Jacob is not his real name. I want to preserve his privacy; he's only fourteen. But, I also wanted to share his story, because I think it's important for all of us to understand that when we hear news about cuts in social services, there are real people, in this case a child, whose lives can be profoundly affected.
Jacob currently lives in a group home within our school district, and the boys who live there go to our school while they reside, there. Each boy's history is different, but all share dysfunctional/ abusive family experiences that usually led to some acting out behavior requiring juvenile justice and family services interventions.
Most of these boys are only with us for a few months before another family member opens up their home to the boy, and they leave us. Jacob is different. He was with us through the entire school year, since he has no extended family to offer him a home. The group home is his ONLY home. Unfortunately, this home has been slated to close soon, due to budget cuts.
Seeing this in the news, prompted me to email his case worker, "What will happen to Jacob?"
The response: "We don't know, yet."
Reading this, my heart felt like lead just imagining the affect that this new element of uncertainty and insecurity will have on Jacob. I wish I could have been there to put a hand on his slim shoulder, to sense if he could stand a hug.
You see, as teachers, we all try very hard to give the boys from this group home some extra attention and care while they are with us, but through a state funded program, I also got to partner with another teacher to provide after-school tutoring and mentoring to these boys, this year. So, I got to spend quality, one-on-one time with Jacob throughout the entire school year, and I got to know him quite well.
I know that his mother will be incarcerated for at least two more years, and that she suffers from a serious mental illness, so it is very unlikely she'll ever be able to offer Jacob a stable, nurturing home. Jacob doesn't know who his father is, and there is no extended family as far as he knows. And unfortunately, the last foster family he was with turned him back to the authorities when he stole some money from them. Jacob feels very badly about that, and it scares him that he doesn't know why he did it or why they couldn't forgive him.
I think he probably did it to put something in the hole in his soul -- that gaping emptiness -- created by the sadness, insecurity and lack of love that has been his childhood, so far. And, it looks like that hole will just become deeper with the closing of the group home.
What will happen to Jacob?
On the days that Jacob would stay after with us/ me, he would literally run to my room as soon as school was dismissed. I could always count on him beating me to my door even though my hall duty location was closer to my room than his homeroom. We quickly established a routine that began with FEEDING him. Like many young teenage boys, he had an almost comical voraciousness that seemed to have no affect on his almost painfully slim frame. He had his own cup, that he marked with his initials using a permanent marker, in my cupboard that he filled with lemonade, and his next step in his routine was to fill the hot air popper to make himself a heaping bowl of buttered and salted popcorn. Then, he would make himself four P&J sandwiches. Fortified with provisions, he was happily ready for whatever.
Unlike most of the other boys at the group home, Jacob had developed one very positive coping skill. He has become an avid reader, and frequently lets go of his troubles by losing himself in a book. Given his exceptional reading skills, it was not difficult to quickly get him up and earning A's and B's in all his classes, and with some coaching on organizational and time management skills, he developed the facility to use the inevitable downtime moments here and there during regular class time to get his homework done before school was over.
Tutoring time became less and less a part of our after-school agenda since it mainly involved just checking homework accuracy and effusive praise for returned work and high grades on tests. Therefore, most of our time was left for "mentoring."
What did that look like? Sometimes, Jacob used his time to help me care for the classroom pets. He told me he'd never had a pet, so I put him in charge of the hamster cage, the lizard terrarium, and fish aquarium. He was particularly delighted with the hamsters who he trained to climb through paper rolls that he held above them and to climb into his hand to he could put them in plastic exercise balls to roll around the room. Sometimes, we went out to the greenhouse where he'd planted bean plants and and aloe plant. You'd think he'd won the lottery when his bean plants produced the first beans and he ate them right then and there. On other days, we joined in on a variety of after-school clubs like Science Club, the Debating Team, Robotics, intramural sports ... I wanted him to get a chance to sample different things to see where his interests lay.
Most frequently though, he seemed happiest when I'd put a historical or science related video that I wanted to preview for possibly inclusion in my classes into the DVD, and we'd make even more popcorn and critique it together. I'd critique the educational value, and he'd give me the kid's view on whether it was too boring, too fast, or it was a thumbs up, edge-of-the seater.
Frequently, my son would join us, as his after-school activities allowed. Jacob and my son got along quite well which was also a good thing for Jacob. You see, Jacob had only managed to make one friend all year, and the one boy he'd been able to get close to concerned me. While this boy had a home, he was clearly wracked with personal issues. In fact, having had him in one of my classes, I was worried enough to ask our counselors what was up. Without breaking confidentiality, they shared that they'd already recommended to his family that he see a doctor. When he wasn't paling around with this boy, Jacob was a loner who seemed to invite other students to pick on him, mainly in reaction to something Jacob instigated. It was almost textbook how Jacob managed to make his external world reflect his inner life and background. So, it was nice to see he and my son having normal, peer-to-peer interactions, even if they were brief and supervised.
The last day of school happened to be one of our "after-school time" days, but the group home told him that he had to come right home. He was so devastated. I promised him that I'd be in contact with the director to ask for permission to take him along on some of our family outings, this summer. His eyes lit up, and my heart nearly broke just seeing how that, simple morsel of hope could mean so much to him.
As I shared the news about the closing of the group home with my Husband, he winced, and I knew that he immediately was thinking, "What will happen to Jacob?" My husband is the volunteer coach for one of the after-school programs that Jacob and I sometimes visited, so my husband has also gotten to know Jacob.
We're in such a quandary. Should we, could we consider becoming a foster family for Jacob? But, what effect might that have on our son, who we adopted when he was 2 from one of those terrible, Eastern European orphanages that were the target of documentaries during the 1990's? Our son is overtly doing very well, but we also can see the trace wounds that remain from his severe neglect during his infancy and early toddlerhood. Would bringing Jacob into our home help both boys, or ultimately, would the mixing of these two, in such an intimate way become toxic, for one or both. Would it be a case of best of intentions leading to awful results? Or, could it turn out to be a wonderful, lifelong opportunity for these two initially homeless, and unwanted boys to become brothers?
What is clear is, that with the budget cuts and the subsequent closing of the group home, Jacob will soon need to live somewhere else. And unless it is with a foster care placement within our district, he will lose the connections within a school where he's learned to be academically successful and the budding tie's he's developed with our family.
THIS is just one real story about one real child who is about to be profoundly affected by the state budget cuts that we hear about daily. I know that this community is sensitive and concerned about these cuts, but I wanted to -- perhaps needed to -- share this story to emphasize and reinforce that when we use our time, money and talents to elect progressives or call and email to demand support for social services, as the bleeding heart liberals many of are, we are doing so to help real people, real children, like Jacob.
And when we don't succeed, we are left with questions like, "What will happen to Jacob?"