This year, the Youth Voices Rising team at Fostering Media Connections was proud to work with dozens of current and former foster youth with child welfare, homelessness and juvenile justice experience to share their stories in writing and at online events.
As 2024 comes to an end, here is a collection of some of our top Youth Voices Rising pieces from the year.
Foster Youth Deserve Better Than Unsafe, Scary Housing
Cheyanne Deopersaud was excited to finally have her own place when New York City moved her into supportive housing for foster youth at 19. But the reality of an unsanitary, unsafe apartment turned her teenage dream into a nightmare.
“Giving youth only the bare minimum — a place to sleep — allows these systems to mask the deeper issues, abandoning us as soon as we age out of care and are no longer seen as the city’s responsibility,” she writes.
What Unhealed Advocacy Looks Like
Sabrina Anderson, a native New Yorker who experienced foster care, writes that the reason healed advocates need to be in spaces is because they show up with a different intent. Those who are unhealed, she says, tend to become mired in ego and false confidence.
“The focus shifts,” Anderson writes, “starting from ‘Let me tell you about the child welfare system and what it does to a generation’ and staying at ‘Let me tell you how it affected just me.’”
When Help Hurts: Foster Care v. My Mom
Jose Perez was placed in foster care at a young age, a system he says failed him completely. It wasn’t until he was arrested and jailed that his mother took a strong role in his life.
“This shared experience marked the first time in my life that she was truly present for me,” he wrote in the winning essay of our Youth Voices Rising 2024 writing contest. “Since I was 3 years old, she had been absent, leaving me to navigate the cold and often cruel foster care system alone — a journey that far too many children in America are forced to endure.”
Finding My Way Back to My Native Identity
Jessica Smith was adopted by a white mother and Black father at a young age. She writes that the foster care system never made any effort to connect her in any way to her heritage as a Native American.
“I believe if the system would have made that a requirement for a Native child when they are adopted as well, I would have known I was adopted and known that I was Native without having to find out on my own,” she writes.
How to Choose the Family You Keep
Veteran Youth Voices Rising writer Sade Bess writes to assure other youth in foster care that even though the system can feel lonely and isolating, it is possible to build the chosen family you want in life.
“Someone in one of my old placements taught me when I was younger that ‘you pick your friends like you pick your fruit,’” Bess writes. “For us, we can also tie that to our concept of family and chosen relationships.”
Aaron Toleafoa, who is incarcerated in Washington’s juvenile justice system, writes that one value of working with young advocates with lived experience is their emotional investment. But that spark can “turn into a wildfire” in a dangerous way for the youth, he says, without the proper support and guidance.
“When we are faced with setbacks or slow progress, we can spiral into negative thoughts and feelings of disappointment, worthlessness, and emptiness,” he writes. “This can be harmful to ourselves and to those around us, overshadow the personal challenges that they face, and consequently put out the flame that shines light to our world.”
When They First Started Happening
Cheyenne Cobb was 16 when she suffered her first attack from post-traumatic stress disorder, just weeks after finding her mother dead. She writes about her struggles and triumphs in confronting this diagnosis.
“Therapy, patience, and time have been my only friends on the journey to co-existing with this diagnosis,” she writes.
From Foster Care to College: Bridging the Gap Between Isolation and Inclusion
The journey to a college campus was both freeing and daunting for Travis Matthews. Joining social groups offered new connections, but felt like “tiptoeing into unfamiliar territory.”
He writes of his hopes that universities will continue to become more welcoming and supportive places for youth coming out of foster care. “Constantly, we hear language at colleges that center around the assumption that everyone has a family and is supported by them. This language perpetuates a norm that isn’t a reality for Fosters.”
Formerly Incarcerated, Currently Rehabilitating
Not long after giving birth, former foster youth Mariah Nikole Corder was incarcerated in a county facility. She was released weeks before her son’s third birthday.
“No one could’ve told me that ages 18 through 24 would be the hardest years of my life,” Corder writes. “But what they should’ve done was equip me better with skills to deal with a variety of things, and help me develop and nurture a healthy community that can support me to thrive during my transition-aged years.”
A Foster Youth’s Journey Toward Healing
Jeremiah Bennett, a former foster youth from New York City, was slow to trust others because of the rejection he experienced at home. He credits frequent therapy sessions with a good counselor for helping him get to a more open place in his life.
“I will not forget my past,” Bennett writes. “On the contrary, I will change what it means to me to use my past as fuel on my journey.”
I Spoke Up, But Social Services Refused to Listen
Tyler Peters writes that he tried to tell child welfare workers in his life that he was not safe in his family’s care. But his pleas to live elsewhere fell on deaf ears.
“Social workers only believed me when, at a random visit, my dad chased the social worker with the same golf club he struck upon me,” he writes. “The police placed me in foster care that night, even though I had described for years how the dangers of my parents escalated.”
Inawemaagan: The Experience of Being “Othered” in Schools
Donovan Holmes describes school as an oasis from a problematic home life in foster care. But school also presented its own set of triggers and stresses.
“Being in an inner-city public school didn’t help my image of being a poor, brown and dysfunctional child,” Holmes writes. ‘Maybe I fit in perfectly amongst the others that struggled like me, but I always felt like my differences were a stark contrast that set me aside.”
Helping Homeless Mothers One Baby Shower at a Time
Sabrina Anderson describes her work through Nyasha’s Promise, holding baby showers for expecting moms in shelters to ensure they have the supplies they need.
“If we give young mothers in foster care and mothers in shelters the tools to help lessen the financial toll a newborn comes with, we contribute greatly to their long-term success,” she writes.
Generational Foster Care in Native American Communities
Shawna Bullen-Fairbanks discusses the experience of having to learn about her people and her own origin story after being disconnected from her maternal grandmother.
“My message to any Indigenous and Native American youth in foster care is that your brown skin is absolutely beautiful, and your culture is absolutely worth learning even if it’s later on,” she writes.
From Exploitative Upbringing to Healthy Parenting
Tom Brown recalls the time a neighbor explained that his foster mother was well known to take kids in as a source of income.
“I already knew about what she was saying because of how I was treated,” Brown writes. “But when I actually heard it, it was very easy to piece together. I was a bit dumbfounded.”
Termination of Parental Rights Changed my Relationship with My Mom
Jessica Castillo describes the painful impact that the termination of parental rights had on her relationship with her mother.
“It permanently left a hole in my heart that I still have yet to heal from, and it gave me resilience and the opportunity to finally think about myself instead of obsessing over my mom as I aged into adulthood,” she writes. “Although I feel guilty admitting this, I know TPR was for the best and I appreciate the life I have today because of the judge’s decision.”
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