Allie - Tattoo
This is our final post regarding Allie's story. Allie recently got a tattoo at Third Eye Tatu in Winona. Hear her explain the tattoo below.
Contributed Story - Jennifer Benda
Jennifer's Story
 |
| Photo contributed Jennifer Benda |
By Jennifer Benda
When I was 12, my parents got divorced and my older brother, younger sister and I stayed 70/30 (favoring mom) by default as a custody arrangement.
Within two years, both parents remarried and my siblings and I chose to live more with mom, since it was a more relaxed living environment (dad's wife had very young kids in comparison, and mom's husband had kids around all of ours ages).
The next four years proved to be quite interesting... My mom's husband apparently had a very lengthy report on his domestic violence tendencies. Clearly, I was not aware and my mom to this day believes it was all his crazy ex wife making up stories after he left her.
Shortly after they married, my mom's husband became physically abusive and "d day" hit our home the night before Valentine's Day. After scratching and bruising my mom's face, I moved out shortly after and never looked back.
I stayed with friends for the first couple weeks, and then my mom got an apartment for her and I to share until I was 18.
Once I turned 18, I moved out on my own, worked full-time and finished my senior year of high school... Now almost 5 years later, I've never turned back to the past and continue to build myself with no help of my family.
I currently run production for a management consulting firm, and have certainly come a long way from teary, fearful eyes of a 16 year old girl...
Now, life hasn't been all roses! I've gone from job to job and continue to work hard, and at the end of the day, I know that the fire that fuels me is that of spite and the inability to ever go back.
Editor's note: This story has been contributed by Jennifer Benda. You can share your story by emailing us at unaccompanied.youthdocumentary@gmail.com. You can also share your story anonymously by just letting us know you'd like to remain anonymous.
Allie - Part 3
Allie: Part 3
By Marshall Bauer|Unaccompanied Youth
Everything has been going smoothly for Allie as of late.
“School is going very well,” Allie said. “My plan is to
graduate early.”
Matt Hanson Q & A
Unaccompanied Youth caught up with Matt Hanson, an outreach worker with Evergreen Youth and Family Services in Bemidji, Minn., and had a Q & A.
Unaccompanied Youth: How do you help unaccompanied youth
change their lives around?
Here are his responses, and huge thank you to Matt for participating.
Unaccompanied Youth: What kind of work do you do for
unaccompanied youth?
Matt Hanson: As
an Outreach Worker, I do whatever I can to help advocate for the youth who I
get the opportunity to talk to. Since my
program doesn’t have an intake process or structured case management format, it
is all about what the youth wants/needs on their terms at that time.
Sometimes
that looks like helping them with diapers or food or maybe finding out about
available shelters in the area. Other
times it’s helping them come up with a plan to find work, get back into school,
or learn about area services (including others from our organization) that
might be able to help them.
What
I want most out of every interaction is for them to feel like they were heard.
Matt Hanson: That’s
a pretty subjective question, but I think I understand what you mean by
it. Just as no two people (even in the
same household) have the same life experiences that shape them, no youth have
the same story or life-changing circumstances when they come through my
doors. That said, no work to support
them or the eventual “success” looks the same as well.
As
I said above, being heard…truly listened to is a gift many have not
received. That kind of openness and
trust is earned carefully and cautiously – especially with those who have been
victimized or through a lot of trauma. That in itself is a huge success in my
book. Sometimes seeing those youth come back and still be ALIVE is a miracle.
They are the true survivors that I need to learn from. Meeting them on their
terms is the start of that lesson.
Honestly,
I go into each year saying that I am looking for one “success”. A single,
knowable, life-changing moment with just one youth during my 365 day job is
what it takes to make it worthwhile. Are there more than this that I see?
Absolutely. There are also many that I do not see and may not ever see come to
fruition many years down the road, but that’s not what my work is about. I also see so many things that look like
failure, but actually turn out to be the tipping point that leads to life
change. I am there for them regardless.
Unaccompanied Youth: What do you see the unaccompanied
youth struggle with the most?
Matt Hanson: There
is a far-too-common held idea that if the homeless just had a place to live or
a job, they would be set. The reality is that many of the youth I serve find
places to live (albeit unsafe), do not starve (although it’s a poor diet), and
have some sort of income (often illegally gained). Homeless/couch-hopping youth
in Northern Minnesota find a way to survive by any means necessary, because
anything less is death by the elements.
They are survivors.
If
I had to list the most common barriers, they would be as such:
-
Lack
of safe, affordable housing
-
No
living wage employment
-
Unreliable
transportation
-
Alcohol/Substance
issues
-
Mental
health (undiagnosed or unregulated)
-
Pregnant/parenting
-
No
positive support
Unaccompanied Youth: On average, how many unaccompanied
youth do you see/help/work with in one year?
Matt Hanson: My
outreach program served 563 different youth (age 21 and under) last year.
Unaccompanied Youth: What is the biggest struggle you have
found when working with unaccompanied youth?
Matt Hanson: I
might be an anomaly, but I have never struggled to work with youth – whether it
was finding them, relating to them, or sorting through what they have going
on. That being said, the work is not
easy. It’s stressful, frustrating and
heart-breaking work, but it’s also incredibly rewarding, hilarious, and I
wouldn’t trade the experiences for the world.
My
biggest struggles have been in regards to staffing, funding, and the various
time constraints that come with a non-profit that is dependent on grants.
Unaccompanied Youth: On average, do more
unaccompanied youth struggle or thrive?
Matt Hanson: That
is really unquantifiable, but I would say instead that they survive. Whether
survival is struggling or thriving, that’s totally relative and a matter of
perspective. If you know anything about
Maslow’s hierarchy of need, it’s very difficult to achieve any level above the
one you’re on if you have unfulfilled needs. Many of the youth I work with have
very few basic needs being safely and consistently met.
Unaccompanied Youth: In what ways are unaccompanied youth
better off?
Matt Hanson: Mankind
was not meant to be alone, nor youth apart from their families. That said, in situations where a youth flees
his “home” (I use that term loosely) as a result of abuse, neglect, etc. it is essential
to their survival.
Unaccompanied Youth: Anything else you would like to add?
Matt Hanson: Sure.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak about a subculture that is not only close
to my heart, but an intricate piece of our communities - whether we acknowledge
them or not.
I’d
also like to challenge everyone to take a step back and examine how you view
those around you. There are a lot of preconceived notions about who the
homeless are and what has gotten them to where they are. Very few of the
thousands of youth I have served over the years have chosen to couch hop or be
homeless. Many of us do not realize how blessed we are for having been given
simple advantages through our families, finances, circumstances etc.
Q & A With Joli Guenther
Jamie Babetch | Unaccompanied Youth
Jamie Babetch had a Q and A with Joli Guenther,
assistant director for the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services,
check out Joli’s responses to our questions, and don’t forget to “Like” us on
Facebook. Feel free to share your story with us!
Unaccompanied Youth | Jamie Babetch: What kind of work do you do for unaccompanied
youth?
Joli Guenther:
I am the Assistant Director for the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and
Runaway Services, a consortium of runaway and homeless youth agencies throughout
Wisconsin. My work is primarily with the agencies that provide direct
services to youth, ensuring the provision of high quality, consistent services
throughout the state, as well as serving as an advocate and educator regarding
youth issues at the state and Federal levels.
Jamie Babetch: How
do you help unaccompanied youth change their lives around?
Joli Guenther: By working to ensure accessible
services of a high quality are available to youth on a voluntary basis.
Jamie Babetch: What
do you see the unaccompanied youth struggle with the most?
Joli Guenther: Although I don’t work one on one with
youth, the issues that drive youth to leave or be pushed out of the home are,
not surprisingly family dynamics. Abuse and neglect, educational issues,
poverty and substance use issues (both by the youth and their family members)
are also huge factors that lead youth to run away or be “thrown away” by their
families.
Jamie Babetch: On
average, how many unaccompanied youth do you see/help/work with in one year?
Joli Guenther: My work doesn’t lead to my working
one on one with youth, as it’s more of an administrative role. Our 23
runaway programs throughout Wisconsin served over 2100 youth face to face and
had over 15,000 hotline contacts.
Jamie Babetch: What
is the biggest struggle you have found when working with unaccompanied youth?
Joli Guenther: Our biggest struggle is providing
consistent services with limited resources. Due to the collaborative work
among programs, Wisconsin is ahead of most states in ensuring that services are
available outside of the major metropolitan areas; however, in recent years,
services have become more expensive due to the higher need and greater
requirements of providing shelter and it’s difficult to provide these services
around the clock, as needed by youth and their families.
Jamie Babetch:
On average, do more unaccompanied youth struggle or thrive?
Joli Guenther: Without question, it’s easy for
unaccompanied youth to be lost along the way. The youth served by our
programs, on the other hand, usually thrive. I think that’s due to the
voluntary nature of service provision and ensuring that youth are active
participants in defining their goals and what it means to be successful.
One example of that is the positive placement rate of youth who
have received services by our agencies. Over 95% of youth served return
home or to an agreed upon safe placement upon completing services.
Jamie Babetch: In
what ways are unaccompanied youth better off?
Joli Guenther: Unaccompanied youth are better off as
a result of receiving programming from our agencies because they have an
advocate that can work one on one with them and see the unique strengths of the
youth and their families. This allows the family to work, voluntarily, to
return the youth home or to a place that makes more sense for everyone, without
involving the expense and stigma of the court system.
Jamie Babetch:
Anything else you would like to add?
Joli Guenther: Just that I’m very glad to be doing
the work that I do. I’ve been with the Association for over 14 years and
most of our agencies have been doing their work for 30+ years. We started
as a more grassroots form of service provision and it’s been exciting to see
the professionalization of services over time and to see the results that we
get have such a big impact on the lives of youth and their families.
Bryce Christopherson
By Marshall Bauer|Unaccompanied Youth
Bryce Christopherson, now 22, has lived on his own since he
was 17 and a junior in high school.
Bryce moved out after a series of disagreements with his
parents came to a head, which was near the end of his junior year.
Interview with guidance counselor Matt Horel
This video is a discussion with Winona Area Public Schools Guidance Counselor Matt Horel about some possible repercussions of being an unaccompanied youth and how WAPS counselors help students in need.
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