What we talked about
Ryan Eisenberg: unifying care so more kids thrive. As CEO of Children’s Health Council (CHC), Ryan outlines a human-centered system that helps kids, teens, and young adults with ADHD, learning differences, anxiety/depression, and autism. His north star is twofold: deliver excellent direct services and strengthen the systems around each student:families, teachers, districts, communities:so young people belong, take healthy risks, and build agency. Shaped by a brother with complex needs and early work in special education, he centers relationships as the precondition for learning.
Show notes
Ryan Eisenberg didn’t set out to become a CEO, a colleague at the Compass School in Boston asked him why he hadn’t applied for an open assistant director role, pointing out that as a classroom teacher he could influence 12 students a year, but in a leadership role he could influence 100. That single conversation redirected a career that now reaches tens of thousands of young people and families across the Bay Area through CHC’s integrated system of schools, clinics, and community programs.
What we covered
- CHC’s two school models serve fundamentally different populations: the Sand Hill School is designed for neurodiverse students with learning differences like dyslexia and dyscalculia, while the Esther B. Clark Schools, a CHC flagship program running for over 70 years, serves public school students with significant social-emotional regulation difficulties, where every child has an assigned therapist and every family receives coaching and family therapy throughout approximately two years of intensive support.
- Ellis, CHC’s new AI-powered tool developed in partnership with Google, puts CHC’s clinical expertise directly in teachers’ hands, teachers can describe a student situation and receive evidence-based guidance with inline citations, build multi-week action plans, and return weeks later to report progress and get revised recommendations; the tool deliberately pulls from a curated library of trusted sources rather than the open internet, to prevent hallucination and maintain quality.
- Ellis includes a hard shutdown feature: if the system detects any indication that a student may be a danger to themselves or others, it immediately stops responding and directs the teacher to contact a professional or crisis resource, the team worked with Girl Effect, an organization building similar tools on a different continent, to incorporate layered safety checks including AI that audits other AI outputs.
- The transition from teacher to administrator was modeled for Eisenberg by mentors who gave him stretch projects well beyond his current role, exposure to the structural and financial side of running organizations that he didn’t recognize as leadership development at the time but credits for giving him the perspective to eventually lead CHC.
- CHC’s next phase focuses on access: opening satellite locations closer to where families live, expanding telehealth options that give families flexibility without losing continuity of care, and exploring a parent-facing version of Ellis that could extend the organization’s expertise well beyond the Bay Area.
- Eisenberg distinguishes between perfectionism, which frames a single outcome as the only valid measure of success and creates harmful psychological pressure, and high expectations, which he sees as compatible with allowing young people to define their own path and build agency along the way.
About Ryan
Ryan Eisenberg is the CEO of Children’s Health Council (CHC), a Bay Area nonprofit with two schools, a mental health clinic, a learning center, and community education programs. He holds a degree in educational leadership from USC with a focus on special education, and previously led educational services at Achieve Kids.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-eisenberg-023271a
- Website: http://www.chconline.org
Episode 87 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:01) Welcome back to the pre-vetted podcast where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today we are joined by Ryan Eisenberg, his CEO of Children’s Health Council, the Bay Area nonprofit helping kids, teens and young adults with ADHD, learning differences, anxiety and depression, and autism.
through two schools, a mental health clinic, a community education, and a curated online resource library. Ryan’s path runs from classroom teacher to executive leadership at Achieve Kids, and he holds an education degree in educational leadership from USC, focused on special education and efficiency work. And now, that now informs how he builds teams.
partnerships and access for families. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan Eisenberg (01:01) Thank you very much. appreciate the introduction and thanks for taking the time to have a conversation today.
Federico Ramallo (01:06) Yes, thank you very much for joining us. I’m honored to have you here today. So, you you talk about from class classroom special ed in Hawaii and Compass to leading CHC. What stayed constant in your mission?
Ryan Eisenberg (01:21) Yeah, I think that’s a great question. know, if we go way back, I have a brother with really complex needs. He’s nonverbal and like a lot of younger brothers, I followed my brother everywhere he went. And I sort of just grew up in a world of understanding that there’s a lot of diversity in how people think and see the world and understanding special education. And so from a young age, I wanted to be a teacher and I wanted to give back to my community.
I also really had a love for learning and realized pretty young that not all students, not all of my friends shared that love of learning and that was also very, sparked a curiosity in me.
And so when I started on my journey of teaching, I really fell in love with kids that weren’t succeeding in traditional school settings. So sometimes that was young people with mental health needs. Sometimes it was youth in the foster system, maybe kids that had been expelled for doing things in school that were not allowed. And I thought to myself that these kids should have better belonging within our communities and that we should dedicate systems to making sure we’re lift all kids.
so whether it’s my work in Hawaii, which was dedicated on not just direct teaching, but really focused on kids that had been expelled from the school system and getting them re-engaged in schools, or working at the Compass School in Torchester, Massachusetts, where we worked with really complex kids with social-emotional regulation difficulties and struggling in poverty and helping them not just engage in school, but find a thriving life beyond school, all the way to my work here at the Children’s
Health Council where through our two schools and our clinics and our community engagement program we’re really focused on helping young people better understand who they are, find that path to the future, and helping them thrive into the future so that they can find love, enjoyment, and success within life. And so for me it’s really about building ecosystems where kids are empowered and kids are growing and learning and they find connection to themselves and ideally connections
to the communities that they live in.
Federico Ramallo (03:19) Right, right.
And it becomes so important for these kids to have a community that supports them, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (03:28) Yeah, that’s right. mean…
You know, especially as a former teacher, I think about this a lot. Like one of the keys to learning is having a strong relationship. The reason a strong relationship matters is because that enables you to take risk. And learning is inherently about taking risks, about doing things that you’re uncomfortable with, things that you don’t know. And so, you know, particularly for a lot of the young people that I’ve worked with throughout my career, sometimes those relationships are lacking or those relationships might be coming from places that are maybe not guiding them in the best direction.
I think strong organizations, strong schools, strong nonprofits are grounded in people and understanding the value of relationships and then building communities around those young people to help empower them. And that way, it gives them a sense of agency and helps them also grow into their future.
Federico Ramallo (04:13) So for someone new to CHC, what does the two schools plus clinic plus community education plus resource library, how does that model look like in practice?
Ryan Eisenberg (04:13) So for someone new to CSP, what are the two schools, like fingers, like music, and talking, like business?
Yeah, I was gonna say, because we do a lot of different things. But what I think it is, is what we’ve really set out to do is build a system of care.
Federico Ramallo (04:30) the
Ryan Eisenberg (04:38) And so I would say there’s two fundamental things we do. We both serve young people directly and we work to empower the systems that they interact with. And so what that looks like is whether it’s in our schools or our clinics, we’re doing direct work with kids that have learning differences or mental health needs and we’re trying to give them just high quality care and support to help them grow in their skill set and be more successful. Beyond that, we’re also working with parents, we’re working with school districts, we’re working
with our local community and helping equip them with the skills of how do you interact in a more effective way to help young people that maybe aren’t.
having the success that most other kids are having, be it through their learning differences or their mental health needs or a whole variety of factors that could be happening in their lives. And our thought around this is thinking in, if we’re gonna have direct impact on kids, if we also strengthen the systems that are surrounding them, we’re sort of uplifting the whole community. And so our intentionality has really been how do we build this system of support or this ecosystem that’s meaningful to really contributing to our
community giving back. And so, like I’ll give you an example of a project that we’re running right now is we’ve developed something that we call Ellis, which is an AI powered resource. And it’s built on, we do a lot of consultation and coaching to our local school districts. That’s usually based on them reaching out to us and saying, hey, we have a question, we’re struggling with this young person or this collection of young people. And we’ll give them consultation. We also realized
There’s a limit to our ability to do that on a larger scale. And we had this amazing resource library that you mentioned, and we have a bank of professionals, that this, with AI, gave us the opportunity to actually deliver direct feedback to teachers in a much more immediate way, so that they can interact in the way that they’re comfortable with, and asking questions to get guidance on their instructional practice that’s evidence-based, comes from trusted resources,
and it takes it and it helps them build out longer term plans for working with those young people. And so again, you know, we can directly go in and support that school district. We can offer them a tool where the teachers can kind of take it with them and get continual feedback and reinforcement. And at the same time, you know, we’re still running our full schools, our clinics, and working directly with young people as well.
Federico Ramallo (06:54) Right, right. So now with with Ellis you can support more schools. You can scale the support to even remotely, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (06:57) you
Yeah, that’s right. Essentially, LS has no boundaries.
you know, it’s something that all teachers can access. I right now we’re sort of in our pilot phases and we’re rolling it out more locally based. We’re using some of the school districts that we already partner with. So maybe a school district has a couple students in one of our schools and they have access to this resource right now. But it takes what we’ve done for a long time in helping school districts be the best version of themselves. And it gives us a tool that’s able to deliver our expertise on a much wider scale. I mean, what we often tell people
It’s like putting our expertise in every teacher’s hands and it’s a way for a teacher to have You know a way to get their questions answered from a trusted source in day That they might not otherwise have that they might you know have to you know wait in line to see one of their administrators or hope they could do a consult with us or Have to go out and search on their own and sort of have that through is this a good reliable resource or not? Now we can deliver
you know, something directly to them and they can tailor it along the way. So can build out a action plan and you know, two weeks from now based on progress, you can go in and say, this is what I’m seeing, this is what I’ve done, this is what worked and it will tailor it and redefine sort of feedback for that person. It’s a new project for us but it fits in that lens of how do we uplift systems and how do we get our expertise more readily available to the community so that just more
practitioners are feeling confident and working in, I would call, ever increasing complexities within our larger school systems.
Federico Ramallo (08:37) also mentioned before.
to have an escalation system built in within Ellis, right? Can you expand on that?
So you were talking about that when Ellis detect a risk situation that will escalate and give guidance on what next steps should do.
Ryan Eisenberg (08:53) ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think anytime we’re doing support to the community, particularly through a technology like this is we have to understand what we can do and what we can’t do. And so, you know, what we’re able to do is give a teacher practical guidance on maybe teaching techniques or even some behavior management techniques or ways to support mental health in the classroom. And we need to know our limit. And so if ever we sense that a student might be a danger to themselves or others,
for example, there’s a shutdown feature and essentially we tell the teacher that they can no longer engage and they need to talk to the professional on their site or here are the resources you need to call if you think this student is a danger to them or ourselves. And what we tried to do was really build a technology that A, was responsive to what teachers needed and B, also understood its own limitations and we were really clear at where our support stops with a tool like this and when a person has to interact with
person in order to get the support to a student that they might need.
Federico Ramallo (09:58) Right, right. Yeah, I think that’s important because that provides a safe space for the usage of the tool, right? And then you also get the red flag when something’s wrong, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (10:05) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. ⁓
That’s right, that’s right. Yeah, I mean, we’ll get a red flag and an alert and it gives us another way to maybe follow up with a system. And again, it’s a good reminder for even practitioners on what their skill set should be and when they need to call in somebody else with a different type of expertise or get a student or a young person the type of support that they might need in a more crisis moment. And I think it’s just about, you know,
what’s it look like to develop responsible technology? And for us, mean, it’s interesting for us, because we’re not a technology company. We sort of came about this. And in working with our partners who have helped develop this, this has always been front of mind for us. Let’s understand the limitations. So how do we empower folks, but also understand our limitations? And how do we have that from the onset so that we’re really clear at what we do and what we don’t do? And again, when folks have to
to engage direct professionals for much more crisis-oriented situations.
Federico Ramallo (11:04) Right, right. the part of the issue that I’ve seen with that is that LLMs are always positive, giving you ideas. if you have a suicidal tendency, it’s going to engage you more towards that. So it kind of follows the lead of the user. So having those guards in place, I think, becomes important.
Ryan Eisenberg (11:06) you
Federico Ramallo (11:28) particularly because we’re talking about kids and educators and the impact that that will have with families,
Ryan Eisenberg (11:35) Yeah, we had to, like our thoughtfulness and we had an amazing group.
that does great work on a different continent give us some feedback on this. And they’re developing solutions for young women called Girl Effect. they talked about building sort of checks and balances and having almost AI that checks the AI and actually having a person as part of that system as well so that you really are thorough in your checks. And so there’s that aspect in the development of how do we make sure.
The other thing we do is we protected the resource information where things come from. And so there’s a limit to what we’re pulling from. And it starts with our expertise, but then also all the other partners we have in are experts in really specific areas, whether it be in learning differences or mental health. And then as teachers are getting feedback on scenarios they’re building, we actually cite where those things come from. And we do inline citations just so people know where the source information is.
And although conversational in nature, the conversation is really geared towards direct action and then building out plans for kids. can include conversation prompts, can include plans over multiple weeks on how to support young people.
Federico Ramallo (12:47) Right, right. I was reading about this thought experiment
of what happens if we give LLMs instead of giving access to all knowledge on internet or whatever, what happens if we give a subset of high quality content instead, right? From where I’m hearing it seems that that’s what you’re implementing on Ellis. And I think that’s amazing.
Ryan Eisenberg (13:10) Yeah, that was our intent.
our goal was, and again, we came at this as not being technology experts, but our goal was how do we design something that gives people something that we know is trusted? And it’s been interesting because as we’ve sort of worked through it, there’s not enough information and then there also becomes too much information. I think this is what you’re alluding to. And so us trying to find sort of what’s that sweet spot and how do we build something that’s reliable and consistent, doesn’t hallucinate, and it’s also,
has enough information to give people the granularity of what a teacher might need in interacting in the classroom.
Federico Ramallo (13:44) Right, right. I was talking with a founder that is building a crypto-based investment platform. And one of the risks that he had to de-risk was this idea of why should a traditional bank investor would invest in crypto, right? Because that becomes an unknown, right? That becomes a risk, right? So…
Ryan Eisenberg (13:47) you
Federico Ramallo (14:06) I think something similar happens here where because this is a non-deterministic process, right? I mean, with AI, you give an input and the output is going to be different every time, right? That’s non-deterministic, then that becomes an issue on how can I trust it, right? So I understand from your point of view, starting as a non-technical person, you can establish the expected behaviors.
Ryan Eisenberg (14:24) you
Federico Ramallo (14:30) What do you expect to happen? And that way you can de-risk the platform. And I think that’s a great approach because then you can give the requirements to the technical people to deliver that specific behavior.
Ryan Eisenberg (14:45) Yeah, that’s absolutely it. And for us, it was really important to us that the answers were of high quality and that we trusted it. even in our own growth, we’ve had our own practitioners sort of working through it and then checking against and like, is this advice they would give? this, because we want to make sure it is a representation of, you know, again, it starts with our expertise, but we have a number of partners now that contribute to our library that we pull from ⁓ who are, you know,
internationally regarded as experts in learning differences in mental health.
Federico Ramallo (15:18) Interesting, interesting. So you talk about ELLIS. Can you talk a little bit more about the schools
and the clinic?
Ryan Eisenberg (15:25) Yeah, absolutely. So we have two different school models. The Sand Hill School, which is a school specifically designed for kids that are neurodiverse and have specific learning differences. You know, it was built upon initially really focused on dyslexia, but I think we’ve expanded from there dyslexia, dyscalculia, more prevalence of kids on the spectrum. And really with Sand Hill School, it’s an understanding that
vast majority of kids that have learning differences have underlying anxiety and depression and we’re able to give them a school that not only understands their learning differences.
It also enables work on their social development, their social emotional development. We have clinicians that work in the school and we have a really robust art program to help kids thrive in multiple ways. And the other school we have is the Estra B. Clark schools and that’s two locations and that school really specializes on young people with pretty significant social emotional regulation difficulties.
So these are kids that I would say have really complex needs. And this is a school that’s really designed in partnership with our public school partners. So all the kids that attend our S.R.B. Clark School are actually public school students and the public schools send them to our school. And part of that’s because of the comprehensive approach we have. So the kids get a smaller classroom, they get tailored specialized instruction. All the families have family coaching and family
with
therapy. All the kids also have an assigned therapist. Most of the kids have supplemental services like speech and language, but it’s really comprehensive. And the goal is how do we surround a young person in a family with supports, ideally for about two years, and help build skills to have that student go back to their public schools and have more success than they had been having. It’s our flagship program. I mean, our founding, which was more than 70 years ago, was
on this belief that all kids should have access to school. And so if you flashback 70 years ago in the United States, you know, there were a portion of kids that didn’t have access to public schools and those were kids with significant disabilities. And many of those kids were getting sent to institutions. And there was this groundswell movement and our founder being one of those people, Dr. B. Clark, who said that’s not okay. Kids should be able to have
access to resources in their communities. Kids should have access to schools in their communities. And she founded CHC through this principle of integrated care and all kids should have their needs met in their home community. And so we’ve tried to hold true to that through the design of all of our programs and our two schools represent that and our clinic represents that. Our Catherine T. Harvey Center for Clinical Services is a clinic that does comprehensive assessments, it does direct mental health care, does
as support for learning differences. And we really have a designed collaborative methodology. So even if a young person’s coming in just for individual sessions, there’s a team of folks that will meet and collaborate around that young person. We do measurement-based care. And we really try to be mindful of all of us as people are dynamic. And there’s a lot that sort of sets up the way we learn, the way we regulate our emotions. And the more comprehensive we can be and integrated in our approach, the more likely
those outcomes will be stronger for that young person. We also have a learning center called the Schwab Learning Center. That’s really designed for young adults, also teenagers, and you know that it really focuses on executive functioning, helping through transitions, helping you know young people with learning, young adults and young people with learning differences that have had a
lot of success and they’re maybe starting to encounter types of systems that are challenging them. So, you know, a number of students from Stanford, for example, are people entering the workforce and their lives are changing and how do we support them continue to have the success that they’ve had in the past and do so through a method, methodology that really embraces the uniqueness that they are and their own sort of shining stars.
islands of excellence and how does that then take them to their next step in their lives? Yeah, we keep ourselves busy. We do a lot of stuff. And like I said, mean, to us, it all should try to fit in together. And one of our goals in our system of care, and this isn’t the right thing for all families, but how do we have
Federico Ramallo (19:23) Amazing, amazing.
Ryan Eisenberg (19:41) different levels of support so regardless of where a family is in their journey they can access support. And so that could be you know a parent reaching out and coming to one of our parent groups or even just looking at our resource library and reading a little bit in our resource library. It could be just coming through our doors and getting a comprehensive assessment just saying you know my son or daughter they’re they’re doing okay but they’re struggling a little bit more and I want to understand better what’s going on and that just gives a roadmap to
the future. It could be coming in for some specialized care and it could mean coming to our full school model where they’re you know with us five days a week all day kind of surrounded by professionals and we try to be mindful of what that what that looks like. Yeah you know it
It’s one of the unique value propositions that I think we offer the local community is it’s both diversity in program, but it’s also an alignment and programming. So it feels like a lot, it sort of all connects together, which I think is a real beneficial thing if it’s for a family that maybe is looking for support and not sure where they might be or what their young person might need.
Federico Ramallo (20:47) Right, right, because usually what I’ve seen happen is families disregard the condition first because they don’t know what their kid has.
Ryan Eisenberg (20:56) Yeah, think that’s it. I mean, it’s a challenge for a lot of families. I think there’s a lot of things. I mean, you’re we’re all sort of challenged with that. I could say this is true even when I think about my own kids is, you know, what part of this is normal, you know, maybe because of their developmental age. What part of this should I be worried about? Maybe I have a gut feeling I should be worried, but I’m also thinking, no, you know, maybe this is a stage or maybe you get to the point where you see like, I think I do need help, but you’re nervous about making that first call. Maybe
Maybe there’s stigma to it. Maybe you’re worried about learning what the truth is. You have that gut feeling of, not sure what the truth is. And it can be daunting. And I think our advice to a family is, if you have that gut feeling, reach out. We do this, many organizations around us do this. But you can reach out and do a consult and just talk to somebody that might say, oh, here’s something.
I recommend or yeah, why don’t you come in and we can talk deeper. It doesn’t hurt to have that conversation and if you’re thinking about it and it’s on your mind, know, reach out and it’s a way to at least take that first step.
Federico Ramallo (22:10) Right, right, because usually, know,
it’s, ⁓ at least it happened to me, you know, probably happens to your kids is you have only one point of reference, right? So how can you, you know, how can you know if your kid has issues or not, right? And the more you think about it, the more you realize that there are some issues that you need to talk about it, right? But it’s…
Ryan Eisenberg (22:13) Thanks for watching!
you
Federico Ramallo (22:32) That realization process takes a while because deep down, I think we are kind of saying, well, our kid doesn’t have that issue, right? Doesn’t have that condition, right? So there’s this internal struggle, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (22:36) you
Yeah, no, I think it’s true and you know, it’s, I mean…
Like so, you know, with my son, he has a learning difference and he’s had his own, you know, sort of journey through school and, you know, for your own kids, you, you know them best and B, you know them so well and it’s so personal that sometimes you don’t always see things that you might otherwise see. And it never hurts. I mean, it’s, there’s always a value of having, you know, being able to interact with professionals and other folks that are,
that could sort of work you through and talk to you about your own kids. And it’s difficult because again, you’re always trying to tee through a lot of different information and all of our lives are busy now. And I would just recommend to families if you’re thinking about it, if you’re noticing things and you want, you just reach out and have a conversation. Because it just starts with a conversation and our collective goal should be how are we helping kids more generally and young people more generally.
⁓
thrive in the community. And you know, if you take a step back, I I this is true definitely in our, you know, the Bay Area, it’s true, I think, you know.
It’s actually true internationally. we’re in this moment where we’ve talked about the youth mental health crisis and we’ve seen rising numbers of needs as it relates to mental health. And beyond that, we’re seeing rising needs to young people and some of their difficulties as they’re transitioning into college or transitioning into the workplace. And I think it’s a moment for all of us to step back and say, how do we help young people thrive and how do we define success?
and what’s it mean to help all people.
develop into people that are finding a level of joy in life and connection and community and what’s the path to get there. So there’s also this collective moment where I think conversations, you’re not alone is what I would tell people. You’re not alone. think all of us are feeling a certain level of tension and the more we can have conversations about that, the more we can kind of evaluate how we’re designing our communities and our systems are just going to benefit all of us.
Thanks.
Federico Ramallo (24:50) Yes, I completely agree because we are on an age where the next generations are going to have a worse outcome than we had, right? Compared to our fathers, right? Our parents. So that’s a challenge. And that means that families are struggling more to figure things out, right?
And being able to raise kids that are self-sufficient, that have a strong sense of values, that can make good decisions so they can, know, even with the current challenges that they can thrive, I think that becomes much more important.
Ryan Eisenberg (25:28) Yeah, no, I agree. I think you said that really well. I agree.
Federico Ramallo (25:31) Yes, and the more involved we are as parents with our kids, the better because that’s one of the most significant…
changes we can do with our kids and they can thrive in any metrics you can put in front. And at the end of the day, it’s their journey, but we can support it that way.
Ryan Eisenberg (25:49) I like the way you said we could support it. I think that’s the key role of parents. And again, with my own kids, I struggle with this. And I think when I’m talking to other parents, I can say it much more clearly. But our role is a support, right? Obviously, we create boundaries and limits, and we try to teach within a context. But also, you want your kids to find what their path is, what their passion is. And I think it’s the nuance of you want to hold high expectations for kids, but you also don’t want to create
circumstance where we’re defined by perfectionism. And perfectionism is this idea of, you know, there’s only one outcome that is true success. And you know, there’s a sense of feeling like…
You know, if you do not achieve this, then you’re letting folks down, you’ve failed, and there can be really negative outcomes to that. Different than, you know, helping a young person have high expectations and work towards the goals that they want to work towards. And it can be a really nuanced thing. And I think it’s something that we have to be mindful of as we’re thinking, you know, not just our direct work with our own kids, but how we’re designing communities, how we’re designing schools, how we’re designing.
the youth sports and things kids engage with of how do you teach a culture of hard work and working towards your goals without sort of saying this is the singular point of overall achievement that can actually have negative outcomes.
Federico Ramallo (27:14) Right, right. It’s about, because at least in our generation, we were told in order to be successful, you have to be perfect, you have to achieve these high expectations or you’re a failure, Whereas I think that in our generation, this idea evolved towards, you can,
You can be yourself, can work towards what you like and do your best. And even if you do your best, you still could fail the outcome, but you personally do not fail, right? Because you try your best, right? And you learn from that, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (27:51) Well, I think that’s the key. mean, we should all be learning from all of our, I mean, all of us have set out towards things and been successful and set out to our things and, you know, stumbled along the way or failed and we learn from that.
And I would say sometimes you do your best and maybe you didn’t achieve the one thing that you were thinking of, but because you did your best, it opened up other doors and other opportunities. And that’s a success too. And so I think it’s about allowing people to know that life’s a journey and it’s not a perfect, you know, I can’t say when I, you know, thought about becoming a teacher that I would one day have the opportunity and privilege to lead such an amazing organization. I never set out to say I want to be
a CEO. had really great mentors. I had some really great opportunities that sort of then led me to a path that showed me I can have different types of impacts to my community than what I first thought I would do. I mean it’s an example of, you know, an example on the positive side, no, but an example of, you know, life’s just an interesting journey. It doesn’t always, you know, even when you make your five-year plan, very often that fifth year is not exactly what you were anticipating and that’s okay. And
And
if you accept that it’s a journey and you’re constantly evolving as a person, you’re ultimately going to be successful because that’s what success is. Let’s keep evolving, let’s keep learning, let’s keep our own journey going and understanding that there’s peaks and valleys, there’s ups and downs, you’re going to encounter hard times, and all those things make us stronger.
Federico Ramallo (29:14) Right, right. Yeah, I think that’s the best way to describe an interesting journey to become a CEO. I haven’t planned it, but it kind of happened. yeah, I was reading this story about this idea of how we evolve. Think of this as planes of existence or roof of floors on a building, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (29:28) you
Federico Ramallo (29:38) you can walk around and it’s an infinite building, right? So you cannot see any way to go up until you’re right there in the spot where you have a hole that allows you to go up, right? And once you’re on a higher floor, then your whole perspective changes, right? Because now you can access a new floor, which is basically a new world.
and you learn new things but it’s not until you’re right at that spot that you can see the way up, right? And then when you’re up, you’re trying to explain to somebody else that hasn’t got to that level and there’s this disconnect, they don’t understand what you’re talking about, right? Because it’s two words apart, right? So it’s not until that person is right at that spot
that you can bring them into your level and now you can share that same experience together, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (30:34) Yeah, I love that. That’s a great representation. It’s like, you sometimes we work on, you know, it’s not that they’re actually different realities, but you work on different realities. Yeah, your life experiences, your, yeah, I love that the way you frame that. I think that’s great. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (30:48) Great, great. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about your transition from teacher to CEO, because I think that’s something interesting to share. Yeah.
Ryan Eisenberg (30:59) Yeah, you know, I mean,
So I would say a couple of things. I spoke a little bit about my first teaching job was in Hawaii. I had an amazing mentor at the time and he was funny. He used to call me Dr. Eisenberg and at that time I had just finished my bachelor’s degree and I’d always say like, hey, why are you calling me that? And he goes, you’re gonna be a doctor one day. You’re gonna be leading your own schools. You just wait and see. And at the time, just a teacher and I never,
Now he gave me lot of great advice along the way beyond that, but he used to joke with me on that. And then when I was in Boston working at the Compass School, I taught a couple years, I was really enjoying it there, and one of our assistant directors moved on as happens in organizations.
you know, as people were applying for the position, somebody in the organization sort of sat down with me and said, why haven’t you applied? And I said, well, why would I? I’m teaching, I’m happy. And they essentially said,
You can influence 12 students a year if you continue teaching. If you take a roll on like this, you can influence maybe 100 kids a year. And you should really consider thinking about how can you have greater influence. And just think, you could actually then support all the other teachers in this program so that maybe they’re stronger. And I went home and I thought about it and I thought, that’s really interesting. Maybe I think about doing this. And at the time I was getting my master’s degree and I was learning.
you
know, more about schools and school design. And so I applied for it and I got it. And, you know, and it’s example of whether it was out.
in Hawaii or Terry and Beth in Boston in this encouragement. Later, John, who was a CEO who did some mentorship with me, Jay and Stacey and Hillsides. You people, you you sometimes find good mentors and you sometimes develop good mentors through relationships and, you know, and there’s learning and kind of development and personal development that
into that and that then became my journey of being an assistant principal, eventually leading my own school, soon leading educational services, so like a school and we were doing some in-home work and some work in school districts, to then having opportunity to lead my own organization, which was a collection of schools before then getting to CHC. And I think what mentors do is they unlock things.
that maybe you’re not even self-aware of or conscious of. And mentors also see talents that you may not recognize in yourselves or ways you can contribute. And I really appreciate the mentors that I’ve had in pushing me to continue growing, pushing me to maybe think differently about what impact could look like, forgiving me opportunities. mean, some of that’s not just good advice. Some of it is, I can remember John Lydon who was
was an amazing executive director of a company school for a long time, giving me projects that were well beyond what it meant to lead the school, but just exposure. And this goes to what you were talking about earlier about the floors and sight lines. And it just broadened my perspective of what it meant to have community impact, what it meant when some of the behind the scenes, structural infrastructure kind of things. And I think he was really intentional.
in some of those projects that he gave me. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but now, know, where I am now, I sort of look back and think like, oh, that was really helpful and meaningful. That really taught me more about how organizations function and some of the things that we need to do in order to empower the work that happens on a day-to-day basis that we sometimes maybe take for granted for when you’re a direct line teaching. It’s also given me a better appreciation for
within our own organization, the impact that everybody has, like quite clearly in an organization like ours, we know our teachers, our clinicians.
they have direct impact. mean, they’re truly making a difference in the lives of young people and the people that make sure that our buildings are the way they need to be, the people that are designing our IT infrastructure, they all empower the work and make sure that we have, we don’t have to think about these other systems so that people can deliver direct care. And all of that needs to be working in partnership in order to deliver good care. So that was a long sort of answer to your question, but I, you know,
I sort of credit it to just great mentors, great experiences, a willingness to sort of commit to ongoing growth and learning.
Federico Ramallo (35:18) you
Ryan Eisenberg (35:23) You know, I think this gets to the example of the building you were talking about, understanding that when you make those first jumps, it’s not easy. You almost feel like you’re starting over again because, what, I say this in the organization a lot, but it’s true, I think, for us as individuals too. What got us here doesn’t necessarily get us there. And quite honestly, when it comes to, you know, just because you’re a good practitioner does not mean you’re going to be a good manager of people. Just because you’re a good manager of people does not mean you’re going to be good at leading larger,
Federico Ramallo (35:34) You
Ryan Eisenberg (35:53) systems and that’s where that commitment to learning has to continue because your success that gets you to your next opportunity you may actually have to then evolve and continue to learn more because if you still approach things from the same lens it may actually cause friction for you and I think if you know folks you know that have had similar journeys as mine I think would acknowledge that so you know you often stumble sometimes because you you sort of resort to these are the things that have made me successful.
And underneath that is really what’s truly made success is this ability to learn and this ability to continue growing. So, yes, ⁓ When you change this functional role, you basically start to test.
Federico Ramallo (36:30) Yes, yes. ⁓ When you change these functional roles, you basically start afresh. I you have some knowledge, some
experience, but you have to relearn everything from scratch because it’s a different function that requires a different approach, right? As you mentioned, it’s not the same execution and management, right? It’s a different skill set, yeah.
Ryan Eisenberg (36:43) You
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (36:56) And that’s both terrifying and exciting about it, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (36:57) Thank you.
Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s exciting, it’s engaging, and sometimes it’s like, man, like starting over again. It can be a little scary, a little daunting. Yeah, all of that.
Federico Ramallo (37:03) You
You
Yes, yes. But the way that I see a good mentor is that they see the potential that you don’t see in yourself, right? And they push you towards, you know, go get it, right? And give you the encouragement, right? That you will be able to do it, right? And it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be an effort, but it’s
Ryan Eisenberg (37:30) you ⁓
Federico Ramallo (37:38) At the time when I had mentors doing that, I would hate them. You know, I say, I hate you. ⁓ Not really, but you know, I would resent them, right? And then I would appreciate them because I realized that I was able to do
Ryan Eisenberg (37:44) I know.
That’s good. Yeah, that’s gonna say. Well, I guess if someone’s really pushing us all to grow, sometimes we’re like, okay, that’s enough pushing for one day. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (38:02) Yes, yes, I mean, you build that relationship with your mentor, you can tell them how you think and they’re not going to be hurt by that.
Ryan Eisenberg (38:14) So sounds like you’ve had some good mentors along the way too. So think you share in that. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (38:18) yes, yes,
really great mentors and I try to do the same with my kid, right? which he gets annoyed, you know, because I push him a little bit, you know, he pushed back and you know, but I think he appreciates it, yeah, yeah, one of the things I talk with him about this is this idea that, you know, the world doesn’t owe him anything, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (38:29) Ha
Federico Ramallo (38:47) know, coming with that attitude towards the world is, you know, futile. Then everybody loves him the way he is, right? The grandma, the mom, you know, they love him the way he is, right? And I tell him that I love him for what he’s going to become, right? So that way I push him to do more, to read more, to, you know, and he asked me, you know, like…
why you know if I’m doing this you know why you add more right because you can because you could because you know I see the potential right which you know but sometimes I feel that I’m going a little too far so he pushed a little bit back so you know we kind of find that balance right but I think it’s a great way to express that idea of you know he has so much potential right
Ryan Eisenberg (39:41) Yeah, well think it’s beautiful how you describe that and you you love him for who he is and you love him for who he’s going to become. Like there’s just such a message to that, to his underlying values and potential. I think there’s a natural tension that you’re describing too, you know and you know your son will hit an age too where I think the pushback becomes even more but there’s a piece of that that is developmentally appropriate.
as he finds his own autonomy. That’s probably still a little bit yet to come for you, So, yeah.
Federico Ramallo (40:11) Yes, I’ll ask you further down the road when he’s more of a teenager. Yeah, right now he’s going he’s going back and forth. Sometimes he has, you know, behavior of a kid and sometimes he has hints of a teenager. Right. So I am prepared, preparing for, you know, he’s going to be a full blown out teenager is going to be. Yeah.
Ryan Eisenberg (40:16) That’s right.
I’ll have been on the other side of the journey by then, I can be sure that first-hand experiences.
Federico Ramallo (40:40) I will reach out to you for encouragement, Yes, yes. And I think we were talking about this before the episode that, you know, it happens to me and my wife is we remember, you know, when my son was younger with Fond, even though, you know, there were specific challenges on different age, right? But we just remember the good stuff, right? And we kind of…
forget the, you know, the issue, know, the bad, but I don’t know if bad stuff is the word, right? But the challenge, right?
Ryan Eisenberg (41:11) Yeah, I think that’s accurate though. I think that’s true. But it just means how meaningful those good moments are. And it’s also a good example of, I said this earlier, it’s a journey. And all journeys have peaks and valleys. And as you’re coming through it…
We’re grounded in love and care for our kids and we remember those good moments and that’s so today. And that’s really the important aspect of it.
Federico Ramallo (41:34) Right, right. I was reading this story about the Mexican fishermen. I don’t know if I told you this story. But you know, this executive comes in, you know, he’s a tourist, he’s traveling on vacation and he goes into a little fish town and he goes into a boat to buy fish, right?
the fisherman wakes up very early in the morning and then they come back and then they sell the fish you know right on the boat right you can buy it there and then he talks with this fisherman saying why you know what you could do better right why don’t you do better right you could have more money you could have a bigger house right which from the perspective of the executive makes sense right and the fisherman said well but i have everything i need
right? And I woke up at, you know, I live at five, I sell my fish, I’m back to my house at noon and I can spend the rest of the evening with my family, right? I’m paraphrasing, I’m probably badgering the story, but you but you get the idea, right? And I think that’s, yeah, more and more that becomes more important to me to spend time with my family and you know.
Ryan Eisenberg (42:38) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (42:45) being able to raise a young boy.
Ryan Eisenberg (42:48) Yeah, I think that’s great. It’s a great story. Yeah, I I love the statement of I have what I need. I think that, I think all of us lose sight of that sometimes. And that’s a powerful statement. Yeah, I love it.
Federico Ramallo (43:00) Awesome, awesome. So tell us what is the future for CHC?
Ryan Eisenberg (43:07) Yeah, so you know, one of the big things that we’ve tried to be really conscious about is access. And so the reality is access to care, whether it’s for learning differences or mental health, continues to be extraordinarily difficult. And so some of the near term things we’re doing is we’re opening up some different locations. And part of that is is recognizing where people are coming from in order to access our services and making sure we’re getting things a little bit closer to their homes. The other aspect of this is
you know, making sure there’s options for families to be able to pay for or afford some of the specialized care they need. And so kind of working with different systems and payee groups to make sure we’re opening up some of those aspects of accessibility. And it’s about, you know, how does technology amplify the work we’re doing? And so I use the example of like teleservices, particularly for mental health is now a thing. And we are not doing teleservices.
services in order to extend further away, we do it because we want to recognize that the life of a family is challenging and if they have the option to come in and have that personal relationship with their therapist or their clinician one week, but then also maybe the next week not have to commute in and be able to do something remotely but still keep that continuity of connection, that we can create those kind of abilities to have agility in the way we’re delivering services.
So right now it’s really about…
creating greater access, eliminating hurdles that we’re seeing our families experience, broadening and deepening within our two primary counties in the Bay Area so that we’re being really thoughtful to what that systemic care is. And we spent a bulk of time also talking about our ELLIS project. That’s one of those special projects that we’ve sort of engaged in.
in terms of what are new ways we could sort of get our expertise out in a more global fashion and an understanding that we can have probably bigger impact than we already have. And that’s still developing and I think there’s opportunities for a parent-based version, there’s opportunities for that to maybe be a great partnership with existing systems that maybe are already in schools where we keep our expertise to the expertise that powers the tool.
and maybe we find partners that can help them get the tool into the hands of a lot of educators. And so, you know, I think it’s exciting times, you know, I also think it’s…
necessary times for organizations like ours to just be present in the community, just given the more global troubles we’re seeing in youth mental health and learning, so that we’re continually helping enrich our communities in a stronger way.
Federico Ramallo (45:39) Amazing,
Yeah, I’m looking forward to see Ellis because that sounds very interesting. Yes.
Ryan Eisenberg (45:47) Yeah, it’s come a long way. We had this great partnership with Google over the last six months. And actually, last week, we did our launch event for the product. it just, I couldn’t be more excited about it. It was pretty amazing.
Federico Ramallo (46:01) Ryan, thank you very much for joining us today. It’s been a blessing to talk with you and learn more about ELLIS and the great work you’re doing at CHC. Thank you.
Ryan Eisenberg (46:12) Hey, Federico, thank you for having me today. It’s a pleasure. It was awesome having the opportunity to speak to you a few weeks ago. And today’s been a great conversation. Thank you.
Federico Ramallo (46:20) Thank you.