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There’s no motivator like passion. Just ask Delores, whose foster son, Mike, has discovered his: aeronautical engineering.
Not long ago, Delores was at the end of her rope with Mike. His bad grades were matched by a bad attitude and Delores had run out of hope. That was the situation when a Treehouse educational advocate first visited the pair. “You can advocate,” Delores told the advocate, “but this one will not listen. You won’t get through to him.”
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Small Steps Overcome Big Challenges
When Jason entered the foster care system he’d never played the guitar, but he wanted to. There was no reason for him to believe that becoming a foster kid would give him the opportunity to learn how to play, but it did.
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Reuben was orphaned as a child, bounced from home to home his entire childhood, and didn’t attend a consecutive year of school until he was a junior in high school. The impact this had on his education was devastating and, it seemed to him, it predicted that he would never attend college.
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Lee is a charming, outgoing fourth grader with a big smile and a generous heart. In his eight years, he has suffered intense physical and emotional abuse that has left him with physical trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. His disabilities manifest in behaviors like running away and physical aggression.
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Adam is a little short on confidence. He’s shy, he’s a foster kid, and he’s got a speech impediment that he’s self conscious about. Adam is a seven year old with energy to spare. But early childhood trauma has made it hard for him to deal with his emotions calmly. His foster mom knew that what he needed was a good place to use his abundant energy. One day he decided he wanted to play football, and to his foster mom Amy, that seemed like just the right thing for him. Unfortunately the fees were too much for her, so she turned to Treehouse’s Little Wishes program. Amy helped Adam make a Little Wish at Treehouse and now big things are happening.
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In the fall of 2008 Carly was finally doing well in school. She’d been removed from her birth home and placed in a group home that she really liked. Her grades and attitude were improving and everyone involved was quite pleased with her turnaround. Then she was placed in a relative’s home and she quickly began to deteriorate. Her attitude and grades suffered and she was quickly slipping back into bad decision-making. By late January she was removed from her relatives home and sent back to the group home where she’d previously been successful.
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Finally, a happy beginning for Trina.
Trina is a 14-year-old foster child who has ADHD and bipolar disorder. She has been in more than five different school placements and, until recently, was still placed in a sixth grade class room where kids are generally 11 and 12 years old.
School has been hard for Trina since the beginning. She’s been behind since kindergarten and, through a series of missteps, she hasn’t been given the supports she needs to be successful in school. Additionally, her behavior makes it difficult for her to learn. -
Sophia is a foster kid with big dreams. She dreams of going to college one day. But she has a medical condition that keeps her out of school more often than most kids, so she needs extra support in and out of school. Fortunately she’s got a big support team – a hospital case manager, social worker, caregivers, and now a Treehouse Advocate.
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At eight years old Carl was on the brink of entering the foster care system because his parents didn’t have the skills they needed to safely raise him. To keep the family together and get the skills they needed, they were working with a social worker. At that time Carl was really struggling in school due to his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It’s a struggle to get him to slow down and pay attention long enough for the simplest of tasks, from chores to school work. His parents requested special services for him for three years, but their requests went nowhere.
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After 18 “homes” it wouldn’t be surprising if Sabas didn’t graduate from high school on time. But he will. Little Wishes just paid for the bright yellow cap and gown he’ll proudly wear as he walks across the stage and accepts his High School diploma from Chief Sealth High. It’s been a long, bumpy road for him, though.
Foster Care Fact
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Foster youth who move through many home placements are 5 to 10 times more likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system than their peers in the general population.
