Camelot Counselor Running for City Council

Brian Warren is doing something a little out of the ordinary for a Camelot employee – he is running for public office!

By day Warren is a Student Service Coordinator at Chester Excel/Achieve/Enrichment Academy in Pennsylvania. By other parts of the day he wants to join Chester City Council. He says his biggest motivation for wanting to be a public servant, not surprisingly, is to create better opportunities for the youth of Chester.

“I want to supply our youth with an improved quality of living, improve their education, reduce violence and allow our city to flourish,” he says.

Warren’s job is similar to a guidance counselor. He helps students with their post-secondary aspirations, whether they’re going to a college or university, trade school, military or going into the workforce. He’s been with Camelot since the school opened in Chester in 2013, but in alternative education for 15 years, including time at Glenn Mills Schools in Pennsylvania. Warren also served as a deputy director in Chester’s Dept. of Recreation for three years.

“A lot of the programs we had for the youth are not there anymore and that’s sad,” Warren said. “Whether it’s the football camp, the daddy-daughter dance, the mother-son dance, those things are not there anymore. For the first time ever we began holding a soap box derby race in Chester, sponsored by businesses. We don’t have that anymore and that hurts me. The desire to reinstate those kinds of programs is what drove me to throw my hat in the ring. If I’m elected in November, I hope to be assigned to oversee recreational activities.”

How does Warren relate to the students he counsels? “What I try to do is be honest with them and prepare them for real life. I give them as much information about different careers, different aspirations or different activities they can get involved in. I am careful not to put a limit or ceiling on them, understanding that they may be thinking of something that I may not know of, so I just try to expose them to everything. That includes college tours and fairs or trade school fairs or trade schools that come to speak with them.”

One of Camelot’s tenets is tapping into the potential of every student. How does Warren do his part of that job? “What I look for in a kid who’s going to be successful is self-motivation. If they’re motivated that’s half the battle. One of the challenges with the students that we have is bringing that out of them.  A lot of our students may not think past what happens after high school, but they need to do that. They may not have been told when they were young that you are going to go off to college and you’re going to be something. I look for that fire within them and to make sure I keep fueling it.”

City Council is a part-time job in Chester so if he’s elected in November, Warren plans to stay with Camelot. He is very used to working more than one job at a time. Currently, in addition to his Camelot responsibilities, Warren is Program Director for the Boys and Girls Club and also referees middle and high school basketball. He concedes one of those jobs would have to go if he’s elected.

He’s grateful to all sides for allowing him to pursue public service. “By being open and honest with Camelot and the City of Chester we’ll be able to navigate through the occasional scheduling conflict, he said. “I work two and a half jobs now so the time and effort of doing the City work at night wouldn’t faze me.”