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Youth Outreach Services
Helps Lisa Successfully Transition from Childhood Abuse & Neglect,
Foster Care to College Student, Professional Adult
At age 11, Lisa and her
three older siblings, who had severe suffered abuse and neglect,
were rescued from their violent home and placed in foster care. To
avoid her violent and substance-abusing mother, Lisa moved among
several foster homes for seven years. She struggled with alienation
and loss from the separation of her nuclear family.
How Youth Outreach
Services Helped
At 18, Lisa qualified to
have her own apartment and her own life under the transitional
Independent Living Program operated by Youth Outreach Services. At
the beginning, she struggled with structuring her time and
priorities as she balanced a full-time college and a full-time work
schedule. She nearly failed school. As a result, Lisa took the risk
of opening up and established trust and rapport with her Youth
Outreach counselor. With trust in place, Lisa�s counselor helped
shape her schedule and priorities to continue her nursing program,
while still working 40 hours a week.
However, Lisa experienced
other challenges, too. She had confrontations with family members at
her apartment, confrontations which threatened the loss of her home.
Youth Outreach counselors stepped in to help helped Lisa set
boundaries with her family. With friends who took advantage of her,
Youth Outreach counselors again helped her to set similar
limitations.
Youth Outreach also helped
Lisa improve her interpersonal and professional skills. For example,
although she lost a job due to a conflict with a co-worker, her
Youth Outreach counselor was able to guide Lisa to therapeutic
services to control her anger and to become skilled at professional
behavior in business environments.
Lisa Today
Since Lisa entered the Youth
Outreach Services� Independent Living Program, she has entered
nursing studies, earned professional employment, maintained her home
and developed the self-confidence, optimism and maturity necessary
to overcome the challenges of her childhood. She has become an
adult.
More important, Shanese has
transformed her self-image. �I look up to myself now. I say this
because I have been through so much and still I am able to move
ahead in life and motivate myself to do better.�
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