|
As Huckleberry House gets ready for Turn Around
Columbus 2008, we talked to the people who help
youth turn their lives around in the Transitional
Living Program. What have they seen, how do they
face the challenges of the work they do, and what keeps them
coming back?
The Stories*
Carrie Mularz, Team Leader
When I think about Transitional Living, I think
about one young woman who was left to fend for
herself at 16; she didn’t know her biological mom,
and her dad and uncle were Meth addicts. Her
situation was so desperate, we let her enter the
program early to help get her safe and stabilized.
She suffered from post traumatic stress and
overwhelming anxiety. It was nearly impossible for
her to go to school because she worried all the
time. We taught her to plan effectively and take one
step at a time. She went to counseling regularly and
met with her workers, graduated from high school
with honors and enrolled in college. She left the
program healthier, more in control of her life, and
with a job and stable housing.
Julie DeBord, Community
Support Assistant/Independent Living Mentor
In the middle of his time in the program, one young
person took off, stopped going to school and left
his apartment to live with his girlfriend. His
housing was going to be taken away, so we stepped up
as a team and worked together to get him to look at
how his feelings and choices were affecting him. We
got him back on track with school and working. It
wasn’t easy, but over five months, he found housing,
adjusted to being on his own and started doing well,
eventually graduating from the program.
For me, this
story really shows that by the team taking an extra
look at this young man [and taking it all into
account], we were able to recognize that he had
issues with his girlfriend and with depression. We
got a young person back on track instead of just
giving up and letting him drop out of yet another
situation.
Melanie Gunther, TLP
Supervisor
I remember a young woman who was emotionally
troubled. She could get paranoid and believed that
everyone was against her all the time. Her problems
were so severe that we weren’t sure she was going to
make it. She still suffers from these problems, but
despite her mental health issues, she completed the
program successfully, graduated from college and
supports herself working at a local business. She’s
raising her child, and one of the most surprising
things is that she has a relationship with her
grandmother, which she said she would never do. She
even lets her grandma help her with her child.
That’s huge progress for her.
Challenges and Rewards
Carrie
Sometimes it’s hard to deal with all the variables
in our clients’ lives that we have no control over:
Seedy boyfriends, friends influencing them, and also
teens just acting their age of 17. We always remind
them what they’re here to use the time for; it’s a
short period and sometimes they have to make
short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.
Each day is
different from the one you had before; it really
puts your problem solving skills to use. The
resilience of the youth in our program is really
inspiring. The kind of adversity they come through
just to be able to do things that regular teenagers
do, like go to school and get a part-time job, is
tremendous, and we celebrate the
little things with them and for them.
Julie
Sometimes it’s difficult when youth are not ready to
work on underlying issues and try to keep us at a
superficial level. If you’re working at that level
you’re never going to address underlying issues or
address problems in a particular area.
It’s a
challenge. I think that, for me, I enjoy coming to
work not knowing necessarily what the day’s going to
hold. For somebody who is getting ready to be a
LSW there’s a lot of exposure to many different
issues and struggles this population faces.
Melanie
I think the most challenging part of this work is
getting young people to believe in themselves. It
sounds corny, but I can see good in every youth that
enters our program, but for them to believe in
themselves, believe that they can make different
choices, is so hard for them do to sometimes. For me
the challenge is helping youth to see that, yes,
there are consequences to what they do, to see that
and then move on instead of getting stuck in that
zone they’re in when they enter our program.
What’s kept me
here is hearing from a client that I used to work
with 2, 3 years ago when they call to see how I’m
doing. Seeing the after-effect, not the
here-and-now, because we’re not going to see that
change in 18 months, but after youth have moved on
in their lives, the call that I receive after
that...that’s great.
*Some identifying details have been changed to
protect youths' privacy.
|
