Youth in Transition, Making a Difference, Heartfelt Hugs, and more!

We are blessed to have staff who care deeply about the children and adults we serve, as well as many generous donors who enable us to extend our reach. It is an honor to serve families in multiple ways through our different programs. This month you will hear from our Youth In Transition staff.

Please review the moving account about how patience and persistence pays great dividends for the youth being served, as well as our staff who support the mentor and mentees. Follow their journey of guiding a young adult who has experienced significant trauma to a better place.

DeLois T. Leapheart

President & CEO

www.AdoptionOptionInc.org

We provide a Youth In Transition (YIT) program that offers mentoring services designed to assist youth (ages 14-23) get ready for independence into adulthood after foster care ends. We recruit mentors to help guide youth and to advocate for them in areas such as independent living skills, conflict resolution, problem solving and other important areas. Mentors help connect youth with appropriate resources within the community such as tutoring, assertiveness vs. aggressiveness training, and physical/mental health services.

Youth are matched with a qualified trained adult mentor based on common interests and overall compatibility. Youth and mentor meet face to face a minimum of two times per month and spend a combined total of four hours per month for at least 12 months. Youth, mentor and mentor specialist work together to develop SMART goals together at the beginning of the match. Mentor and youth participate in appropriate activities that align with the goals that were created and develop a positive supportive relationship.

Benefits of Mentoring Youth

“Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had real positive influences in his or her life. I don’t care what you do for a living — if you do it well I’m sure there was someone cheering you on or showing the way. A mentor.” — Denzel Washington

It’s no surprise that children in foster care are among our nation’s most vulnerable young people. A healthy mentoring relationship can be critical to achieving both academic and personal goals. Mentors offer consistency, steadiness and support to children and youth who have experienced abusive or neglectful situations. A mentor may be the only consistent relationship – the only semblance of family – a youth may ever have.

Mentoring can:

Increase high school graduation rates
Lower high school dropout rates
Increase healthier relationships and lifestyle choices
Foster a positive attitude about school
Increase college enrollment rates and higher educational aspirations
Enhance self-esteem and self-confidence
Improve behavior, both at home and at school
Strengthen relationships with parents, foster parents, teachers and peers
Improve interpersonal skills
Decrease the likelihood of initiating drug and alcohol use

If those aren’t reasons enough to consider mentoring, mentors also benefit from investing in others. Mentoring can help the mentor:

Aid someone in realizing their full potential- Everyone has unique talents and gifts. Celebrating individual talents helps to improve their own life, achieve their goals and help others.
Give Back- Spend time investing in your community. Mentoring youth in your community is a powerful way to invest in the future.
Learn more about Themselves- Meaningful relationships are a two-way street. Mentors learn more about their personal strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, experience and beliefs.
Change Lives- A mentor may be the only stable, positive impact in a youth’s life.

Interested in Being a Mentor for Youth in the YIT Program? Contact us at info@aoicw.org.

Transitioning into who he was meant to be.

When you’re working with at-risk youth, you have to be able to recognize--and be proud of--the small achievements. My work with Liam * (*fictitious name to protect the identity of the client), gave me plenty of opportunities to practice this philosophy. He was a teenager when we started working together.

Liam faced his fair share of struggles and losses in his short time of life. He was unable to access many of the foster care benefits for which he was eligible. On more than one occasion, he told me he did not want a mentor. Liam spent several months living in many different places and often refused help from those who wanted to help him. But finally, one day he agreed to meet with a new mentor. The first meeting went really well. The conversation filled the air and their meeting lasted for hours. After the successful meeting, Liam agreed to be matched with this mentor, but the work was just beginning. Read more.

For the past several years, siblings Addie, Claire, Ethan, and Scarlet have led a campaign to collect and donate toys in honor of their Grandma Jill who loved kids and loved giving back to the community. This year they chose a different way of honoring their grandmother's tradition of "Spreading Magic".

These creative siblings wanted to give a gift that could provide hugs and warmth, long after a toy has broken or been discarded. They chose blankets. In December, they donated more than a hundred blankets to the children we serve. Our staff sincerely enjoyed the privilege of delivering those heartfelt blanket hugs to children throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region and surrounding areas.