The Stories *
Carrie Mularz, Team Leader
When I think about Transitional Living, I think about one young woman who was left to fend for herself at 16; she didn’t know her biological mom, and her dad and uncle were Meth addicts. Her situation was so desperate, we let her enter the program early to help get her safe and stabilized. She suffered from post traumatic stress and overwhelming anxiety. It was nearly impossible for her to go to school because she worried all the time. We taught her to plan effectively and take one step at a time. She went to counseling regularly and met with her workers, graduated from high school with honors and enrolled in college. She left the program healthier, more in control of her life, and with a job and stable housing.
Julie DeBord, Community Support Assistant/Independent Living Mentor
In the middle of his time in the program, one young person took off, stopped going to school and left his apartment to live with his girlfriend. His housing was going to be taken away, so we stepped up as a team and worked together to get him to look at how his feelings and choices were affecting him. We got him back on track with school and working. It wasn’t easy, but over five months, he found housing, adjusted to being on his own and started doing well, eventually graduating from the program.
For me, this story really shows that by the team taking an extra look at this young man [and taking it all into account], we were able to recognize that he had issues with his girlfriend and with depression. We got a young person back on track instead of just giving up and letting him drop out of yet another situation.
Melanie Gunther, TLP Supervisor
I remember a young woman who was emotionally troubled. She could get paranoid and believed that everyone was against her all the time. Her problems were so severe that we weren’t sure she was going to make it. She still suffers from these problems, but despite her mental health issues, she completed the program successfully, graduated from college and supports herself working at a local business. She’s raising her child, and one of the most surprising things is that she has a relationship with her grandmother, which she said she would never do. She even lets her grandma help her with her child. That’s huge progress for her.
Challenges and Rewards
Carrie
Sometimes it’s hard to deal with all the variables in our clients’ lives that we have no control over: Seedy boyfriends, friends influencing them, and also teens just acting their age of 17. We always remind them what they’re here to use the time for; it’s a short period and sometimes they have to make short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.
Each day is different from the one you had before; it really puts your problem solving skills to use. The resilience of the youth in our program is really inspiring. The kind of adversity they come through just to be able to do things that regular teenagers do, like go to school and get a part-time job, is tremendous, and we celebrate the little things with them and for them.
Julie
Sometimes it’s difficult when youth are not ready to work on underlying issues and try to keep us at a superficial level. If you’re working at that level you’re never going to address underlying issues or address problems in a particular area.
It’s a challenge. I think that, for me, I enjoy coming to work not knowing necessarily what the day’s going to hold. For somebody who is getting ready to be a LSW there’s a lot of exposure to many different issues and struggles this population faces.
Melanie
I think the most challenging part of this work is getting young people to believe in themselves. It sounds corny, but I can see good in every youth that enters our program, but for them to believe in themselves, believe that they can make different choices, is so hard for them do to sometimes. For me the challenge is helping youth to see that, yes, there are consequences to what they do, to see that and then move on instead of getting stuck in that zone they’re in when they enter our program.
What’s kept me here is hearing from a client that I used to work with 2, 3 years ago when they call to see how I’m doing. Seeing the after-effect, not the here-and-now, because we’re not going to see that change in 18 months, but after youth have moved on in their lives, the call that I receive after that…that’s great.
* Some identifying details have been changed to protect youths’ privacy.
