A Moving Success Story

I want to share this great success story from one of my colleagues working on Staten Island. I'm inspired to hear about the great job my co-workers are doing. We're making an impact, one child, one school, one borough at a time!

Carol, a shy twelve-year old student, and her family were living in extreme poverty. They had several recent immigrants from their village in Mexico staying in their small, basement level home on Staten Island. Her family lacked basic household items like clocks, and there was no structure and healthy boundaries in their relationships with one another. Carol was often made the scapegoat for the family’s problems. Her mother suspected that Carol was stealing some of the few possessions and food items they had at home. She forced Carol to take on parental responsibilities not appropriate for her age, including making her stay home from school for a month to watch over their guests to prevent theft, and to walk her younger siblings to school. Carol struggled socially and academically as a result of these issues.

A Partnership with Children social worker started meeting with Carol and put together an action plan to improve her school attendance and situation at home. She bought an alarm clock for Carol and helped her reorganize her morning routine. Our social worker also called Carol’s home each day to make sure she would attend school, and made frequent home visits to assess changes in the family’s relationships. She also helped Carol’s family by referring them to local food pantries.

Simultaneously she provided Carol with individual counseling to help strengthen Carol’s self-esteem. Before long, the shy young girl who lacked confidence started to reveal her more bubbly, extroverted side. She smiled and greeted Partnership with Children staff as she showed up to school, and was proud of her academic achievements. Carol’s grades improved, her attendance increased, and she developed positive relationships with her peers and family.

That Triangle Thing

Food, water, air. These are the basics people need to survive. Then comes shelter and a means of income, then family and friends, and finally at the stage of self-actualization, we experience creativity, morality, and an ability to problem-solve. At least, this is according to The Hierarchy of Needs, a basic outline of what motivates humans to fulfill their needs, created by psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. All social workers and psychology students learn about the "hierarchy".

In my job readiness class this week, I asked my students what they think they will need in order to succeed in life. While I wanted them to think about the basics, like paying rent and buying food, I wasn't thinking specifically about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. So, when Jose responded, "Do you mean that triangle thing?", I was speechless. I realized quickly what Jose was referring to. He had obviously learned about the Hierarchy of Needs in his high school psychology class. What shocked me for a moment was that he retained information from one class, and correlated it to the subject matter in another. This may not seem impressive, but in the context of Jose's life, and the fact that he failed the last school year, it's a clear indicator that he is making tremendous strides academically and personally.

Had we not created the overage kids class, and if we were not giving Jose individualized counseling and positive reinforcement, he would not be learning about basic psychology principals let alone thinking ahead to how he can achieve in a career and support himself financially. For me, Jose's reference to "that triangle thing" was one of those small moments that proves that social workers are conduits for change.

Stress

You think Wall Street’s CEOs are under stress these days? Our kids start suffering from stress in early childhood, whether or not there is an economic downturn. The emotional pressure from stress builds in them over the years, compressing any emotional space they have for happiness and filling them instead with anxiety and anger.

Popular culture would have you believe childhood is carefree, filled with joy, free time to play with friends, and the comfort of having a stable home with two parents who love you unconditionally. That is the image presented by media: it is not the reality for many youth.

For the kids I serve as a Partnership with Children social worker, stress is an everyday emotion. It is the underlying emotion that provokes other pervasive feelings I help my kids cope with, like anger, depression and fear. What is causing all of this stress among inner-city children? I see a lot of it as being tied to poverty and the associated effects of poverty: living in low-income, dangerous neighborhoods; being itinerant or even homeless; having bad diets and sleep habits; experiencing parental discord and/or living in single parent homes; and other issues like substance abuse and gang violence.

Imagine trying to navigate your way through all of these issues as a young child. It is no wonder my kids show up to school already at the breaking point. The smallest things can set them off, like having a teacher who reminds them of a parent who they have lost or an adult who harmed them. Many of my kids also do not have relationships with their fathers - or, their fathers have been killed or incarcerated - and they are teased relentlessly by other students because of this. Their reactions are predictable: angry outbursts, physical fights, or skipping school altogether.

I feel I’m painting an overwhelmingly despondent and hopeless picture of life for poor, urban youth. But, to tie back into my first blog post, one of the most powerful things I have learned as a social worker is that children have an incredible ability to rebound from emotional and social trauma. In fact, I think they are much better at overcoming trauma than adults.

This is why you can see a young man like Jose go from nearly failing out of school to becoming a positive school leader, responsible young adult, innovative thinker and dedicated student. In fact, he even came up with the name for our Job Readiness group this year, and the name was so good none of the students voted for their own suggestions – everyone knew his was the best: Scholars on the Rise. And rising they are, to the task and challenges presented to them in school, in society, and in life.