"The renowned psychologist John Briere, Ph.D, has observed that if child abuse and neglect were to disappear, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual — an 886-page tome cataloging some 300 mental disorders — would shrink to the size of a pamphlet, and the prisons would empty in two generations....
"Considering this, it becomes easier to understand why foster youth, all of whom experienced home dysfunction severe enough to warrant removal, display astronomical rates of homelessness, poverty and incarceration as young adults....
"Researchers are catching on.
"In the last decade they have devoted increasing resources to identifying the factors that allow some at-risk youth to build successful adult lives, when other kids from more “normal” backgrounds fall to drug addiction or early death. A few key points rise to the surface in study after study, and they could provide an instructive angle on our foster care system:
1. Resilience is not inborn. It is built and strengthened, or weakened, by life experience.
2. Consistency, in the form of a caring, competent adult, makes more difference than money. If not a parent, then a teacher. If not a teacher, then a coach, mentor or therapist.
"In other words, despite the dire and lasting effects of a painful childhood, the human brain is infinitely plastic, constantly changing in response to its environment. So exposure to severe trauma, while toxic, is reversible, and through some surprisingly simple, low-cost methods....
"These concepts provide the basic foundation for Pongo Publishing, a treatment program in use at King County Juvenile Detention and the state psychiatric hospital for children. Since 1996, Pongo has been connecting kids deemed incorrigible with a volunteer corps of writers who help them turn their stories into poetry. The act of writing itself seems to strengthen resilience in youth, therapists say, a sense of purpose and agency that spurs the will to reach for more. You could call it emotional weight-lifting...."
http://crosscut.com/2013/07/24/Kidsatrisk/115566/resilience-in-foster-kids/
Short on time? Use our Category Search page.
Comments (0)