This series began with an introduction of multiple grief experiences of youth in foster care placement. This series continues with a look at parental deployment and its impact on youth. Multiple relocations. Loss of friendships. Loss of pets. Parental deployment. Death. These are a few of the many grief experiences military children and teens in …
Category: Awareness Building
Nov 16
Best Practices for Grief: Foster Care
We remove them from their homes with promises of a better life. We elude them with dreams of safety and a life free from the trauma and pain that often silences the voices of this population of children and teens living in foster care. Often, key players in the lives of foster care youth …
Nov 04
November: Veterans, Thanksgiving and Military Families
Have you ever been defined as the problem? You know that feeling when someone says it’s because of the place you lived, the color of your skin, your socio-economic class or earning potential, how long you’ve been with the organization, the school, in your community, or even what gender you are or who you love, …
Nov 02 2015
It’s Grief To Me – Death, Divorce, Incarceration, Deployment and Foster Care
When I graduated from high school, I never intended on going back. Then 13 years later, I found myself walking the halls of someone else’s high school thinking about that period of my own life that was so fraught with darkness. But this time my role was different. I was different. I was a mental …
Oct 19
Grief and Loss – Grieving Children in the U.S.
Each of us are impacted by grief and loss. For some, the words “grief” and “loss,” signify the pain one feels after they’ve lost a loved one to death. For others, the words “grief” and “loss” have a different meaning. November 19, 2015 is Children’s Grief Awareness Day. In an effort to help spread the …
Oct 05
Down Syndrome: A New Perspective
Eleven weeks ago I gave birth to my second daughter, Hope. As we began to adjust to life as a family of four, it became clear to me that each of our girls is unique. Not only are they unique from each other, they are unique from their father & me as well. Harper, my …
Aug 14
First Day of School Too Common a Phenomena for Youth in Foster Care
Anyone who has ever had to start a new school in the middle of the year probably remembers the barrage of feelings about the situation. Perhaps anger at having to leave the familiar school and all of your friends behind; the anxiety felt about whether or not you will be accepted by your new peers; …
Feb 05
Why Redistribution is a Quality Investment
Income inequality. It’s a dirty term, but someone has to use it. Unless you’ve been actively hiding from any conversation, headline, or news report involving wealth and income inequality, you probably already know that the income gap between the mega-rich and the “regular folk” has grown exponentially since the 1970s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell you …
Jan 29
What’s in a Twirl?
What’s in a twirl? That which by any other twirl would be so sweet…. Okay so I am taking poetic license with a classic work by William Shakespeare. Yet we should as a society be asking the question “why ask a professional female athlete to twirl and show off her outfit?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzOeJs0Sh-c ) We should …
Jan 13
Would YOU be able to survive on $15,000/year?
The U.S. federal minimum wage was first established during the Depression, and since 1933 has risen from 25 cents to $7.25 per hour. As it stands now, three years will have passed since the last increase in the federal minimum wage, which is currently just over $15,000 a year for a full time worker. Can …