Herlihy Family Law
Alison Herlihy is a dedicated family law attorney with roots in Mobile, Alabama.
Herlihy Family Law
EP #4: How United Way Supports Families in Crisis with Guest Justine Herlihy Bixler
Justine Herlihy Bixler, President and CEO of United Way of Southwest Alabama, shares insights on building community safety nets that support families during unexpected hardships. Drawing parallels between family law challenges and community needs, she highlights how United Way's 50 partner agencies provide critical assistance to over 300,000 people annually across Southwest Alabama.
To learn more about United Way of Southwest Alabama or to get involved, visit uwswa.org or find them on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Visit HerlihyFamilyLaw.com to learn more.
I was pretty far removed from that reality that at any given moment any one of us could kind of fall on hard times unexpected, to no fault of our own, and that I feel fortunate now to work for an organization that can be that safety net to lift people up when they unexpectedly fall on hard times, and similarly to what y'all do at Herlihy. Family Law is nobody goes into a marriage anticipating they get divorced or that they might have problems with custody, but they sure are glad that y'all are there to be able to provide that safety net for them.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Herlihy Family Law Podcast, your trusted source for expert insights on navigating family law matters with clarity and care. On navigating family law matters with clarity and care. Whether you're tackling tough decisions or seeking guidance for your family's future, we are here to help. Let's get started.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Herlihy Family Law Podcast. I'm your host, Allison Herlihy, and today we have a very special guest, Justine Herlihy Bixler, President and CEO of United Way of Southwest Alabama, and my sister. Justine has dedicated her career to strengthening communities, building strategic partnerships and improving the quality of life for families throughout Southwest Alabama. With a background in psychology and sociology, she brings a unique perspective to nonprofit leadership and civic engagement. Today, we'll be discussing the vital work United Way is doing to support families, foster financial security and create lasting community impact. Justine, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, Justine, you have such a strong connection to Mobile and a deep passion for serving the community, and service is one of our core values here at Hurley he Family Law. Can you share what inspired you to get involved in nonprofit work and community development?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know, I think anytime anybody has an opportunity to see a need, whether that's through you know clients that you serve or through just out in the community, you kind of you realize that it takes all of us to get involved to build strong communities. And for me actually, you know kind of early on you know something our family sort of instilled in us is to give back. Or you learn in elementary school the golden rule you know do under others as they do to you, and so some sometimes that's ingrained in you early on for different people that you met along the way, your school coaches background. But it really hit me right when I graduated from college I worked at Cunningham Bound, so it was the legal field that brought me there and actually an interesting stat attorneys and people that work in the legal field give back more than any other singular profession.
Speaker 1:And so I think that that is probably a true testament to the work that you do and why people kind of sign up to be an attorney or to work in the legal field because you're helping the community every day through the clients that you serve. And so for me, when I graduated from college, I thought I wanted to be an attorney and worked at Cunningham Bounds for four years on the BP oil spill team and during that time we filed a lot of claims. We were part of the class action lawsuit against BP for the one of the largest environmental disasters in the history. But then what it later evolved to, people realized how bad of an economic disaster that that was too. And if you have, you know, a community or nationally where people the majority of people that live in the United States live paycheck to paycheck at least over 40 percent any setback with the economy can really change their ability to provide for themselves. Their families put food on the table, pay their power bill.
Speaker 1:And what I learned through that oil spill process is when their ability to earn income being a fisherman, shrimperman, oysterman was taken away because the waters were closed because of the environmental disaster.
Speaker 1:They really did not have a way to provide for themselves and their family and to put food on the table. And so, although the community of Alibatry and our coastal communities are really close to where we grew up, I was pretty far removed from that reality that at any given moment any one of us could kind of fall on hard times, unexpected, to no fault of our own, and that I feel fortunate now to work for an organization that can be that safety net to lift people up when they unexpectedly fall on hard times. You know, and similarly to what y'all do at Hurley, family Law is nobody goes into a marriage anticipating they get divorced or that they might have problems with custody. But they sure are glad that y'all are there to be able to provide that safety net for them when, to no fault of their own, they fell on upon a situation, you know, where they needed a professional to help navigate that for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and I think that is such an important part of what we do. I mean, I think what a lot of people maybe that haven't experienced divorce up close aren't really cognizant of is that you know you have one pie of income whether one person works or both people work or whatever and when you get divorced that same pie has to go to support two households. So obviously things are going to have to change and some people there's just not a lot to go around and people can really fall on hard times when they get divorced. And we work really hard to try to support people through that process, just like you do, and I thank you for the work that you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:We have a two on one, you know, health and human service hotline that certainly any of your clients will be able to use at any time.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like a dating app for a need and then a nonprofit or an entity that can help provide that need. So, you know, if somebody does go through something like a divorce where they have, you know, two incomes together and then they go to having one income, there are agencies out there, nonprofit agencies in our community, that can help supplement resources in the interim, you know, or provide daycare at low cost for their children, provide food, provide if they say they were on their husband's insurance, for example, through a company, and they no longer have health insurance, kind of overnight. There are plenty of our nonprofits or incredible nonprofits, like Victory Health Partners, that serve uninsured individuals that don't have health insurance doctor's appointments and then, like Osnab Charitable Pharmacy, can help provide prescriptions for uninsured individuals as well. As we all know, prescriptions can be really costly, and so we're really proud to have this network of agencies that can really serve our community and anytime if anybody calls 211, they can be connected to agencies like that that can help meet a need that they have.
Speaker 3:And anyone that needs help can call 2-1-1. Is that right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not income-based. There's no qualifications. It's 24-7 and trained call specialists at Lifelines Counseling Center is one of our incredible partner agencies. They answer those calls and will help. There's also an online resource, so if you don't have time to call, you can text, you can chat online. If you're at work all day and you're not able to get on a call or you want privacy, you can go to 211 and their website and search, say, like food pantries near me, put your zip code in and it'll take you to area food pantries that exist in your area.
Speaker 3:So you mentioned Lifeline's family counseling Our domestic relations court here in Mobile actually requires for any families where they're getting divorced. Where there's minor children involved, the parents both have to participate in like a. I think it's a four-hour class called Helping Children Cope with Divorce and it's to help the parents learn skills on guiding their children through. You know the ups and downs of what this is going to be like and how life is going to change, and they actually do that at Lifelines. So that's another service they provide. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I was actually talking at an event that we had last week to Michonne Trent at the Family Center and she said that oftentimes y'all have referred clients and families to the Family Center to be able to receive support to during time of divorce or custody challenges.
Speaker 3:Now is the Family Center a partner agency of United Way.
Speaker 1:They are not. But agencies on. 211 is not only inclusive of the 50 partner agencies that are United Way agencies. So we have a lot of partnerships with nonprofits in the community that we work closely with. We've been talking with Michonne about our program called the Basics, which serves, as for early brain development, to foster early brain development for children who are zero to five. So it's a great resource for parents that have children who are young in that zero to five time age period and you basically get two texts a week about opportunities to help engage your little ones. That might be like, hey, this week Elizabeth is really into she's really into the stage of helping, she wants to help. Let her help you unload the dishwasher and explain to her where the plates go and use that as a learning opportunity for them. So it's really cool tips that anybody can use and it's free to the participants. It's a program that United Way provides.
Speaker 3:How can parents sign up for the basics if they're interested in getting those tips?
Speaker 1:So they can go to our website, uwswaorg, and there's a programs tab under the top headline of the page and the basics is there and you can go online and sign up that way. And so, like I said, it's completely free to the families who are participating. It could be for grandparents, parents, caregivers of children who are zero to five, and there's online resources as well, in addition to that text messaging application and I get the text messages myself for our three and a half year old, and you know, I think that we can never have enough tools in our toolbox, and so sometimes things are really obvious, like, or they seem so simple, like count the steps when you're walking down the stairs with your child might be a tip, and you don't realize that you're really teaching them how to count and you're teaching them sequences and processes in their mind, and so you know it's always a good thing to have, in a busy world that we all live in, having a little tip right to your phone is pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those reminders are great because there's so many opportunities to engage children like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're free. You know, just to point out the color on the sign when you're, you know, walking down the road. They're free tips, no reason not to do it Right. Yeah, we want to make it easy.
Speaker 3:We kind of jumped ahead a little bit. But what exactly is the mission and the key areas of focus of the United Way? Yeah, anybody who's not familiar with what y'all do.
Speaker 1:That's a great question.
Speaker 1:So we will be 100 years old.
Speaker 1:Our United Way here in Mobile we're the United Way of Southwest Alabama next year, in 2026.
Speaker 1:And we are part of a network of United Way, so they're in 1800 communities around the world, but they all are independently operate with their own staff, budgets, board members, and so we are local to Mobile, clark, choctaw and Washington counties, which is the areas that we serve at the United Way of Southwest Alabama, and so our mission has consistently been to improve the quality of life in the community, which can feel like it's this big and there's a lot of opportunities to improve the quality of life. But we do that through four main impact areas, and so our agencies, our 50 nonprofit partners, our programs and our strategic priorities really focus on building healthy communities, making sure that everyone in our community is financially stable and secure, having communities that are resilient so they can respond quickly to either a personal disaster when they fall in hard times, or a natural disaster such as a tornado or hurricane, and then building opportunities for our youth to achieve their full potential. So anything with young people is a really high priority of ours right now too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well they're the future right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are the future and you know it's staggering to me when you think about that 80% of a child's brain is developed by the time that they're three, and 90% is by the time that they're three and 90 percent is by the time that they're five. And so the importance of front loading those tools and resources is so critical for their early brain development and really shapes their life for the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's amazing. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see facing families in Southwest Alabama and how's the United Way helping address those challenges?
Speaker 1:So for the biggest needs that we see through 211 are housing and utility assistance.
Speaker 1:So people who don't, there's not enough affordable housing for people to live and then once they do once they you know if they are housed they have a lot of times the issue with paying their utility bill.
Speaker 1:I think with so many people living paycheck to paycheck, it's often the first thing you know that goes is kind of your self-care, so you're like not paying for your own prescriptions, you're not able to put food on the table. We see a lot of parents that sacrifice themselves. They might go to work every day and we'll sometimes we go speak to people and we'll say you know how many of this people in this room are food insecure or faced food insecurity and you'd be surprised how many people can raise their hand even though they wake up and go to work every day. So you have parents that are kind of sacrificing. They might eat one meal a day so their children are fed, and so that's why it's so great to have organizations too, like Feeding the Gulf Coast, that are a partner agency of ours. They're a form of the Bay Area Food Bank, but they have the summer backpack program, the weekend backpack program because most children get their at least three. They can count on three meals a day at school, five days a week.
Speaker 3:How many meals a day?
Speaker 1:I didn't know that Well, they'll do breakfast and lunch, lunch and a snack a lot of times and then dinner's on the family. So having a backpack that can go home over the weekends to be able to supplement that.
Speaker 3:And I imagine summer vacation just leaves a huge gap there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that summer backpack program is really great. Um, and you know, feeding the gulf coast is tremendous and being able to, and they also have, um, they have, uh, food, they have food pantries as well as food distribution. So people can, like I mentioned, go to 211 and google you know food pantry or distribution near me and they might say on every Wednesday at 10 o'clock, you know they're giving out baskets.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, right down from our office here on Dolphin Street, Central Presbyterian has grown a huge food pantry and I think that came out of the like the pandemic. They just sort of started it informally and now it's big. It's huge. They serve a lot of people there.
Speaker 1:We refer a lot of people to them. There's very reliable and they're able to put a lot of food out there. So housing utility assistance, food insecurity are really big, big needs in our community. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Can you talk about some more of the specific partner agencies that United Way works with? Who can help those people whose lives have maybe been upended by their divorce?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you mentioned Lifeline's Counseling Center. You know they're an incredible agency. They have counseling options for adults and youth, teens and children and so they can help not only with just counseling to help kind of get through the particular, you know, stressors that situation can put on a family. They also have first time home buying and credit counseling. So if you were married and your spouse bought the house or you didn't co-sign on the house you don't have a lot of credit and the house you know you didn't get the house and the divorce maybe, or you needed to leave a domestic situation, lifelines can help give you first-time home buying or credit counseling information. For that Penelope House, if you are caught in a domestic situation, is an incredible agency that actually serves men, women and children experiencing domestic violence.
Speaker 3:No, I'm a big believer there. I mean, I don't know if everybody knows this, but I worked at Penelope House before I went to law school and you were a kid then and you came right there to volunteer with me helping out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was I mean. Besides, like school, that's really my first probably serious volunteer opportunity to connect where I mentioned earlier. Seeing that need is so important. You know what what? Because if that's not happening in your household but you have an awareness that is happening next door in your school to children, you go to school with your age.
Speaker 3:It can happen anywhere. It doesn't only happen to certain kinds of people.
Speaker 1:Any anytime. Yeah, there's no bounds. You who knows no bounds? You know truly which is um, which is really difficult to know. Um, sometimes it's really people. It happens people when you least expect it, or on the outside they might not appear that way. You know, it doesn't always wear a badge, um, that's.
Speaker 3:Penelope House.
Speaker 1:I provides emergency shelter, but they also provide free counseling for people that have experienced domestic violence right Yep, and once you're, if you're in the position where you're able to leave shelter, they also will provide temporary housing for you. When you leave shelter, like transitional housing, and transitional housing help furnish that housing where you're able to, you know, get back on your feet fully so you're not just out. And then, if you're not accompanied by children, mckimmy Place is a shelter for women. You know that. I know you've been involved with before in the past that homeless women, unaccompanied homeless women. And then there's Sybil Smith Family Village through Dumas Wesley, that if you are accompanied by your family, you can go there as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so a whole family can go there. Yeah, so for any listeners who want to get involved, more involved with the community, what are some ways they can support United Way's mission Besides writing a check?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 1:We always say, you know, help us give, advocate and volunteer, and not in that particular order.
Speaker 1:You know sometimes that being able to be exposed to the agencies that are out there doing incredible work and the needs in our community the first step. So I always try to encourage people to volunteer first, and you can do that. We have a program called Volunteer Connect which you can find on our website, and it'll match people that are um into certain non-profit or volunteer opportunities in our community so you can go on there and say I'm really interested in the environment, arts, children and senior citizens and they'll send you information on there, um with agencies that you can, uh, that you can volunteer with, and and then also huh, that's great to know, yeah, um we have a number of opportunities to and I know you know, I know that you might be going through a divorce situation as a senior Um, I know people don't think about that as option, but via right down the road from your farm is an incredible uh senior senior center that has uh, they serve daily meals, they have pickleball, they have pickleball, they have pool, they have uh fitness classes.
Speaker 1:they have all sorts of activities for senior citizens and they're an incredible partner agency of ours as well, that's.
Speaker 3:that's nearby yeah, they're like.
Speaker 1:They're like two doors down from our office yes, they're um great, and there's always a line out the door every morning when they open up. So yeah, you.
Speaker 3:I hear their food is great and they're the only senior resource like that in the city of Mobile. Isn't that right? Yes, yeah, that's amazing. Well, you've had such an incredible journey in leadership. What would you say is the most?
Speaker 1:rewarding part of your job as president and CEO of United Way.
Speaker 1:Well, for me, you know, I feel like I feel like it is an honor to serve an organization with such a rich history, that is 100 years old, that has so deeply connected to the fabric of our community and the success of our community.
Speaker 1:You know, if you, if you look around and you think, if we can achieve building resilient communities and ensuring that our communities are healthy and that our children have all the opportunities they need to be successful, we've made it right.
Speaker 1:If everyone can go to work every day and come home and feel like they're able to provide for their families, we've done a good job. The reality is is we may never work our way fully out of a job, but what I think that we do at United Way is to try to not just be a band-aid but create long-term solutions for individuals in our community to be able to thrive, to know what resources are out there that exist, because sometimes you know you've got to walk through the valley to come up and sometimes you have to go through kind of those darkest or those lowest moments in your life to realize you know how lucky we are and where you've come from is a great teaching moment to pass on you know, to other generations or yourself, and makes you stronger in the long run. And so our goal, you know, is to make sure that we have a strong community that is resilient, that can weather personal or natural storms.
Speaker 3:yeah, but you know, I think on like a micro personal level, that's an experience that probably a lot of our clients can relate to too yeah, um, you know you.
Speaker 1:Just you don't ever think it'll happen to you and when it does, you want to be be able to have incredible legal professionals or organizations that exist to help mitigate how hard some of those challenges can be, and I mean help you get through it to the other side Right In a way that's like sustainable and thinking about the future.
Speaker 1:There's always another side. Yeah, and I think too, along the way, you know, you meet a lot of people who maybe you, you might feel really alone in that moment, but then you realize there's a lot of other people going through a similar situation or have gone through a similar situation, so you kind of meet a community. And so for me, you know it is it really is an honor to serve an organization with such a rich history, in that annually we serve in our four county footprint around 300000 people. So we raise that's amazing funding.
Speaker 1:It still blows my mind every day that we're able to achieve that.
Speaker 3:Truly Just for perspective. The population of the city of Mobile is like two hundred and ten thousand people.
Speaker 1:Right, and so we, and we cover Clark, choctaw and Washington County as well. So, if you think about it, we serve more than everyone that lives in the entire city of Mobile on an annual basis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's truly amazing.
Speaker 1:And some of those people. You know the range of people that we serve is so wide. You know a lot of times people think, oh, it might be all people, everyone might be homeless or everyone might have you know they don't want to work or they've done something to get them into this situation on purpose. And the reality that's not true. The reality of the people that we serve are truly hardworking. People go to work, fall on hard times, had a situation that was no fault of their own, and we are fortunate and lucky to be able to be here to help. You might have.
Speaker 1:One of our new partner agencies is USA Children's and Women's and we were so excited to have them come into the fold. And they work directly with another agency, ronald McDonald House. And you know when families are thinking about, when you're thinking about family planning, having a child, you know the first thing you don't think about is what if they're born premature? What think about is what if they're born premature? What if something happens to the child out of my control in birth? Who's going to be there when I need them? And fortunately we are so lucky in Mobile to have children's and women's there because they serve people from all the way from Mississippi to Florida up to Montgomery in a huge radius.
Speaker 3:Isn't it true that they're the only pediatric emergency room in that whole?
Speaker 1:area, yes, and it's new and if you, hopefully. I hope no one ever has to go there with their child, but if you do, it will be the most enjoyable experience you could ever imagine in a pediatric emergency room. It's new. They have state-of-the-art equipment. Everyone there is welcoming and supportive. We just had a team member that works here whose daughter had to go. Actually, she was having some breathing issues and continued to just like one cold after the other flu and she was there and they just sang, you know, the highest praises about their experience well, I know we have quite a few cases where, you know, child abuse is an issue that's a factor leading up to the divorce or the legal issue.
Speaker 3:And you know, I hope it. I hope it gives some comfort to parents to know what a what a wonderful facility they have if they ever are in that tragic situation that they need to go to a place like women's and children's. You know I mean it's. You know it's so much better to have it than to not have it. Hopefully you'll never need it but at least it's there, you know.
Speaker 1:It's right there, and then a couple of not far from there. You have the Child Advocacy Center, which I know you've been involved with that as well too, you know, and they can really help work with children who have experienced that abuse to ensure to stop it, ensure it never happens again and ensure that the individual doing that is held accountable for their actions.
Speaker 3:So we're and are sorry, are they a partner agency as well? Yeah, okay, well, so if there's any like young professionals out there or just other people that are interested in making a difference, what advice would you give about leadership and community involvement?
Speaker 1:So the first thing I would say is join our emerging leaders. They're a group of young professionals ages 21 to 40 that are with our United Way. They're made up of all different backgrounds. We have individuals there from nonprofit sector, work at Airbus, Austal, the Chamber huge you know Alabama Power, huge entities in our community as well and they get to network together and volunteer, and so their mission is to improve the quality of life in the community, basically through volunteerism, and so they learn a little bit about these agencies and the needs that they have, and then they go give back.
Speaker 1:So they'll serve a meal at Ronald McDonald House from time to time, help Wilmer Hall with their annual pancake breakfast, and so what I would say is just learn about what the needs are first, and doing that through volunteerism is an incredible way to do that. Just get involved, you know, reach out, Anyone can call me anytime and I'm happy to connect them and we can help you find a nonprofit. Maybe it's a particular cause that you're passionate about or you want to support, kind of the entire network, and what I like about United Way is that you can give back to one organization but help 50 at the same time. So whether you're contributing financially, volunteering, serving on a committee or join our emerging leaders. You're helping. You know 50 agencies at one time that are building this community safety net to support our community members whenever they might need it.
Speaker 3:That's great, Justine. Thank you so much for sharing your time and these insights with us today. Where can our listeners. Learn more about the United Way of Southwest Alabama and how to get involved on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1:We have a TikTok now, so if you are younger than me and know how to operate that, follow us on TikTok. I think we posted our first video last week.
Speaker 3:Am I going to see you on there doing the latest dances?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was waving by the front door in our first videos and come on in to visit the United Way. So we have a lot of social. You know social media is a great way on our website, has tons of information. You've got our staff on our website and you can reach out to me anytime. I would love to. I would just say step one just get involved, reach out and ask what can I do to be supportive? I love Mobile, I love Southwest Alabama. I want to give back and then we can help kind of customize that experience to what fits.
Speaker 3:That's great. Well, thank you again for being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. Thank you to Hurley Family Law for all your support of United Way. You know, I mean not only do you all contribute, but you all have team members that volunteer on our allocations panel where you all decide how the money's invested in the community, and so we really appreciate that and we would invite any company to join us in that and have your employees join us, because really you do make the difference. You invest in the community. You should decide how it gets to go, make a difference. So we're grateful, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in to the Hurley he Family Law Podcast. Remember you don't have to face family law challenges alone. Visit hurleyfamilylawcom or call 251-432-7909 to learn more.