• Taking the Risk to Trust

  by Nathalea Sky

  When I entered foster care at 16, I felt confused. The adults around me saw me as a child all over again. Now, I had a curfew. I had to obey the rules set by my agency and my foster mother.

• Learning to Trust Myself

  by Anonymous

  Names have been changed.  Growing up, I believed my family was a close one. My siblings and I spent time together, and we  traveled every year to new places as a family. We lived in an apartment in East Harlem and I felt comfortable living with my parents, who mostly seemed to care for me. 

• Finding Luck

  by Rylynn

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Luck said sadly, patting my shoulder.  The February air was cold and the trees bare. I brushed wet leaves from the damp picnic table and laid my backpack across it like a casket. I unzipped the backpack and pulled out the battered black Chromebook, covered in scratches from my dogs.

• Rejecting My Role Model

  by Anonymous

  I was a daddy’s girl. In elementary school, whenever someone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “I want to be like my dad.” He worked hard, and he was my role model.  He didn’t tell me or my siblings about his childhood.

• Something Good Out of Something Bad

  by Janay Collins

  I don’t remember my first hospitalization. I was either too young to understand it or too high off the five milligrams of morphine. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve gone to the hospital for extreme pain about 10 times a year.

• My Burdens as an Adoptee 

  by J.M.

  I was born in Kentucky and only had about three days with my birth mother before I was put into foster care. While nine months pregnant with me, she had been apprehended by the police and forcibly hospitalized because she was homeless and suffering a psychotic episode.