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Resilience in Foster Care
By
Al Desetta
Resilience has become a popular buzzword in youth development. And that's because young people are resilient—youth workers are continually amazed at how their clients can bounce back from extremely challenging experiences and live rewarding lives.
But young people are resilient because they have no other choice. Hattie Rice is one example. Living in poverty with two schizophrenic parents, her problems went unnoticed by her family. But even more inexcusable is that Hattie's problems also went unnoticed in school, by her teachers. Hattie had no option but to endure her situation and focus on that part of her life she could control—her ability to do well in school. As she puts it in the following profile: "I solved the easy problem, which was school, rather than trying to solve the hard, hungry problems."
There are several lessons in Hattie's story. The first is that adults often fail to notice warning signs of childhood trauma. These warning signs can be quite obvious. But adults often don't know how to look for them, or how to engage the problem if they do see the signs of trouble. They may also think that a teen's personal problems are beyond their expertise or responsibility.
But adults do not have to go far outside their responsibilities or be trained as mental health professionals to assist youth who are facing difficult challenges. By being attentive to behavior and asking questions, they can open up a dialogue with youth who are facing problems in their lives. Most young people want adults to ask them about their lives, but, too often, adults fail to take that initiative. By asking a few questions about her life at home, teachers would have been able to direct Hattie to the help she needed years before it actually happened.
A second lesson is that foster care in general, and group homes in particular, can be of great benefit in the right context. After years of reform—with much reform still needed—foster care is too often demonized or stereotyped. Hattie Rice's life was basically saved by foster care. She was able to escape an oppressive family situation and get the attention and support she needed. And her experience in foster care, in several ways, goes against the grain of conventional wisdom. Unlike other youth, Hattie benefited from having limited contact with her biological family. And she had a better experience living in group homes with other girls than in foster families.
The final lesson, although not directly obvious, is that resilience comes at a price. Hattie has been helped greatly by foster care, and is headed for college. But she suffered needlessly, in almost complete isolation, for many years. That experience has undoubtedly left scars. As she leaves foster care and begins to live independently, her need for services and support does not end. In fact, Hattie needs services and supports more than ever, if she is to make a successful transition to adulthood.
In other words, young people's capacity for resilience should not make us complacent or self-satisfied: they need constant and careful attention. Hattie survived for years with a minimum of support, but she was lucky to have survived—and flourished. Countless numbers of other young people are not so fortunate.
—Al Desetta
December 23, 2005
To read Al Desetta's profile of Hattie Rice, please click here, or visit the Perspectives On Perseverance Section on the home page of www.perspectivesonyouth.org |
