HOW I LEARNED HELPING FOSTER YOUTH IS NOT THAT SIMPLE
Time went by and I began learning the complexity of the system and the pain behind the faces.
The teen years my mentee faced living in a group home taught me about the common, everyday issues foster youth faced: self harm, living on the streets selling her body for money…and family cycles of spiritual, emotional, and physical poverty.
With each struggle she would call me at some point, inviting me into her story-sometimes it would be after weeks of being on the streets and being caught. I would see her and we sit over a meal as she cried through the hurt she was carrying…and I knew nothing other then to pray.
While she was under 18 and leaving the group home to sell her body…the police found her she would be returned. But once she hit 18, an “adult” by legal standards, no one cared to look for her.
But I did – along with a few unhealthy and terrifying family members.