Youth Development Services
Stories of Change
Bianca*
Some of the schools within the Penn-Harris-Madison school district have a School-based Specialist from the Youth Development Services program of YSB. Bianca* was referred to her school's specialist when she was in kindergarden. The reason for her referral was tragic: the death of her nine-month-old baby sister. The YDS Specialist provided one-on-one grief counseling to Bianca until she had come to grips with her sister's passing.
When Bianca was in 2nd grade, her mother was expectant again. Bianca was so worried that the new baby would die that she resumed talking with her YDS Specialist. Understandably, Bianca had a lot of anxiety and fear about death and dying. She also had an extremely dysfunctional extended family, so she continued to speak with the Specialist at her school. Her mother shared that on a trip to the store they saw a ceramic angel holding a bird. Bianca looked at the angel and said, "This angel reminds me of Ms. Ropp (her YDS Specialist), she gave me wings to fly!"
Near the end of her 3rd grade year, Biana moved to a different school. During her 4th grade year, Bianca approached the counselor at that school and asked to talk with her. She shared that her grandfather had started to molest her. After the counselor notified Bianca's parents they told her how proud of her they were sharing what had happened. Bianca told her parents that she had learned from Ms. Ropp (her YDS Specialist) to always tell an adult if someone was hurting her or making her sad. She told her mom that she trusted Ms. Ropp enough to use that trust towards another counselor and that, even though she hadn't known that other counselor, she felt they would also be there to help her.
To read more about how YSB's Youth Development Services program changes lives, click here.
For more information about YSB's Youth Development Services program, contact Melissa Ropp.
*Names changed to protect confidentiality
Donna*
written from the viewpoint of her YDS Specialist
Upon meeting this very trouble young woman as she entered her 7th grade year, I felt overwhelmed for both her with the daunting task of living life in a family with very little support and for our relationship together as I understood very early on that there were issues we'd need to explore that would not be easy. This beautiful young woman saw only ugliness when looking in the mirror, she heard only condemnation when she was at home, she had a wisdom and insight about herself that was unnerving for her age and yet she was so very lost. At school her successes were few and far between. She shifted between trying to "fit-in" with acquaintances that would lead her astray and being the obedient student doing the work that she actually could accomplish. One of the overriding issues for her was one of utter loneliness--she was not special to anyone, not "good enough" at anything to even have the hope of thinking she could ever achieve. Oh, she presented well enough when she wanted to and played the "cool, under control" yet alusive friend, but this young gal was screaming and hurting inside.
As we began to get to know each other and establish some common ground on which we could proceed, she began to trust me and slowely revealed the scared, lonely, hurting child that she was. My heart quite literally ached for her when I knew she'd have to go home to a home where she was left to fend for herself and often was relied upon to parent her mother and mom's boyfriend. She was unable to stay after shcool for program activities, sporting events or even mentoring due to her mother's lack of desire or inability to pick her up; so there she sat in her home out in the country in a quiet hell.
One day as we were talking she showed me something that she wrote about how she was feeling. It was deeply moving in its choppy, misspelled and rough way, but it gave us opportunity to work on this particular coping mechanism. Writing for her was one of the only things that she could do anywhere, whether there was someone to pick her up, money or nothing . . . and so she wrote. She began sharing notebooks of writings she had done over the course of a day, weekend and month. The poems and stories were incredibly telling about how she felt about life. I'm not going to tell you that this was the cure all as it was not. My young friend was so deeply distressed at one point that she tried to take her own life; even this cry did not elicit the much needed love, attention and professional help that she so deeply needed and desired.
But we kept meeting, talking, discovering her qualities and she kept writing, I kept tweaking certain aspects of a piece and finally requesting certain types of writing. We decided that perhaps she should enter some of her writings in a contest to see what happened. Although excited at the prospect, she was certain that nothing would happen because in her words, "nothing ever changes and I'll never escape the life I lead." One of the places we sent a couple of her poems was to the Heart of the Matter contest by Safe Place. Months went by and neither of us heard anything; she stopped asking about it and I was hesitant to bring it up because it might be looked at as one more failure to her. Then sometime in the winter of last year I got email from my supervisor saying that one of her poems was chosen to be published. Once I received confirmation from the Safe Place publishers, I called my young friend in and told her. If you could have seen the smile in her eyes as her face lit up in disbelief, it was as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. As I explained to her that not only had she won a spot in this contest, her poem would be published in a book and she would receive a small stipend as compsation. She almost floated out of my office; she didn't brag about it, but was dying to tell someone who would care, so I brought it up to the secretary. This young lady was so taken back and so unfamiliar with success that she just did not know what to do; she smiled and said, "Would you like my autograph?" and laughed.
After receiving such wonderful recognition about her work, she felt inspired enough to write a piece for our school newsletter. She has a long, long way to go, but her success is allowing her to feel the possibility of hope, which she has not had, in a very long time.
