jack was years.” a teacher,” Megan notes. “I took a psycoming home — another family safe, She attended Liberty University in chology class, and I was just so fascisupported and together. Virginia, graduating with a degree in nated by human behavior… it changed

Megan’s story starts in Florida. She psychology, then studied abroad in Euthe course of my career.”

While attending Liberty University, Megan was employed as a nanny for a French family. When the family returned to Paris, they invited Megan to go with them — which is where she completed her master’s degree.

“I loved the laidback lifestyle, art, food,” she says. “It was so fascinating. The family I nannied for — the parents were nuclear engineers. They had a completely different world view than me.”

Each night the adults would have wine and conversation.

“I just loved hearing their perspective and why they believed what they believed and why they saw the world the way they did.”

Her time in Paris had a huge impact on how she viewed people and how she connected with them.

After Paris, Megan moved back to Southwest Florida. As the oldest of six children, she has always been close to her siblings and family — especially her mother.

“She is my hero,” Megan says. “She is my role model.”

Megan began her job search but was rejected multiple times — until she applied and was hired to be a child welfare case manager.

“That was great because it was exactly where I need to be,” she says.

Megan worked for close to four years as a case manager, then became a director for a foster care agency.

“I was really young and ambitious, and they took a chance and hired me,” she recalls. “I had an incredible mentor and supervisor who helped prepare me to do the work I’m doing today.”

She built the foster agency from the ground up, assembling her team and recruiting foster families. During that same time period, she met Mason, now her husband. The couple began dating and he jumped right in beside her, supporting her work with foster families.

“We got engaged in the parking lot right before a foster parent appreciation dinner,” Megan says. “We had many date nights where we were out helping our foster families building cribs or delivering diapers.”

The couple were married in 2014 and had an open reception so all the foster families and kids could be part of Megan’s big day.

“I was very hands-on and very invested in the family lives of these kids,” she says.

Megan and Mason decided to start a family right away, and when she was seven months pregnant, she connected with a group called Safe Families for Children, based in Chicago.

“They were trying to start their program in Southwest Florida. I had coffee with their team, trying to figure out how to work with them and their idea of volunteers helping before things spiral out of control,” she recalls. “I wasn’t looking for a job — it wasn’t in my view.”

Nevertheless, they offered her a job.

PHOTO BY AMANDA INSCORE

“I was seven months pregnant — probably not the best time to leave my career and start something from scratch,” she says. “I talked to my husband and we thought about it and prayed about it.”

She left her job and started with Safe Families for Children in 2015.

“I didn’t really have maternity leave. I just brought Brady with me.”

Safe Families for Children started as a franchise. Megan made changes along the way until, in 2018, she branched off and formed Better Together.

One of the first big changes? Better Together runs on donations from private donors and does not take money from the state.

“It became difficult for families to trust us when we were connected to the government,” she explains. “There

was a real fear of losing their children.”

Better Together works closely with the Department of Children and Families, which introduces Megan and her staff to families who could benefit from their services.

“We try to make sure the families we help really want to help themselves,” she explains. “There has to be an internal drive; the parents have to want it. You can’t help someone that doesn’t want to help themselves.”

From the start, volunteers have been a large part of Better Together’s impact, and Megan and her staff strive to ensure that the volunteers have the support they need to succeed.

“We connect the helpers to the hurting, but we create a structure that stretches,” she says. “We work hard to make sure that the children are safe, that our volunteers are in it for the right reasons and will be good stewards of the families we serve, that the children are safe and loved and are treated as one of their own children.”

Her volunteer team continues to grow as more people learn about Better Together and the impact they are having on families in crisis.

“I really care about sustaining our volunteers,” Megan says. She strives to keep her hard-working volunteers feeling excited and supported and appreciated. “The greatest way to recruit new volunteers is to retain your current volunteers and treat them like gold. Our volunteers are incredible — just amazing human beings with the biggest hearts.”

Megan and Mason are also volunteers. They have cared for more than 18 children in their home over the last five years. The first child they cared for, Brett, came to them when Megan was pregnant with her first child.

“We felt really strongly that if we were going to go out in the community and sell this idea to families and churches and partners, that we had to do it ourselves,” she says.

Brett, who was nearly a year old, had a mother who needed a support system and a father who was abusing alcohol. Better Together worked to reunite Brett with both of his parents, “Because we know dads play a significant role,” Megan stresses.

During her younger years, her own father went through recovery and was able to “get clean and get healthy and be the dad I need him to be,” she says. “Strangers came alongside our family and gave us support. Because of those kind, human connections and love and empathy, my parents ended up getting remarried.”

Megan acknowledges that, had her family not had help during their time of crisis, she could have become part of the foster care system and her family could have had a very different story. It’s her first-hand experience seeing the love and care and respect her family needed and the services and support from strangers that ultimately led her to where she is today, the CEO of Better Together.

Through its Better Families program, Better Together has served more than 2,800 children, including 400 during the first half of 2020. Megan, her staff and team of volunteers now serve children in eight Florida counties. After reuniting families, Better Together continues to offer support and has found that 98% of the children whose families complete the program have no findings of certified maltreatment within 12 months of ending their services.

There are many factors that lead to a family being in crisis, including drugs, alcohol, mental health and job loss.

“We started our jobs program in 2016 because we realized 80% of the families in our programs were in crisis due to job loss,” she says. Job loss can lead to homelessness, drug use and depression.

Better Together’s Better Jobs program has served over 28,000 people in 25 states through job fairs, partnering with churches, employers and other nonprofits, with 1 in 3 job seekers hired on the spot. The organization held several virtual job fairs during the COVID-19 pandemic, including one on August 13, which helped 650 people in Southwest Florida connect to employment opportunities. She describes their job fairs as having a culture of celebration and kindness, with volunteers offering encouragement and, most importantly, hope.

“The greatest tragedy is when people lose hope,” she says. “One thing we ask our job seekers is what is their level of confidence prior to coming in. On average, it’s a two. But then they leave reporting an eight or nine. To me that is exciting because even if they don’t find a job, they have the confidence to keep looking and know they have potential.”

Which leads us back to Krystal and Jack. Krystal, who found temporary housing with the help of Better Together, who rode the bus each day to work at Walmart, taking as many shifts as she could to save money. Jack, who thrived with the volunteers from Better Together who cared for him and loved him as their own, volunteers who made sure his needs were met and that he never lost touch with his mom. Megan, her staff and volunteers, gave Krystal and Jack hope, supported her and gave her the tools she and Jack’s father, Jason, needed to survive and thrive as a reunited family.

They are one of thousands of families that Better Together has served, and Megan aims to grow the organization to serve thousands more.

“I just see Better Together really growing all over the state of Florida, which has the third largest foster care system. If I can cover the entire state and radically reduce the number of kids entering foster care, it would provide a blue print,” she explains, noting she wants to disrupt the foster care system in a good way, in a way that helps reduce stress on the system so changes can be made. “If we can do it in Florida, we can do it anywhere.”

Megan vows to continue to work to strengthen families in crisis and keep them together.

“I feel like God has been preparing me my entire life to do this work,” Megan says. “It’s more than a job to me — it’s a life calling.”