A Train of Thought with Matt Harrington
A Train of Thought with Matt Harrington explores what happens when behavior analysis meets business, marketing, leadership, and growth.
Hosted by Matthew Harrington, BCBA, a behavioral health growth strategist with experience in clinical leadership and ABA marketing, the show goes beyond theory to explore the ideas, decisions, and strategies shaping the future of behavioral health.
Each episode features candid conversations with founders, clinicians, executives, and industry leaders about growing organizations, building stronger teams, reaching more families, navigating change, and creating meaningful impact.
From ABA and behavioral science to marketing, entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation, Matt brings a behavior analyst’s perspective to the challenges that leaders face every day.
Whether you’re a BCBA, practice owner, healthcare leader, marketer, or simply interested in how behavior influences business, A Train of Thought offers practical insights, fresh perspectives, and conversations worth thinking about.
A Train of Thought with Matt Harrington
Abdul-Rahmaan I. Muhammad – Founder, My People Clinical Services | CEO, My People Community Services
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What does it take to build a community organization that grows without losing the trust of the people it serves?
In this episode of A Train of Thought, host Matthew Harrington, BCBA, sits down with Abdul-Rahmaan I. Muhammad, Founder of My People Clinical Services and President & CEO of My People Community Services, to explore culturally responsive behavioral health, community leadership, fatherhood, mentorship, and the importance of staying true to your mission.
With over 20 years of experience serving individuals and families, Abdul shares how his journey began with a passion for supporting fathers and evolved into an organization providing therapeutic services, youth mentoring, and supportive housing programs. He explains why understanding the communities you serve is essential to building trust, creating meaningful relationships, and delivering lasting impact.
The conversation also explores The Manhood Tree, Abdul's initiative focused on helping men grow through brotherhood, fatherhood, mentorship, and mental wellness. He challenges traditional approaches to fatherhood programs, emphasizing why supporting men as individuals must come before expecting them to succeed as fathers.
Matt and Abdul also discuss the challenges of scaling a mission-driven organization, maintaining a strong workplace culture, and ensuring that growth never comes at the expense of meaningful community connections.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why cultural competence and trust are essential to effective behavioral health services.
- How My People Clinical Services expanded from fatherhood support into comprehensive community-based programs.
- How to maintain organizational culture and mission while growing your team.
- Why The Manhood Tree prioritizes personal growth, brotherhood, and men's mental health.
- The role of mentorship and intergenerational relationships in developing stronger communities.
- Why sustainable impact matters more than pursuing growth for its own sake.
- Abdul's advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and community leaders looking to turn their ideas into action.
Abdul leaves listeners with a powerful reminder: Never stop dreaming. Whether you're building an organization, supporting your community, or working toward personal growth, meaningful change begins with taking that first step.
Tune in for a thoughtful conversation about leadership, behavioral health, community impact, and creating opportunities for others to succeed.
Hello, everyone. My name is Matt Harrington. You're listening to the A Train of Thought podcast. Today's guest is Abdul, founder of My People Clinical Services and president CEO of My People Community Services. He spent more than two decades building community-based programs focused on behavioral health, families, fatherhood, and personal development. He's also the creator of the Manhood Tree, an initiative designed to support men through different stages of life. Abdul, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Matt, thanks for having me on. I love it. So let's just go right into it. What inspired you to build my clinical service and really dedicate your career into the service of individuals and families?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah, you know, I started my people clinical services back in 2005. I was working the job and I just felt like there was more that could be offered to our community in a different way. And so I just wanted to be able to give it a shot. You know, I wanted to, I really was into fatherhood at the time. Initially, my people clinical services were going to be a fatherhood program, but very quickly we saw that there were other needs. And so, you know, we started developing mentoring programs, in-home therapy services. And so, really by having our hear our ear to the pavement, we were able to learn what the community needed and we were able to provide it to them.
Matt HarringtonWhat made you initially interested in fatherhood? Was it your own experience? I'm a dad of three, and was it just living as a father made you want to serve that?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadDefinitely. You know, I was a young father. I had my oldest daughter when I was in in college. And so therefore, I always have been interested in being able to support fathers. But, you know, I particularly work with fathers who are involved with the Department of Children and Families. And so those fathers I felt needed additional support, more, more guidance, more help when they go into those meetings with DCF. And so I really wanted to create a program where they had someone to lean on. And uh and I was just very uh interested in making sure that they got the best outcome for themselves and for their children.
Matt HarringtonVery interesting. And as it shifted more into community-based organizations, what types of people did you end up picking up along the way that you didn't expect that you would be serving, but now you are?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah, I mean, you know, over the years, we've done so many different types of programs. Right now, one of the main programs we offer is our supportive housing program for young adults. And so that wasn't that wasn't in our plan, but you know, it started off with one young person who needed support. Uh he was a pretty, in in the the words of uh the the state, a high profile young person. And so we did a good job working with him for a certain amount of time. And then before you knew it, you know, we had instead of just having one, we had three. And then we went from three to having, you know, two different programs. Currently we have five different homes that we support 21 young people in. And so it's just really one of those things where one of the things we like to do is, you know, communicate with different providers out there, hear from the community what's going on, and then be able to offer the services that are that are needed.
Matt HarringtonVery interesting. So when it comes to those services, you've built my people around creative, culturally competent approaches to behavioral health. That's kind of different from the way a lot of folks traditionally build it. What has been the uh reason for this difference?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadWell, I mean, I think that one of the things when you say my people, that's that's a that's a very important thing in in the black community. It's like saying, like, if you're my people, you're somebody that I trust, you're somebody that that I that I love, that there's somebody that I care for, somebody that that I know will wants the best interest for me. And so, you know, we wanted to be culturally competent because our community is a culturally, a very diverse uh uh culturally community. And so we want to make sure that we have the staff that represents the community, that is able to understand some of those things that are maybe in between the lines with the community. And so when you have cultural competence, it allows for you to be able to meet people where they are, truly where they are. And so that is a very big piece for us, just to be able to make sure that we stay on the front lines of what the community needs and meeting people in a way that they understand it. You know, we we try not to, you know, although we have our master's degrees and bachelor's degrees, we still want to make sure that we stay in tune with uh what the the people we serve need most.
Matt HarringtonI'm curious, what has the reaction been from some of the people you serve as they maybe switch from a more traditional model over to a culturally responsive model that you're providing?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah, I think I think that you know, people feel more kind of like at home. They feel like they are able to be their full selves. Um, you know, we we still follow the rules of social work, where if there's some things that occur that are inappropriate or that needs to be reported, we're still gonna do those things. And we're upfront about that. However, before you get to anything like that, everything in between that, we're able to kind of like really support them in a way that is, I think makes them feel a lot more comfortable, a lot more um heard. And um and so, and I think that when when we're taking into account their their culture, their belief systems, uh, their environment, I think that that means a lot to them and and they're able to get the the most out of the service because of that. The connection, you know, it's like really making a connection.
Matt HarringtonYeah, and and I imagine a lot of that connection comes down to trust, right? The the community, the people you serve, trusting my people. How do you make sure that even as you grow and and serve more programs, that you don't burn that trust with the community?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah. Well, you know, trust is number one. And so we have to be genuine. You know, we have to stay kind of like grounded in who we are. And I think that that's one of the things that, you know, as we've grown and and as time has gone by, you know, we've had to really put an emphasis on that. You know, sometimes, you know, in the early days, every staff that walked in the door, I I met them, I knew who they were, you know. But over time, you know, right now we probably have 80 staff, 40 of which they're probably working our supportive housing programs. So most of them, I don't see them when they come in, you know, when they start at my people. They don't meet with me very often. But I've I've I've made it a a point of mine to start having individualized meetings with groups of staff that don't typically see me on a daily basis because we want to make sure that they get the information about my people from the source and and make sure that they can stay in line with what we're trying to do as an organization. I think a lot of times, you know, as organizations grow, you lose that human touch. And we don't want to lose the human touch. We want to be able to make sure that our staff understand where we've been and where we're going and make sure that they are on board with what we're trying to do.
Matt HarringtonOne thing I see as organization scale is the mission statement just becomes words on the wall and stops becoming actions. Can you talk to can you speak to how you've made sure that the mission statement and your culture stays consistent throughout, even as you've grown from 10 employees to 75?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah. To develop a community that serves, support, collaborates, and succeeds together. That's my people community, to enable my people to help your people so our people will succeed. That's my people clinical. One of the things that my people is that everybody should know our mission. I it was very important to me that the mission was something that they internalized because, you know, I watched, I worked many jobs before I started my people, and I never knew the mission. And my whole thing is if you don't know the mission, then how do you know what you're doing? Because the mission is at the core of what you're doing. And so if we're saying we're going to develop a community, first and foremost, you got to know that that's what we're trying to do. So in our programs, they're not just robotic programs. We're actually trying to develop something, and to develop a community, you have to have people who are helping you do it. You can't develop a community by yourself. And so I think that for us, the mission is something we talk about before we start every meeting. We say the mission, we keep the mission in the forefront. So it's not something where it just becomes something that you put on the wall, actually. It becomes something that is ingrained in what we do. Support, empower, rebuild. That's right behind me. That's our tagline. And so the work that we're trying to do is to support people. We want to empower people. And ultimately, we want them to help them to rebuild themselves. And so this is like conversations that we have all the time. And I feel like it's a it's a very important piece of our success because we keep that mission out there in the front.
Matt HarringtonI love that. And that probably pivots a little bit into the manhood tree, right? The space focused on fatherhood, brotherhood, and men's mental health. Right. It sounds like maybe that was uh a mission that you wanted at the beginning and then got delayed a little bit and now it's full blown. Can you talk about that story?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadWell, it's interesting. You know, I do a lot of work with fathers and a lot of work with the state, then, you know, DCF and different things like that. And what I started finding is that a lot of times people want to work with fathers, but they don't want to work with men. And so what does that mean? They want to work with fathers, the idea of fatherhood, the father in their mind, but they don't want to deal with the men. They don't want to deal with men posturing, they don't want to deal with men angry, they want to deal with men who don't agree with them. And so I started developing the manhood tree because I felt that there, that manhood was getting almost like a bad rap. It's like to be a good father, you really need to be a good man first. And so I started working on these presentations that I was doing about, you know, manhood, brotherhood, uh, boyhood, young adulthood. And what I noticed is that, you know, I said, okay, these presentations are good. But then I said, Oh, I'm gonna develop them all into a curriculum. And so we developed the manhood tree curriculum. Then we brought on the fatherhood manologue, which is another group that we do. We we started focusing on men's health, and and we did the podcast because we felt like we needed to be able to hit manhood from many different um angles. And so it started off just as like presentations, and then from there it expanded just because of the need, just because of the um the conversations that needed to be had. And so, you know, we really kind of like continue to expand the manhood tree, interestingly enough, you know, and looking at that mission, one of the things that that mission says, you know, to be able to offer transformative experiences. And so we started doing additional things like, you know, we recently did uh an event called Brothers in the Kitchen to talk about, you know, just for camaraderie, for us to come together and do something that's not necessarily therapeutic or a group. And so we we developed the manhood tree just because I I once again I felt like there was a lot of focus on fatherhood, but I think that we kind of jumped the gun with fatherhood because before you get to fatherhood, you really need to hone in and focus on and improve manhood. So manhood to me is number one, and then we'll get to fatherhood eventually. Amazing.
Matt HarringtonCan you talk a little bit about the role of mentors in the manhood tree and where kind of guiding young men comes from, either from community, formal mentorship, from community, where does that come from?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah, I I think that one of the things that one of the best things you can do is have a mentor. And and a lot of times, even having a mentor in the sense of a mentor in your mind, somebody that you can look at in the community that is doing the things that you want to be able to do in the future, being the way that you would like to be. And so, in order to do that, we have to surround the men intergenerationally with men who are older, you know, men who are their age that are kind of like maybe they're one step ahead of them. But we try to do it in a way where it's all learning and support. And so when you are able to get in the room with men who have kind of like been where you where you are right now and be able to learn from them and communicate with them, it really does help. And so mentoring is is not necessarily in the traditional way that we might have done it when we first started, where you know, we pick a kid up and take him to an event or something like that. Now it's just like the opportunity to be in a room with men who have been where you are and learn and be able to discuss with them about their journey. That's really the kind of mentoring that we're doing now.
Matt HarringtonVery interesting. And so when it comes to impact, even community-based impact, oftentimes the question is how do you get more impact? How do you scale your influence? So, what does the growing of your organizations look like now?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah, I think that uh, you know, obviously we want to stay at a certain level of growth so that you stay in business, so that the so that the organization is seen as successful. But I also think that there's nothing wrong with being really good at serving the population that you serve and staying in a sweet spot. And so I don't think we're at the sweet spot. We're trying to get there, but I think that uh, you know, specifically like with the program the manhood tree, I feel like we have a much a great opportunity for much more reach into the community. But you know, with my people, we're we're always looking for new grants that are aligned with the work that we do and and thinking of programs and services that we can offer that kind of like stay stay in line with what we are all about. Because we don't want to just go after everything that's out there. Our goal is to kind of like stay in the realm of working with men, working with young adults, and helping young people with transition. Those are the things that we're interested in. And so we're not just going after everything, we're kind of like honing in on those areas that we think we do really good work in and trying to expand in those areas.
Matt HarringtonAnd now on the theme of mentorship, you mentioned the idea of a mentor who is in your mind, which I think is fascinating. I never considered that. If someone's listening to this podcast and they're like, you're the person who I want to be my mentor in the mind, what what advice would you give them? Maybe they're a new business owner and they're looking to make an impact like you have.
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadYeah. One of the biggest things I would say to them is you got to go ahead and give it a try. Whatever the ideas that you have, you might, you know, a lot of times we want to make everything perfect. We want to make sure we dot all the I's and cross all the T's. But what I would say is just go ahead and give it a try. You know, go ahead and set up the meeting. You know, you want to, you think you want, I'm a mentor in your mind, send me an email. Why not? What's the worst that could happen? You know, you you already have a job, and if you want to get away from that job, you need to go make another step in a direction to be able to get you out of there. And so I would just say, you know, if if it's something that's making you stay up at night, and that's how it was when I first started my people, I could barely sleep because I was so excited about giving my business a try. You know, and so, and then the other thing I would say, you gotta surround yourself with people that have a certain skill set that they can fill in the gaps where you don't necessarily do well. I have the benefit of having a great team who help me do do my best. You know, the things that I do well, I do well. But there's a lot of stuff that I need other people to kind of fill in the gaps in. So I would just say give it a try. I also, one of my one of my personal models is never stop dreaming. And it basically means that, you know, if you can dream it up in your mind, you should probably go give it a go go do it. And then and then after you accomplish something, never stop dreaming. Try something else. Keep going because, you know, we got this one life, and you know, we want to make the most out of it while we're here.
Matt HarringtonNo better way to end it than that. How can people connect with you if they want to learn more about your work?
Abdul-Rahmaan I. MuhammadSure. You can find me on uh LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all of the all of the stuff. The Man Who Tree My People Community Services, Abdul Rachmanai Mohammed. I'm all over the place. Hit me up.
Matt HarringtonI love it. Well, thank you so much for being here, Abdul, and I can't wait to see what comes out of all your work. Thank you. Thank you, Matt.
