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caring: Who will step up to connect with our youth?
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Published: November 8, 2009
Every child should have a caring adult in their lives. And that's not always a biological parent or family member. It may be a friend or neighbor. Often times it is a teacher.
Joe Manchin
My bags were packed and I was ready to come home. It was the last week in August 1970. I was a
freshman at Livingstone College, completing the first two weeks of football practice. It was hot. We practiced three times a day. Fortunately, my grandmother reasoned with me. "Stay for a year," she told me. "And if you don't like it, then come home."
That was good advice from a member of my "natural" support system — family, friends, teachers and church members. I stayed. The routine became routine. I made friends, acclimated to my new environment and navigated through successfully. Unfortunately, that is not the case for too many young people today, especially youth in foster care.
Often it is a teacher who provides a spark of encouragement, like the teacher who saw something in Derrius Quarles, a former foster child and straight-A student in Chicago who through his own efforts obtained a million dollars worth of college scholarships.
"Providence intervened in the form of a pushy biology teacher," according to an article in the Oct. 4 Chicago Tribune. Quarles had enrolled in a summer biology course but skipped the first day and was late for the second. Teacher Nivedita Nutakki pulled him into the hallway and told him he was wasting his talent.
"He needed a push and some encouragement," she said. "I spotted right away that this was a special kid who had a special mind."
"Initially, I was doing it to show my biology teacher that I could do it," said Quarles. "But then it kind of moved into, 'I didn't have to show her anymore.' I was doing it to show myself."
Quarles latched on to Nutakki and spent hours after school with her, engrossed in a subject that inspired him to want to be a doctor. He found other mentors who, together, played the role of parent.
He is well on his way now as a freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
A "caring adult" is someone to call in case of an emergency, to help with budgeting, provide advice at a critical time or navigate successfully through a difficult time, a social work consultant told me.
"Who is or has been part of your natural support system?" I asked several people recently.
"For me there was one person, as I moved through adolescence and into my teen years," a communications consultant said. "He was my pastor, and a person who didn't preach so much as he taught lessons through example." He was "soft spoken, even tempered, well-reasoned, nonjudgmental, and most of all, encouraging of a young person's sometimes irreverent curiosity about life and its challenges."
For another, a college professor, it was a host of relatives — "an extensive support system of aunts and uncles who provided immediate boundaries and expectations for my behavior. They were like fences all along the way." That "fence" extended to other family members and friends, too. That "natural support system" helped him when he was having trouble transitioning from high school to college, providing the reassurance he needed.
Another friend is thankful for her "wonderful" support system of parents, grandparents and neighbors. Her parents' best friends, who lived next door, were like another set of parents.
"Most of the neighbors were teachers, principals or had other roles in the school system.
"It was hard to do any wrong with all those eyes on me, and I was always encouraged to do my very best," she went on to say. "I'm certain the close-knit family and 'village' I grew up in helped mold me into the person I am today."
That's what youth in foster care need, a permanent adult connection — someone who can provide that "fence," some boundaries, direction and guidance to assist them as they transition to adulthood. "What we learn is that young people may have a connection with a family member or other adult but due to varied circumstances, these folks aren't necessarily able to provide the help needed," the social work consultant told me.
"This is an important question," a retired executive responded. His brother and sisters served as his social-support system. He also included the church, school and people in his neighborhood. "It was a protective covering, but generally without faces."
A "protective covering," that's what youth in foster care need and deserve.
Nigel Alston lives in Winston-Salem. He can be reached at nalston1@triad.rr.com.
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