Patricia G. Watson, M.S. W., G.S. W.

 Rev. Pat Watson is a nationally sought after trainer and consultant with more than 25 years of experience in the areas of Intensive Home Based Training, Program Design and Development, and Staff Development and Training. She began her remarkable journey with one simple desire: to help people. She joined this desire with a lifetime of professional experiences and innovations that has led her to be the “first” in many capacities. She is a pioneer in the Nationwide Family Preservation Movement. She was a founding member of the Family Preservation Network where leaders from around the state came together to offer the best practices to alleviate social suffering. Her training efforts with Homebuilders took her around the country to train local, private and government agencies to work with families on the brink of dissolution. Through her consultation, public and private social service agencies developed home-based programs. Rev. Pat Watson initiated a modern day treatment and education facility called IMPACT for at risk youths seeking an alternative school environment.

Currently, Rev. Pat is sharing her time and talent as a consultant and trainer with Project RESTORE, a program on its way to becoming a national model. With Project RESTORE, Rev. Pat designed and implemented an intensive case management component to a program that was only tracking the whereabouts of first time offenders. The Total Sentencing Alternative Program monitors the movement of nearly 400 non-violent and pre-trial clients. But, the program was doing nothing to address the educational, family or social needs of the clients. Rev. Pat began working with the program in 2008, and in what is her fashion, immediately got down to exposing and providing the missing link. She developed intensive case management that assesses clients and family history, the root causes of negative behavior, as well as offer faith-based support for clients and their families. Project RESTORE is in the process of being implemented in the criminal justice system in New Orleans and beyond. Judges in the juvenile justice systems and representatives with youth study centers from across the state of Louisiana have expressed interest in Project RESTORE and excitement about the possibilities the program presents.

Rev. Pat began what she calls her “intensive” training at Kingsley House. Kingsley House, opened in 1896, is the oldest settlement house in the South. She started in the Parent Child Center where she developed teenage pregnancy prevention skills. She became program director of the Family Preservation Services that focused on family-centered interventions by offering short-term intensive services to families who were near dissolution.

With her gift of service and desire to elevate the level of training for working professionals, Rev. Pat established LIFT, Inc. Level of Intensive Training. With an emphasis on intensive home services, Rev. Pat developed a training model that was emulated across the United States.


Continuing to build on her growing record of success, Rev. Pat implemented the Triple “R” (Remove, Return, Recovery) program funded by the local New Orleans Public School Board. The project worked with youth who faced a 90-day expulsion from the New Orleans public school system. This project produced a recovery model to ensure smooth and positive transition from intensive intervention toward re-integration into a mainstream public school setting. The program provided services to 482 school-ages children within a nine-month period.

As facility administrator with the Impact Educational Enrichment Services, Rev. Pat developed the first alternative program for delinquent youths. She developed the school’s curriculum. Rev. Pat hired and trained the staff. She implemented a G.E.D. program for age appropriate youth. Within six months, the program received accreditation through the Louisiana Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

She authored and received a contract for Family Preservation Services with the Office of Youth Development and Office of Community Services where she supervised staff with case specific issues who provided intensive home-based services to youth and their families who were near dissolution.

In 1992, Rev. Pat and her husband, Pastor Tom Watson, founded The Family Center of Hope, a 5013c community service agency that is designed to provide services that address and effect change in the areas of community violence, substance abuse, school dropouts, teenage parenting and other dysfunctions with high-risk families. As executive director, Rev. Pat oversees all programs, writes grants, and offers training workshops for community and church groups. Under Rev. Pat’s trailblazing, yet encompassing leadership, the center is a model of what changes a social service agency can make in the lives of the citizens it serves.

Rev. Pat received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Dillard University with a Minor in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Tulane University.