You can’t get more hands-on with teen boys than playing a little basketball with them.

And if you are Bruce Stanley, you are going to shoot a couple hoops with the kids – because they asked. Then you’re going to tell a joke at your own expense, and you’re going to roll out a story about it later with big laughs.

Katherine Edmiston discovered this early in her term as MHC board chair. She was touring group homes – Bruce was telling the basketball story, probably from a field day that happened years earlier. And she was listening, taking it in – getting a measure of the president / CEO she’d be serving alongside.

“Bruce’s physical form does not give ‘basketball player’ energy,” she says. “But he recounted that simple act of playing with joy and laughter, and I’m sure that is the energy he brought to the kids on the court.”

Joy and laughter.

If you know Bruce, you know there will be stories and laughs. Bright bowties (rarer after the pandemic) and sassy socks. Dad jokes – bad jokes.

He is affability personified. With a big heart for kids.

Not what he had in mind

Bruce was just a kid in West Virginia when his 5th-grade Sunday School teacher told his future: “You’re going to be a preacher one day,” he said. “God keeps speaking to me about you.”

Young Bruce liked that idea – and it stayed with him as he grew up and graduated high school.

College in West Virginia led to graduate school in the Ivy League. He went to Harvard Divinity, where coursework prepared his mind for a future in the pulpit. But field work – serving at a homeless shelter in Boston – prepared his heart for social work.

With his M.Div. finally in hand, Bruce had a dilemma.

He wanted to be a social worker. He wanted to be a missionary. He wanted to be the hands and feet of Christ – on the streets, not in the stained-glass confines of a sanctuary. Maybe playing basketball with kids. Definitely not in a bowtie.

But he took an ordinary pastor job when he graduated, and whenever the bishop had a new assignment for him he said “yes” – even if it wasn’t what he wanted.

And somehow it worked out

The more uncomfortable and chaotic the job change seemed back then, the more obvious it is now that God was in control, Bruce says. A full 44 years of hindsight helps with that, but he says Melissa, his wife, always called it at the time.

And when he looks back on his career – especially his quandary fresh out of school – he says life turned out as God had planned and provided.

It turned out because he got to do field education work with students at Duke Divinity School. He got to do international mission work for the United Methodist Church. He got to pastor from the pulpit of churches and from the living rooms of families in need of comfort.

And then, in 2006 it all came together – ministry and mission – with a job at Methodist Home for Children. The president / CEO position gave him a platform to help children and families – to know them personally and stay in touch – and to change child welfare systems on a state level.

“Fearless dedication to the mission”

In his term, Bruce advocated for children at the legislature and as a member of the Governor’s Crime Commission. He pushed for laws to provide rehabilitation rather than adult incarceration for 16- and 17-year-olds and to keep children ages 6-9 out of juvenile courtrooms. And he oversaw the agency’s growth in serving the mental health needs of children.

The MHC budget under his leadership more than doubled from $12 million to $27 million – and the workforce grew from 150 to 350 employees – reflecting an expansion of influence and services to the state’s most vulnerable youth with the addition of:

• 4 transitional living homes for juvenile offenders
• 4 crisis & assessment centers for court-involved children and teens
• 1 early childhood center, the Curtis Center
• court remediation services for juvenile offenders
• day treatment and 2 group homes for children diagnosed with mental health and developmental disorders

All of these services – with the exception of the Curtis Center, though unique in its own way – are provided solely by Methodist Home for Children in the state of North Carolina.

Nelle Schantz served 8 years on the board during Bruce’s tenure, and she watched him steer growth through a complex and shifting landscape of politics, policies, and funding. Besides coming to the job with a “fierce commitment to the mission,” she says, he demonstrated an “exceptional ability” to connect the dots and connect the right people to get things done for children.

“His deep understanding of the dynamics at play, combined with his willingness to explore new directions in support of the children, has positioned MHC as an innovative leader,” she says.

Board member Chris McClure boils it down like this: “We could not have asked for a more passionate and effective advocate than Bruce in the way he builds relationships and makes the case for support.”

Every child deserves a chance

Bruce loves connecting through words – the saying of them, the receiving of them – and the relationships they sustain. He enjoys the parsing of words for meaning; perhaps a habit he picked up at Harvard.

So it’s sport for him to joust over the semantics of things like our tagline – Every child deserves a chance.

Fundamentally he agrees it’s about championing the child whose chances in life are dimmed by neglect, abuse, or family conflict. But he digs in: What if you read the tagline with emphasis not on the word ‘every‘ – as intended – but on the words ‘a chance‘?

Then you’re suggesting a child needs only one chance. And we know children need second chances and third chances – sometimes more. This is especially true for court-involved kids who’ve missed out on solid parenting at home.

Mercifully, he agrees that “Every child deserves lots of chances” isn’t going to work as an organizational tagline. But he makes his point.

And it’s a point that resonates with Katherine, our board chair. She’s a prosecutor turned social services attorney, and she appreciates how Bruce is able to see kids who show up in our group homes.

“It’s not the person who’s the problem. It’s the behavior,” Katherine says. “And the behavior is a symptom of an unmet need in that young person’s life.”

Bruce has always been able to see these kids separate and apart from the behavior, she says. “This is a whole new way of being seen for kids who feel defined by bad behaviors and circumstances beyond their control.”

Indeed. Every child deserves a chance may not roll off his tongue in a conversation, but something else often does:

“There are no bad kids,” he says. “Just mad kids.”

Your work matters

Bruce remembers one of these “mad” kids – a 12-year-old who was constantly being suspended from school. His outbursts made him intolerable in the classroom, and home was just as bad.

But as much as he remembers the boy, Bruce remembers the boy’s mother. She was exhausted and overwhelmed by the time she found our group home and day treatment for his complex issues (autism and a severe emotional disorder).

“She told us, “You’ve not only given my son his life back, you’ve restored him to his family – and given us all our lives back.’ ”

And that’s one of the joys of the job. Knowing your work matters.

“You might not see the immediate impact,” Bruce says. “But there is a difference made over time in people’s lives, and I’m surely going to miss that.”

His 19 years on the job at Methodist Home for Children, he says, “have been my greatest honor, by far.”

His greatest point of pride? “That’s like picking your favorite hymn,” he says. “It depends on the day.”

But if he has to pick, the crisis & assessment centers probably come out on top. They are a brand-new way of serving court-involved kids with mental health needs, and there’s nothing else like them in the state.

“I think I’m proudest of when we’ve been willing to stretch and knowing it was a stretch,” he says. “Even though scripture says be a fool for Christ – we try not to be fools. We try to do as instructed in the 6th chapter of Luke’s gospel, where Jesus says to give and expect nothing in return.”

He’s ready now to give more of his time to family – especially his two grandchildren. He anticipates upping his bridge game with Melissa; more reading and biking. And then there’s the yardwork.

“Our yard will look a lot better,” he cracks. “Probably I’m retiring because Melissa wants me to do more yard work.”