Chelsea Coffman’s Letter

I wanted to seize the opportunity to thank you for your generosity this holiday season. I have difficulty putting my gratitude into words, and I can assure you that however thankful I am, the families I work with are even more thankful.

I nominated three families for the Holiday Heroes program this year and all three families were sponsored. This was very good news, and it was wonderful to see parents’ eyes light up when I told them that there would be some gifts for their children. Nevertheless, I worried that there would not be enough gifts to go around since two of the three families had multiple children. I could sense this same worry in the parents – what kind of Christmas magic would exist for their children this year?

The financial situations of all three families were similar – each struggled to buy food on a consistent basis, much less pay bills, purchase quality hygiene products, or go to a movie once in a while. One family managed a balancing act between buying food for them and buying food for their cats. Another family lived in constant fear of homelessness because the single mom was never sure if she would be able to pay rent and her electricity bill each month. The 13-year-old girl in the third family had just been placed in emergency foster care, and the foster family could not afford gifts for her since they were not able to budget for her presence. None of the families had adequate school clothes for their children or winter gear for their children or themselves.

When I received the bags full of gifts, I was almost speechless. All three families had at least two bags, and these bags were big! After a moment of panic about whether everything would fit in my car, I contacted the families to schedule deliveries. The relief in these parents’ voices was palpable – the program followed through and their children would have something for Christmas morning.

That evening I checked all of the gifts to ensure price tags were removed, and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, tears sprang to my eyes. I was not only blown away by the quantity of gifts, but the quality and thought that went into the selection of gifts. One teenager found music very helpful as a coping skill, but could not afford an mp3 player. Her bag had an iPod and an iTunes gift certificate. Another teenager only had one pair of shoes that were well past their prime – her peers made fun of her from the smell. Her bag contained a pair of quality, blinding white tennis shoes. Yet another teenager struggled to complete her personal hygiene appropriately, and her bag was filled with scented lotions, shampoos, body sprays, etc. One of the families had a one-year-old baby, and the gifts for this little one were the perfect colors, the perfect sizes, and full of educational and developmental value. Beyond that, all the families received gift certificates so that they could have the experience of picking something out for themselves.

As amazing as it was to sort through the bags myself, this experience paled compared to actually delivering the gifts. The single mom had tears in her eyes and thanked me for making Christmas possible for her children. Another family asked me multiple times over two days if I could still deliver the gifts at the time we scheduled. The foster family reiterated how anxious they were over how to provide the youth with gifts. When the parents saw the gifts themselves, they also commented on the tastefulness and quality of items. “Oh, she needed this!” “This will look great, she’ll love it!” were comments I heard over and over.

After Christmas had passed and I resumed home visits, I saw the gifts opened and being used. Most of the children excitedly showed me what “Santa” brought them for Christmas, and the teenager with the white tennis shoes said she received a compliment from a peer at school. The children wore unstained, unripped clothing to school, and were not cold waiting at the bus stops anymore. All three families asked me to pass on their thanks to those who made this possible.

I believe that the true spirit of Christmas is about peace, love, generosity. It always held a special kind of magic for me as a child. As the years have passed, daily struggles, depressed economies, and upsetting world news have made the Christmas magic harder to feel some years. Thanks to you, I was able to feel the magic with no trouble this year, and renew my faith in human nature. Thanks to you, three sets of caregivers were not plagued by anxiety and guilt because they could not afford gifts. Thanks to you, six children also got to experience the Christmas magic, some of them for the first time. They truly had a holiday experience they will never forget!

Chelsea Coffman, MSW
Family Intervention Specialist
Youth Villages Intercept Program

Courtney Hosking’s Letter

I’d like to share the story of one young lady, participating in our Transitional Living Program, who had a particularly tough December. Just as the holiday season began, she received a 30-day vacate notice. Not only was she facing eviction with no reliable supports but various agencies that were working with her, in addition to Youth Villages, were expressing doubts that she could make the right decisions necessary to turn her life around. These agencies were making it increasingly difficult for this young adult to access resources and made their disheartening concerns abundantly clear to her. December was a dark month for this young lady. The emotions and pressure she was feeling had the possibility of creating a “downward spiral” that threatened to derail her; a “downward spiral” that she was convinced haunted her throughout her life of ups and inevitable downs. Months earlier, she hadn’t even wanted to create a holiday wish list when I told her about our Holiday Heroes Initiative because she felt she didn’t “deserve it.”

Late one evening, as I was meeting with this young adult for treatment to once again tweak her resume in hopes of landing a job, I gave her the holiday gifts that were purchased and donated on her behalf. This girl, who seemed to forget about the wish list she had “half” created months earlier, was overjoyed at the thoughtful gifts she received. For this young adult facing eviction, a brand new George Foreman grill turned into the item that would be her first kitchen appliance in a new apartment. She saw the clothes as her new outfit for when she started at a community college for the spring semester. The gift card would help her make her new apartment truly feel like home. These gifts gave her more than just hope, they represented a better future where she could live independently and be like any other girl her age.

All in all, the Holiday Heroes Initiative brought back the holiday spirit for this deserving young woman and helped her believe that 2012 would be HER year. The holiday gifts restored her faith in those around her and helped her see that people do care about her and want to support her. These gifts given to her through Youth Villages were the only gifts she received this year, and I was happy to be able to share in the holiday spirit with her!

Courtney Hosking
Transitional Living Specialist
Youth Villages Transitional Living Program

Pam Rivera’s Letter

As a clinical supervisor, the holidays were very emotional for me as I delivered gifts to some of the young adults participating in our transitional living program. I’d like to tell you all about one young lady bravely attempting to stand on her own two feet. Due to physical and emotional abuse, she had recently moved out of her family’s home. With very little support and struggling to live on her own, she worked hard to get herself an apartment, a car and a job. However, she realized that with all the new responsibilities of adulthood and living on a strict budget, holiday gifts and clothing, for her and others, were not going to be an option this year. Not to mention, she would most likely receive nothing from her immediate family.

While struggling to make ends meet, and yearning to have family back in her life, she decided to move out-of-state to be with some extended family that could give her love and support. This was not an easy decision – she was leaving behind everything she knew. Before she moved, Youth Villages was able to provide her with holiday gifts through its annual Holiday Heroes Initiative to take with her on her journey. Upon seeing the gifts, she was so overjoyed that she was brought to tears. She told her transitional living specialist that she finally felt the love and support that she had been longing for all this time.

Pam Rivera
Transitional Living Clinical Supervisor
Youth Villages Transitional Living Program

Larry Lam, clinical supervisor with Youth Villages in Greensboro, N.C., recently appeared on WFMY News 2 to talk about practical ways of making family time with your children a priority. Watch the entire interview at digtriad.com.

Volunteers and donors throughout North Carolina brought some holiday cheer to Youth Villages children this season. From toy drives to wrapping parties, we appreciate all of the Holiday Heroes who joined in the fun. Above are some photos of our generous Holiday Heroes in North Carolina.

Youth Villages, a national leader in children’s mental and behavioral health services, has begun helping children and families in Indiana, opening its first office in Madison on Dec. 16.

The private nonprofit organization is partnering with the Indiana Department of Child Services to provide intensive help to troubled children and their families in their own homes.

Youth Villages’ goal is to stabilize and strengthen families. This prevents at-risk children from entering foster care or institutions and helps successfully reunify children with their families if out-of-home placement has been needed.

Youth Villages uses the Evidentiary Family Restoration™ approach, which focuses on providing intensive help to both the child and family in the home and offering measurable positive outcomes and accountability to both families and funders.

“Youth Villages is an organization that is all about family,” said Heather Owsley, regional manager of the Youth Villages intensive in-home services program in Indiana. “At Youth Villages, we believe children are best raised by their families or a viable family member. Our staff works hard to strengthen families and provide them with the tools and skills they need to effectively parent children with emotional, behavioral and mental health issues and to prevent or reduce the time a child spends out of the home for treatment.”

The Youth Villages Madison office employs five staff members, the majority of whom are family intervention specialists working with families of troubled children in their own homes an average of three times a week. Youth Villages’ staff is available 24/7 to the children and families they help, working around families’ schedules, meeting them before work or in the evening, when the whole family is together.

Youth Villages will be helping children and families in Decatur, Ripley, Dearborn, Jefferson, Switzerland and Ohio counties from its Madison office.

“We plan to open at least two additional offices in Indiana in the coming months,” Owsley said. “Our services are highly effective at strengthening families for the long-term, and we hope to help more and more children and families in Indiana every year. Because our service is so effective in the long-term, it is also highly cost-effective, which is an additional benefit to Indiana taxpayers.”

Youth Villages’ mission is to help emotionally and behaviorally troubled children and their families live successfully. This year, Youth Villages will help more than 18,000 children and families in 11 states and Washington, D.C., through a wide array of programs, including intensive in-home services, residential treatment, foster care and adoption, transitional living services, mentoring and crisis services.

Youth Villages’ focus on strengthening families consistently produces an 80 percent success rate of children living successfully at home even two years after completing a Youth Villages program.

Named one of the Top 50 Nonprofits to Work For by Nonprofit Times and Best Companies Group in 2010 and 2011, Youth Villages has been recognized by Harvard Business School and U.S. News & World Report, and was identified by The White House as one of the nation’s most promising results-oriented nonprofit organizations. For more information about Youth Villages, visit www.youthvillages.org.

Young people from Cottage 1, back row, left to right, include Greg, Joseph, Christopher, Cornelius and Corey. Front row are Josh, Brandon, Tristan and Nathan.

Kaitlin Kennedy, a teacher counselor at Youth Villages’ Bartlett Campus, introduced recycling to Cottage 1 as a way to teach a life skill.

But the youth owned it after that first trip to the Bartlett Recycling Center. The group now visits the center twice a month, and has expanded what they do to the Bartlett Campus.

“They really enjoy it,” said Mary Morris, counselor at Youth Villages’ Bartlett Campus. “As the months have passed, they continue to learn more about recycling and have turned it into their own project.”

The youth conduct campus clean-ups daily and separate the trash for recycling.

They’re planning to start a recycling program for all the cottages on the campus by installing recycling containers at each one.

“It’s great to see how the youth have taken this on and made it into their project,” Morris said.

Andrea Davis' experience as a counselor has helped when speaking with family members when she’s locating supports for youth who’ve been in state custody.

Some of them are easy. Maybe a simple online search or connecting through Facebook brings out family members of a child who has been in state custody for some time.

But many of them aren’t easy, and involve exhaustive investigation, countless phone calls and interviews with family acquaintances.

Andrea Davis makes calls and investigates – an uncle out-of-state, interviews with former foster families, searching online databases – to complete a puzzle for each young person, to find forgotten family. Many of the youth have spent years in state custody. Through terminated parental rights, stays at numerous foster and group homes and changing names, many young people in Youth Villages’ programs for extended periods of time don’t know if they have any family. They can’t tell you where any of their family members are. In many cases, the youth have simply fallen victim to a system that protected them.

Andrea takes on these cases and finds family for these youth. She has a knack for getting information, acting on even the most remote clues to identify aunts, cousins and other family members, many of whom are more than willing to take in or be a support for the young people. It’s not a job for someone who quits easily.

“Andrea’s very passionate about helping young people find permanency,” said Avery Duncan, Youth Villages regional supervisor. “She never gives up. Even faced with barriers, she perseveres and stays positive. When Andrea’s given a goal, she does whatever it takes to achieve that goal.”

A few months ago, Andrea took on a young person’s case that first involved a search through a national database that listed the youth’s mother as deceased since 2007.

The mother’s last known address was in Iowa. She found a partial obituary that reported the mother was killed along with her fiancee in an auto accident in Wisconsin. Andrea then searched national databases and was able to contact the fiancé’s extended family to find out what funeral home was used. Then a phone call to the funeral home revealed the names of the mother’s family members. Those relatives have been contacted and some are taking steps to take in the youth permanently. And while the youth was in custody in West Tennessee, none of the family contacted is from Tennessee.

“Because many of our youth are from out of state, there’s a huge need for someone to locate supports and family members,” Andrea said. “It’s rewarding at the end of it when a young person in one of our programs has family members and supports they can count on.”

The program was piloted in Nashville, but has since spread statewide. Youth Villages’ intensive family finder program is modeled after the St. Louis Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition’s Extreme Recruitment, which seeks out the foster children who are the hardest to find homes for and matches them with permanent adoptive families in a fraction of the time it usually takes. The program began in Memphis in January.

In another case, Andrea located a lost mother through Facebook. She was living out-of-state at the time, and the mother came to Memphis and picked up her daughter, who had aged out of state custody and was living in a homeless shelter.

“When I was younger, I actually wanted to go to the FBI and be a detective,” Andrea said.

She has binders full of information on her cases. Right now, she’s got five active cases. She starts with a genogram for each case, which constructs not only family relationships, but also identifies behavior, relationships and medical issues. She tries to fill them out as completely as possible.

“In many cases, it’s an ice-breaker when I first contact a family member,” Andrea said. “For the most part, families are very open and candid with me, even with more sensitive topics.”

Being a therapist, she’s able to assess quickly and ask the right questions. “Sometimes in speaking with a family member, I kick into counselor mode,” she said.
“But it can change the questions I’m asking and change the way I talk to them and get information.”

Because children are involved Davis’ call for help brings out the best in people.

“Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but I’ve been surprised how many people go above and beyond to help,” she said.

Plans are under way to expand the recruiting initiative throughout many Youth Villages locations.

“Every child deserves to have a family, and this is another example of Youth Villages being innovative and creative when working with youth,” Avery said. “With anything new, it takes time to figure out the best way to do things. But Andrea has been very successful at quickly locating relatives willing to build connections with our youth.”