Jefferson Award winner recognized for showing "true humanity"

INDIANAPOLIS — Randy Clark has a passion for helping people and making a difference in their lives.

It's a journey he began after working in the printing industry and knowing he wanted to do more with his career.

In 2006, Clark decided to go back to school to get his bachelor's degree in social work.

"Not knowing what a social worker did, I just knew that I knew that career change, wanted to make a difference in people's lives," Clark said.

Since then, he's worked with fathers whose children were involved in the Department of Child Services at Fathers and Families Center.

Eventually, he began doing street outreach for those experiencing homelessness at Midtown Mental Health, now known as Sandra Eskenazi Mental Health.

In 2012, he graduated with his Masters in social work.

Clark began doing home-based therapy for DCS referrals at Children's Bureau.

"One of the things that I do with everybody that I work with, regardless of who it is, see them as a person," Clark said.

It's that mentality that led him to receive the Jefferson Award for Multiplying Good.

Credit: WRTV's Nicole Griffin

For the last 4 years, Clark returned to Sandra Eskenazi Mental Heath Center working with people who have experienced homelessness. His focus was on connecting them to support services within the housing assistance program.

The woman who nominated Clark does not want to be identified because she is a domestic violence survivor but met him through his work at SEMHC.

She wrote this in his nomination, "Since working with Randy he has been my angel!! He makes himself available for me every time and he has shown me true humanity!! I have been in my apartment for four years! The most stable I have been in all my life. I have a full-time job and am learning to love myself."

This summer, Clark decided to take on a new chapter in his journey, but the focus remains on helping people. He left his position as Clinical Director at SEMHC and started his own private therapy practice called Rediscover Counseling, located in Brownsburg.

Credit: WRTV's Nicole Griffin

"Everybody has a story, everybody has different things that have impacted them, impacted their lives, in ways that maybe subconsciously, we don't understand," Clark said. "A lot of times those reactions come out. So a lot of work I do is geared towards helping people understand and create new habits of relating to other people emotionally."

Clark's former client tells WRTV, she can't imagine where she would be had he not stepped up and shown her she was not just a number in our city. She says he taught her that she is important and deserves to pursue happiness.

"I'm humbled by it. I just show up daily to do this work, because that's what I've been called to do," Clark said. "I'm just humbled by the opportunity to be recognized for it."