Youth Today
Youth Voices
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1.5KWatch What Happens When Former NYC Foster Kids Speak Truth to Power
You can hear the frustration — and need — in each of their voices as this group of young adults, who grew...
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1.3KWho Will I Be As an Adult?
In all those years I was bounced around, I didn’t know where I belonged or what would happen when I aged out...
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1.4KWhat Do We Owe Each Other?
A teenage girl on the road to high school graduation struggles to stay connected to her birth parents while coping with their...
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I Choose Foster Care
I have been in foster care before, but this is the first time I chose to be. Before, I was ashamed to...
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1.2KLearning What Family Is at Age 16
It’s no Disney show, but after more than 16 placements, Selena reflects on how stability and safety in a foster home help...
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1.1KGender-Nonconforming Foster Youth Found Acceptance, Concrete Help at High School
A teenage writer explores the difference adults made in his life through acceptance: “School is a way for me to not turn...
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3.3KThe American Dream Delayed by Addiction
A young writer reflects on how his father’s addiction impacted his family, his growing up and his own substance use. “After everything,...
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Because I’m Free
A young writer’s story indicates many places where youth workers and systems could have intervened — healing child sexual abuse, treating drug...
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Getting Myself Back: Living in Foster Care with People Who Let Me Be a Child
The last fight between my mother and stepfather was severe enough to get them both arrested. With nowhere else to go, we...
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2.5KNo Such Thing As a Perfect Family
Once I entered the foster care system, I was no longer this happy little girl who hid all of her secrets. I...
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1.8KMy Trauma Grew into Motivation to Help Others
I’ve been abusing alcohol since I was a teen. I faced a lot of trauma as a young kid from a poor...
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1.3KMy Ongoing Battle with Substance Abuse
“I was only 11 years old, but my age didn’t stop me from falling into the same trap my father did.” A...
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2.5KReclaiming My Life after Meth
With a school filled with druggies and a neighborhood filled with them, too, I was out of luck. Doing drugs was how...
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1.4KThe Test of Time: Finding a Way to Stay Clean for My Daughter
We just got back from feeding Harlow at the hospital, and we were hanging out in the motor home. I was getting...
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1.3KA Gateway Drug Can Be the First Step on the Way Out
I sold a lot of stuff at school: candy, soda, bike parts, fireworks, pocket knives and, of course, marijuana.
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1.9KI Couldn’t Save My Mom
Drugs tear families apart — it did to mine. I was just 12 years old when I realized that my mother was...
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2.0KIncorporating More Youth Voice into Our Work
We have found running our national youth advisory board to be essential to our work.
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1.9KThe Struggles Of An Addict
Every day is a struggle for us addicts, and, yet, despite our failures and relapses, every day is a new day to...
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1.3KI Chose the Wrong Mom
Now, things have gone bad with my birth mom again. She’s off drugs, but she still screams abuse at me and dates...
