Image Credit: Taunton Lake, New Jersey by Elisabeth Through a project working with communities which recognize that many of their young people deserve better education and life outcomes, I…
I sat in a tiny ball at my father’s feet, watching the sky, heart careening through my chest, waiting to hear the deafening crack of his rifle. I followed the…
You sit up straight in the hard plastic chairs in the cold conference room waiting to meet your potential new foster daughter, absently rubbing your knuckles raw with your thumb.…
On a bright Wednesday morning in March, we leave for daycare and work because that is what we do, even when we’ve spent the evening in Trauma One of Children’s…
Image Credit: Irina Iriser For J I. when we leave you for the last time right away, we forget the look on your face, for fear of burning…
Image Credit: Daiga Ellaby Before we met in person, we talked on the telephone, matching alto timbres warm in our ears. This was decades before you could spit in a…
Image Credit: Emma Margraf I sat in a small and dirty conference room with a young mother and her lawyer for hours before she decided to sign away her…
Jane and I stood on the stage with the Governor at the annual ceremony for graduating foster youth going to college. There were maybe sixty of us in an auditorium…
My friend Michele’s mother said I could stay with them for four days tops. “That’s it,” she said. Four days. She was moved by my plight, but scared of Mama.…
It began with a photo album. Simple looking, but full of memories of a time buried in the back of my mind—an old wound picked open as I stared at…