Podcast Transcript
hi my name is Rachel Honda I’m a licensed clinical social worker and this is straight jacket podcast with I’m Jeff
from Mental Health Resource I’m Courtney uh a therapist and student and I’m CL
currently getting my Ms in um clinical counseling awesome So Courtney why don’t you tell
us a little bit about how you got into all of your work that you’re doing now
well um originally it actually started in high school um my she was an an
acquaintance at the time and she came up to me and I recently got saved like I’m
a Christian so I recently got saved in church and but I was uh doing some crazy
things at the time and I didn’t think that it was you know I was just living my life but she came up to me and she
was like so God told me to start a group with you like a a a club with you on
Camp and I was like first I have so many questions God talks to you that’s wild
you know like what what did he say I’m curious and I’m also scared because he knows I’ve been tripping um but okay but
what’s the club and then she told me I want to do like a club for the teenage girls on on campus and for some reason I
was extremely interested and I was not expecting that to be the case but I was like actually that sounds like really
fun so okay let’s do it and then um we and I was like okay well what do
you want to talk about she was like I want to talk about real life things talk about relationships you know um abuse uh
parent relationships school stuff like I just want to talk about everything but I want to talk about like deep things and
she was like we’re not going to preach but I do want it to be like biblically based and I was like that sounds like fun like I actually want to do this okay
and it ended up being like amazingly successful like on campus um so much so
like the principal came up to us and like thanked us for like how the kind of impact that we had on the kids on the
girls specifically and we would uh run out of room in the classroom like we run out of seats like we run out of space
and it was like really really cool and it was because of the topics that we talked about like I don’t think anybody
was expecting to talk about like you know sexual abuse that they experienced when they were seven years old in high
school you know they’re not you’re not thinking about that and a lot of the times it’s not really something that especially at the time that it was was
early early 2000s so um that wasn’t a conversation you know not everybody was
open to discussing stuff like that so um when we opened up the topic we would
literally send out notes during like a passing period and be like piece of paper hey we’re having real deal um club
today and they were like oh my gosh okay we’re going to go so it became like like a thing for the whole year and it was
our senior year of high school um and I mean from then on I was like this is
what I want to do for the rest of my life like I want to do this and I didn’t know in what capacity um as years
continued to move on I just knew that I wanted to be a therapist and I knew I wanted to be a therapist for teenage
girls I just didn’t know what that meant so um then I went to
college I studied um Behavioral Health and then I got pregnant after my
freshman year of college and with my ex-husband and um it went from me saying
I wanted to get my PhD by 28 years old to immediately like oh my gosh I’m about to have a small child and I don’t know
what to do you know so that was pretty wild and then soon after that I had my
second daughter and so I have I kept having to leave school and then go back and then leave school again and then go
back but the plan was always to to do what I want to do like I never lost
track of what I wanted to do so during that time I my aunt had a um Group Home
in Arizona for teenage girls and foster care and I was like can I please come
and she was like absolutely so I got all the things I need to clear to go ahead and volunteer for her her business and I
fell in love I was like I want like this is exactly what I want to do so over as the years were going and as I was a mom
of of Two and a young wife and working two jobs and still going to school I was
still like this this is it you know um and I was like I want to have a group
home for foster girls you know and then um then I had my third daughter you know
still really haven’t gra I still haven’t graduated yet I was still back and forth it took a took a long time um at least
you kept going back I did I did I kept going back so um you know it was just it
was I mean as you can imagine it was pretty hectic you know um working a lot having to raise small girls I have all
three girls all girls so that was um yeah it it was it was a lot but um I
learned so much from them I learned from them first before really anything else to be real with you so um but then I
graduated with my undergrad in 2019 and then um I started working for a
an Str strtp in LA and that’s a short-term residential therapeutic program and it’s what they’re replacing
um group homes in California and so it’s for high-risk Behavior kids like the
girls who don’t have anywhere else to go like none of the foster care homes on the are willing to accept them anyway
and um it was pregnant and parenting so it was very interesting and it was I
again I fell in love again and I was like this again this is what I want to do so now that I knew that they were closing down group homes I was like I
want to open up an Str strtp for girls in the foster care system that are
pregnant and parenting like I knew exactly what I wanted like as the years right I was like all right this is the
game plan this is what we’re going to do so I got my I took the class that I needed to take for the certifications to
get it to be able to open one up but of course I’m still a young mom of three
girls you know like um I the timing just still wasn’t right but I knew what I
wanted to do and I knew like it was just matter just a matter of time so then um
but in order for me to have this group home and do what I want to do in it because I would just hire a director I
would just hire but I would do the therapy part and then I would just be the owner of it and then I’d be able to
know okay um make it a client uh focused client-based program instead of it just
being like Oh generally this is what we do I’m like no we have this client here who wants to go to school for this we
have this client here who likes to play soccer we have this client here so we need to make sure that we make this program specifically client based right
and individually client-based so um but I was like I need to get I need to get
my masters for therapy like I need to be able to have my license to be the therapist for what I want to create and
build so um then I went to get my masters and I’m still in it I’m now an
intern so um it’s that that’s the the goal but even on the journey to being
the the intern and in between working at the foster care facility I wanted to
work with students because working at the foster care facility I realized that the issue was lack of Education these
girls don’t know that they can go to college for free and I’m like you were born and raised in the foster care
system and you’re telling me nobody told you that you could go to university for free I didn’t know that they don’t know
that they don’t know that so they’re thinking their only way like they don’t have a way out they have no sense of
hope they have no sense of identity they you know they have nobody claiming them
nobody fighting for them so they’re just out here doing whatever they see and a lot of times you can only imagine the
environments that they’ve that they’ve been in and that they’ve come from you know they do what makes sense yeah they
do what makes sense and they are only they only know what they’re exposed to so if they’re not exposed to another
type of living they don’t know that a way out could be through college they don’t know that a way out could be like
let me go live on campus how do I get out of my foster care housing after I turn 18 after I turn 19 when I age out
where am I going to go what if you don’t get into transitional housing you know like thank God they do have those you
know but what happens if you don’t what ha what happens with all that what are you going to do for work what do they
don’t know because nobody is actually teaching them and guiding them and how to get out of the system and how to main
like maintain themselves outside of it so when I saw that I was like I need to
be a substitute teacher because I’m G be able to get the real of how they are when the teacher isn’t there I’m going
to be able to see how they they are in their in their environment at school what does it look like how are they talking to each other how are they being
because Subs get the worst of the kids like they’re like oh sub’s here oh bet like we’re going to go off even though
they they would try it but I just I don’t know I usually have a really good connection with them but anyways um real
quick uh just so I can get kind of like a more clear picture of the whole thing where is it where is all this taking
place in California Long Beach I’m from Long Beach
um okay yeah and what age what age are the substitute teachers and the and the
foster foster kids the foster kids were high school most of them high school I had a couple um Middle School ones um
but again it was pregnant parenting so how big was the facility it we had about
30 six girls oh man and then they had at least one or two kids each and then we
had a client that was about to be on her third but it was um she was aging out so
and what’s like the the overall I guess kind of vibe in those facilities oh they’re traumatic so it’s
a lot of trauma it’s a it’s a very traumatic environment um if it’s done correctly it doesn’t have to be but um
unfortunately um you know people get get burnt out and they get overwhelmed and um running the facilities can be
difficult it can be a lot of work and um what I’ve observed is that there’s a lot
of educated people running it without the experience so I was able to relate
to a lot of the girls because I technically though I wasn’t in foster care I had my first daughter at 19 so
and I man we struggled we struggled we had a figure out between you know um
buying diapers and like buying food for ourselves or like are we going to put gas in the car or we going to you know
um eat dinner tonight like what what are we going to do like it was it was rough
it was hard so um seeing these girls these young girls not having anything
not having family not having support um but yet they did have resources and so I
was like look the fact that you guys have food in the fridge the fact that you guys have free daycare you guys have
so I was like let’s utilize what we have it sucks that we’re here it’s not fun nobody likes it but let me show you how
to make it right let me show you how to like can you give it kind of like an example of like what the average like I
guess I don’t know what you don’t call them really patient but like average client that’s uh living in one of these
communities is like average like in terms of something
that you yeah like what kind of like the pattern that you’d see in the majority of
them there’s a lot um I would obviously see that they came from um
underprivileged a lot of them were sex trafficked um sold by their family members sold by um coming from the
border and on the way like I had a a client who on the way from you know
coming over the border with her mom she getting got raped so came here pregnant and you know then lost then her
mom tried to kill her and then she had to be taken away from like it’s just extreme things it’s how old she was 16
she was 16 and then I had another client who was 12 and had her child but had her
child taken away because she was using substances a lot of them have sub substance abuse issues some of them
um become um well go into a psychosis state from the
substance abuse and they’re so young so you’re dealing with a teenager you know hormones mixed in with the substance use
mixed in with the trauma that they’re experiencing you know and then you have clients who have um a triggers that you
don’t wouldn’t necessarily think that it would be a trigger like food why would food be a
trigger but it would be a trigger because your dad didn’t feed you when he was getting mad at you for doing whatever something simple and wouldn’t
feed you for like 3 days you know so then now you’re upset because you wanted the yogurt that was downstairs and you
got downstairs you saw it and now you’re pissed and nobody understands why it’s like we got your yogurt why are you mad
but it’s just it’s a trigger so something a patterns that I would see is parents saying that they were doing
what they needed to do to get them but not really doing it um what usually happens with the parents so it’s like
these kids are of course separated from their parents like is there are the parents just kind of off doing
their own thing maybe probably using or like yeah most of the time they’re using most of the time they’re they’re under
the influence of something you know fentanyl myth um alcohol opiates you
name it honestly like that would be why that they would take them or um physical
abuse or a lot of sexual abuse a lot of sexual abuse most of the time I’ve never seen that was just like oh no that’s not
true not never I saw a client that was there that she really didn’t need to be you know it
was really the choices that she was making and after being there for a while she was she realized it she was like
dang like and it sucked it sucked to see her and I was like I’m glad that you’re learning but the environment is
so those facilities are not the safest mentally like and I could
confidently say that like when fights would break out it’s like a whole lockdown it’s like a whole
thing you know like like punching the walls these girls are pregnant and they’re fighting pregnant like these
girls are pregnant they’re kicking each other in their stomach cuz they’re not thinking about the consequences that come after they’re just focusing on the
fact that they’re upset you know and then like what do you think they saw when their parents you know their
parents are still having kids so like they a lot of them still saw their moms be pregnant and still act however
they’re acting or still do whatever they’re doing and they’re parents would talk to them crazy like or they if they
had visitation they’d come up and then they’d be smelling like what ever you know and it’s like oh wow your grandkid
was in there with you and you okay you know like but it’s it’s you’re not trying to judge it you’re more just like you’re observing what they’re dealing
with and you’re observing why they think the way that they think and so it’s it’s heartbreaking cuz you’re like like you
didn’t you didn’t have a chance that’s not fair you know for my client who was 13 onto her second kid already got her
SE her first kid taken away because she was sold into sex trafficking by her mom
but her mom went to that facility that the fac facility was like over 100 years old how do people usually end up getting
there is it like do the is it like usually police intervention or is it yeah it’s it’s through the the state the
state intervened in their home and so um like children Family
Services dangerous pretty much and then they they’re like you need to go somewhere else yeah mhm and whether
however the attention was brought to their household it it just changes so if it was from the school if it was from a
neighbor if it was from you know a a family member or whatever and then they
would end up at that facility because nobody else could take them they were no housing available based off of the level
of care that they needed so if they had a history of a walling like running away or if they had a history of substance
abuse or if they had a history of you know schizophrenic schizophrenic Tendencies or you know psychosis
episodes from whatever you know whether it be biological or chemically induced
it just every story was different is there kind of like is there any medication like uh options for these
kids there are but um there are there
are um it’s a matter
of that’s a tricky it’s not a tricky situation there are medic medications that are available
for them however um especially with children it’s not always like the most
beneficial it’s really not cuz it limits them in in so many other ways and I’ve
seen the difference between when a when a client is clean right when no medication no medication right but
they’re also cleaning off of whatever substances you’re using they’re actually good like they’re good but then when they force them to still take that
medication that was really just chemically induced then they don’t want to do anything else they don’t want to
go to school they don’t want to you know uh participate in activities they don’t want to they just isolate themselves and
then they actually get in a state of depression like that’s Al that’s what I saw all the time so when they would give
them their um medication for ADHD or they give them their medication for anxiety or they would and I’m like well
what if it was situational based you know and let’s get them sober first and then see like where we’re at yeah mhm
and it was it was just it was unfortunate to see mhm and there’s a lot of clients now like working in subst use
that say their use started because they were given these medications as a child
especially with ADHD and then it turned into methew later on and Etc so yeah I
can see how that would lead to more issues at times yeah because they get comfortable they get used to taking
something you know to give them whatever it is that they’re looking for and if you’re constantly in a survival or
traumatic State you know and that’s where you live whether you’re at home or whether you’re taking away from your home and now you’re in a new traumatic
state with all these random people could you imagine living in a girls full of teenagers like teenage girls I mean
living in a house full of teenager teenage girls and then they all have traumatic experiences whatever that
might be they’re all Angry probably they’re all mad they’re all upset then they all a lot of times they’re pregnant
and they’re par parenting because of something that had nothing to do with them because of a situation you know a
lot of them again like I said were CC they were sex trafficked so sometimes
like that’s that was that was what was happening that was their reality then they come
here with a whole bunch of random people that they don’t know and all these people are just trying to tell them what they should be doing and they’re they’re
not giving a reason why and that’s why I realized like oh it’s the education part nobody’s teaching them why this matters
nobody’s showing them the connections of how to get out of where they’re at your circumstances are the worst right like
nightmarish absolutely are you willing to let me show you how to get there but before you even get there you have to
willing to build the Rapport you know how are you going to connect with them and so a lot of the girls when they would come and and and speak with me
they would just be like they’re always talking about like all the this clinical stuff like I don’t care about that like I don’t care about what you’re saying
like why does it matter and then I would come to them with like how was how did you sleep last night well the baby was
up all night oh yeah I know that’s like okay what happened you know like I’m connecting with them on the level that they are and then I’m saying then I’m
I’m looking for the moments of influence I’m looking for the moments of where they’re being vulnerable and then I can
equally be vulnerable back in terms of how are you going to let me how can I help you not in terms of like oh let me
open myself and just like you know tell you all my deep dark secrets no it’s more just like are you willing to yeah
are you willing to allow me to show you how to make your situation into what you
want it to be so then I’d be like okay well what do you want to do when you grow up well I don’t know okay well then
let’s think about it and then I come back okay well you know what Miss actually thought about it I actually want to be a vet really you want to be a
vet that’s crazy you know and then when the all the staff would be like I had no idea like I had no idea that this client wanted was even interested in this or I
had no idea that like yeah you have to get to know them you yeah you got to I
understand that you get busy in things and it’s like but you have to remember the purpose of why you’re doing what
you’re doing don’t lose it you know and that’s what has always
driven what I what I do you definitely have passion for I can tell oh yeah but
it’s honest 100% it’s god-given passion like I had no idea this is something I would have ever chosen for myself but if
my friend hadn’t again she was even just acquaints at that time but now she’s my best friend but she came up to me
randomly and said I want to do a a group on campus for the girls in our high
school like randomly with you randomly I was like what and why does that sound like fun like keep going you know like
that would have I would have never discovered that so this is genuinely like a god-given
passion you kind of fell into it and then you found out you loved it yeah literally and I fell into it early you
know it this could have waited I didn’t have to discover this until like now you know and I’m 32 so but I’ve been working
on this slowly and I’m though all the obstacles have came the way that they did I’m grateful for them because I was
able to I was able to learn so much I would have never had the connection I had with
the girls if I didn’t get pregnant early I would have never had the connection with the girls if I’d never had three if I didn’t have three daughters you know I
would have never been able to build the report that I had with the majority of the clients in that facility 36 of them
right and I’m talking majority of them were
were were close with me you know and I’m not saying that to toot my horn I’m saying that because it actually does
require passion it actually does require you to give a crap and like invest your
time and like your energy in them and not at us not in the sense of being burnt out but being in the sense of
being like okay you matter let me show you how you can do this and it’s not me coddling them or necessarily holding
their hand it’s me being like are you willing to listen to what I have to say so that I can show you something you probably didn’t know on your own like
nobody taught you this why would you know that you can go to college for free nobody’s even you guys have a case
worker you guys have case workers you guys have therapists you guys have um social workers and nobody has told you
this and honestly the list could go on but just from those three alone you know no one told you that you can go to
college for free nobody told you that when you turn 18 and you graduate high school you can leave and go on to the
campus for free first because you’re a priority in the University so you get to
live there until you graduate nobody told you that yeah that’s your way out that’s your way out and then on top of
it then you’re learning and then on top of it then after you get your degree then you can use that degree to get a
good paying job and to provide for yourself and provide for your kid and then your kid gets to see you graduate
because you had a kid early like there’s so many options for you and the resources that they did provide for them
on the facility was amazing I was like girl you don’t have to worry about figuring out if you’re going to buy
diapers over food you they give you diapers for free they give you formula for free they give you food for free let
me show you how to utilize this cuz I wish I could have had this you know so like if I didn’t have the struggle I
wouldn’t have been able to relate to them in that way if I didn’t have to make those choices on my own I wouldn’t
have been able to to do that or say that to them yeah life experience goes a long
way I think and then combined with the education as well it’s like you’ll be
able to help anyone really yeah um and so when you first
started well I know you’ve done a couple different things so which one um did you
have like a lifechanging moment in oh my gosh all of
them all of them um the facility was definitely the most life-changing it was
definitely um a moment of of hindsight I did not
realize how mad I was at God for letting me get pregnant at 19 now not saying I
should have had you know like unprotected sex at 199 years so like that was all me right like
100% but um it was so hard yeah it was so hard you know and um I was just like
Lord everybody else I went to a Christian University okay I went to a Christian University and I had a drop
out early and I was like not the only Christian in my family but like there’s
not a lot of us so um when they found out that I was pregnant having to drop
out of a Christian University they’re like Courtney I thought you went to a Christian School oh go I was like I am but I’m still a
human you know like here literally literally so it was um it it sucked cuz
I was like Lord everybody else on this campus is doing the exact same thing why did you let me go through this you know
like I had a plan and I was doing it all for you you know like I have like this whole thing I was like I wanted to have my PhD by 28 like how do you how are you
going to do this to me and then um when I started working at the facility and I started realizing how these girls were
literally grav like it was like Mo to a flame MH and I and it was not on purpose
and I was like what’s happening like I don’t know what’s happening they would request me all the time they would it
was I would be overwhelmed with the amount of love and the care and the way
that they genuinely like wanted to listen to what I had to say to them and I was like you guys come like the foster
care kids are known to repel everybody they’re like f you everybody because that’s that’s what everybody did to them
so the fact that they were like that towards me I was I was honored
completely honored you care and they can tell you can’t fake that yeah yeah it
was and um so that moment was like a hindsight moment I I remember literally
on my way home I was driving home and I was crying just grateful just so grateful and I was
like Lord I’m so sorry for being so mad at you for as long as I was because I
see why I see why you let me go through this you know he could have he could
have given me Grace in my mistakes but instead he let me learn from them and
that was way better than what I what I had planned so um the struggle was worth
it 100% worth it and you still get to do everything you want to do and probably
more because you had a couple stops on the way oh my gosh so much more so I get
to do so much more than anything that I would have like planned on my own my plans are they’re trash compared to to
what God is like oh this is what I’m actually going to do like what the enemy meant for evil he meant for good and he means it you know and my life has
literally portrayed that in all the ways so even me being a substitute teacher um
I loved it I loved it like I still do it part-time when I’m not you know doing the internship but um I loved it it was
the kids are awesome I mainly worked with like the middle school kids um I did taught a long-term assignment for
algebra taught a long-term assignment for language arts um and those were they
were tough but they were fun I had a great time is it the kids that you’re
were also in the foster home that you’re being a substitute for no it was for the
Long Beach School District okay so um for the students in in the algebra class
it was like a a pretty wellknown School in Long Beach and
um they were like the honors kids you know like it was like yeah it was an
algebra class in eighth grade usually you just take like like regular math class but it was known to be like okay
these are the kids who are going to go in geometry in nth grade rather than algebra so it was it was a challenge for
me cuz math isn’t my strong suit but it was like I mean I could still teach it so I was like okay this is what we’re
doing um but it was really cool I learned a lot um in terms of how how to
communicate in what is important in education system um as a teacher as an educator and then what I see the kids
need and then learning like okay this is how you um you know teach this kids who
is more of a visual learner and then this one’s more of a logical learner and then so just like learning the different ways of how kids understand information
and taken information so that was important I need to know that you know for me to do what I want to do with with
the foster kids so and then the next year um I ended up working at a um Inner
City School in Long Beach and it was it was the it was challenging it was
definitely a behavior issue um the year before that it was not Behavior they were very easygoing kids the school had
its behavior issues but my classes were great um but the second school that I went to um the inner city school it was
de it was an extreme behavior challenge now I’m not new to that and so it wasn’t
like oh my God for me but I was like oh okay I’m seeing how
things um need to be structured you know and so at every experience that I’ve had
um at all the jobs all the different locations I take I see what I need to learn and I’m like all right Lord what
are you showing me what do I need to take from this and then okay let me take it and and run with it how do I uh apply
it to my life how do I apply it to the career that you’re having me going to how do I apply it period so and now that
you’re working in substance use um how do you think that that applies to your future goals like your internship and
everything so um I have realized that adults who have gone through things are
a lot easier to deal with than children who have gone through things but have not experienced the consequences of them
you know adults have experienced the consequences of their decisions they have gone to jail they have been
homeless they have you know all the grown-up things that as a kid you try to tell them like look if you end if you
keep doing this you’re going to end up homeless if you keep doing this you’re going to end up on the street if you keep doing this you’re going to end up
you know whatever and they’re like whatever you know but to come here I was like oh my gosh these are the after
effects of what I need to help my clients to avoid you know like I I I’m seeing it firstand I’m experiencing it
firsthand I’m having conversations firsthand you know I’m having uh therapy sessions oneon-one
um and I don’t want to say it but it’s like this is what I want to help my
clients to avoid you know what I’m saying I don’t want them to have to to come here I
don’t want them to have to experience like have a story like this you already had a rough story why do you want to add
to it life is already hard you know when you make certain decisions it just makes it harder so like yeah you were dealt a
shitty hand it’s not fair you’re absolutely right I’m I’m vouching for you with it I’m validating your
experiences how do we make it stop and I know that nothing has ever shown you
that there is a way of stopping it because you saw it with your mom saw with your dad you saw with your granny
you saw it with all your cousins like you see it everywhere see with all your friends your whole environment is only
this it’s only traumatic experiences you know what is like the I guess
typical I don’t know how you could really gauge it but success rate because I mean I guess you probably
haven’t you know been working with the p or the the client as long as you know
you would really need to be able to see you know like what happens afterwards
right mhm um what’s like the what would you say the usual success rate is of success rate of like one of the fost so
it seems like to me like the goal is to advocate for them enough to be able to do well in school and get them into uh a
college program right M um what is the success rate of people that are actually able to do that so I was there for two
years and I didn’t see it happen once wow I didn’t see it happen one time what do they usually
do nothing M wow nothing it’s even hard for them to get a job it’s so sad it is
it’s unfortunate because they do have resources it sounds like they’re there are resources for people in foster care
that have been you know I guess sex trafficked and you know pretty much every bad thing that could you could
imagine have happened to you right um but it’s just like kind of
getting them to take the resources that’s like your job right is to advocate for them to take the resources
but I’ve seen clients take resources right and actually utilize them and make
it their own and almost there and then they don’t get the support that they
need from the village like their their staff you know the the therapist the CL managers the social workers literally
working working against them wow and I can say that with confidence it’s unfortunate but it’s true I’ve seen that
I’ve seen can you give me an examp or can you give me like a you don’t have to use names but like an example of that uh
I’m trying to figure out which one I want to use Lord um happens that much yeah wow it’s tough man it’s tough just
so I can kind of see like the picture of maybe somebody watching this could try to do something better basically I had a
client who was in CC and she was um cc is sex traffic okay and um her mom sold
her into sex trafficking early and so she at 10: actually and then her mom
sold her at 10 you know so it was just like a generational thing and um she she
grew born and raised in foster care herself and then she also had the mom the mom okay and then the client she was
also born and raised in foster care and um how old was the mom just out of
curiosity she was 16 when she had her from what I know okay she was 16 and so when she had her first kid my client she
was about 13 12 and a half 13 I can’t remember but
one of those and we were trying to she she had her second daughter and we were
like she was really determined on doing this right really determined on getting this right right she was only 14 at this
time and her daughter her oldest was already in foster care working to try to get her back and um
she she went into a program where she got certificates of like graduating from
a cc program you know which is a huge accomplishment it really was she was going to classes getting all her stuff
done just like you know they would teach them resources on um and educating them
on how to prevent this from happening more and things to look out for you know people who are dangerous people who
might try to do it again to you you know just educating them and then like how to be successful out of it how do you still
make money and how do you still you know um gain skills and tools for you to be
successful outside of something that they consider it is lucrative you know being a sex trafficker it is it is
lucrative but it’s just extremely dangerous you know like it’s so dangerous especially being a child in
the foster care system nobody’s looking out for you like you it’s just like so much on top of it you know it’s already
a very strenuous job I could imagine um so she graduated and she invited
everybody to go to her graduation and um nobody went nobody went to her
graduation and before that moment she was working up to like you had to earn
um you know time to visitation time to go see your daughter yeah I mean not
necessarily earn visitation time but you had to earn time to leave the facility and like go out for 4 hours or go out
overnight somewhere to your whoever’s house had to be approved you know um and
she would do all the right things for months all the right things for months and they would ding her for being like 5
minutes late or like 2 minutes late or like something small and I was like okay you guys let’s give her some Grace you
know like is it seems like it’s kind of like the whole crabs in a bucket yes situation it’s more of like there it’s
uh it’s unfortunate because it was more of like a pick and choose so with other clients who were very um I mean flipping
tables throwing stuff on the wall crashing the whole kitchen like
destroying oh my gosh they would destroy things they would start fights they
would and then demand like I want some Wing Stop and if they didn’t have money most of the time the rule was well if
you don’t have money you can’t pay for it you can’t get it but um they would still have an allowance every week and so they still had money you know to have
but if they spent it all and they didn’t have anything well you can’t get it and then on top of it your Behavior’s been wild so no but it would be clients who
would just be extreme like that and then just to have them be quiet they would just give them and so for clients who
were actually doing what they were needed to do and making sure that they were on time getting all their you know
ducks in a row they would be dinged for like the smallest little things CU they weren’t scared of them because they
weren’t afraid of them they were like ah you know like you’ll be no you need to learn you know you need to I’m like but what okay I get it I get what you’re
saying I get what you’re trying to do but we also need to give Grace and learn when Grace is deserved you know yeah
it’s like they’re almost bullying the people for doing like right give some sort of reward and nobody went to her
graduation and I was telling them before all of that I was like you guys we’re going to lose her if you if we keep
doing this you know we need to have better boundaries but also like better
Grace for her and I was like um and what roles were these people supposed to be like therapists like therapist um they
were like directors or supervisor ERS or um managers the case workers um you know
I wasn’t in contact a lot with their social workers but if I had to I I was
if I could go to all the meetings I would like what were what was your role there was it case manager I was a residential counselor presential counsel
so I was like taking care of them like basically yeah on the ground floor with
for all the fights for all the arguments for all the situations like they need to go to the mall to go shopping I’m taking
them they need to go get food I’m going like they need whatever they need that’s what I’m doing right so um I got to see
a lot of things I was right in front of them so then I was telling them one time like you guys were going to lose her
they’re like yeah but um okay so we’re trying to implement like more softer
tones or I was like okay I’m gonna be real I’m going be 100% with you in the African she was an African-American in
the African American Community we do not respond well to soft voices meaning if I
hear a soft voice that’s not going to do much we are extremely direct we it’s No
Nonsense so you got to be if we’re not doing something correctly you need to tell us you know or if we are doing
something correctly tell us you know we’re very much so um black and white or
not black and white but direct direct we’re very direct you know don’t beat around the bush tell us what we need to
to know you know and like if we the whole like um oh maybe you shouldn’t do this no no no don’t do this what are you
doing you know and they’re like well we don’t want to be culturally um insensitive I said that’s not that’s
being I I said that’s literally we are we are um we are speaking to the client
in the way that they know how to be spoken to we’re meeting them where they are what do you mean like uh we’re
taught this in school you know like we’re actually taught this in in our programs so what are you why are you
acting like this is culturally inappropriate it’s not and then nobody went to her
graduation what do you think happened she went right back she went right back
on the streets and then lost her daughter her last daughter ended up um
getting sex trafficked all over again who was expected to go like was it like her therapist therapist her case worker
the people on her team other people at her uh wow so her whole team like all of her Advocates just didn’t show up mm- it
was I think it was only one person with like a small thing of flowers no I could they said I couldn’t go because I
wasn’t on I wasn’t on like the hours or something like that and they’re like we’re trying to make sure that there’s boundaries and stuff and they were
pretty strict with stuff like that and I was just like so one person went one person went out of like six seven people
at least and then like not including the uh other people at the foster home yeah
okay and everyone just wants to be seen and heard and like that’s all she needed
mhm she just wanted to make sure that she if it worked like if she did the right thing like will this actually work mhm and literally not even a week later
she was back on the streets it’s so sad mhm everybody does need some type of like validation sometimes I think yeah
and encouragement their whole life they didn’t get it and she’s like now what like what am I doing all this for
they’re not giving them the why you have to give them the why otherwise you’re going to keep going back they’re going
to keep going back to what they know this is what she knows this is her comfort zone it’s it’s an unfortunate
comfort zone to to have but it’s all she has that’s so sad it’s all she has so you expect her to do something that
first of all she don’t even know you right she don’t even know you like that you expect her to be receptive to
anything that you’re saying and you don’t already support her nothing then you ding her for every little thing
things that have nothing to do with her the bus was late well that’s too bad you should have you should have made time for that it’s like what she actually got
on the early bus then something happened then she could like she she would have legit reasons she would have legit
excuse she would have calling Comm in communication it’s still and I was like you guys are doing it like you can’t do
this I’m telling you I’m telling you it’s going to backfire it’s going to backfire then they would even be like okay Courtney what do you think and I be
like well this is what I think I think this is how I should do okay okay okay we’re going to go with it we’re going to go with something else I was like okay
all right I was I literally said we’ll see how this plays out we’ll see how it plays out and it would always go the way
I was like okay yeah all right we did the best we could
I did the best I could I know a couple couple other staff who did the best they could but for the people who are were in
control or uh could have made certain decisions that should have been implemented it just didn’t go the you
know the way that it needed to go so sad to see it’s honestly so s uh it’s really
sad to hear that like I mean so it’s like on one hand you you kind of do it is commendable the government that it’s
like you know um they they’re giving some resources yeah that there’s resources right but then it’s on on the
other hand it’s like it seems like there’s this pattern like in the within the system M right where I don’t know
why those people didn’t go maybe they just didn’t believe or maybe they just been kind of burnt out or like jaded from the whole thing and like they’re
just like oh like maybe they can’t take the Heartbreak of going to somebody’s graduation and then seeing it not work
out I don’t know but it’s definitely it seems like a sad you know
like series of patterns pretty much like you know especially for the people that were sex trafficked CU you know it’s
like somebody having a baby young and then having a baby that has a baby that’s young and then it’s like there’s
generations of people going through this same Foster system or foster care home
and it’s like these people are probably seeing the same pattern over and over again MH it’s just I don’t know what do
you think the solution to this whole thing is allowing them to get their why you need to educate them that is
literally the that is it you have to be willing to educate them but before you even do that you have to be willing to
like hear them out and meet them where they are otherwise they won’t be willing to be educated so like we’re always like
oh here are the resources guys like we see it here you know here are the resources you guys we have all these resources all these free tools and
they’re like if they don’t know how to use the tools you giving them toolbox to do what they don’t know they’re just G
to scratch their head with it what does this have to do with what does this toolbox have to do with me it has nothing to do with me you guys are just
giving me these random things right and you guys are saying this is what I could do with it okay but then what you know
like so you have to it’s more than just here are the resources here’s a piece of paper with all this information here’s
this website you have to like walk them through and not out of coddling but out of educating and I’m like let let me
show you how to do it so that when it’s time for you to do it you know what to do and if you need okay well I still
don’t know what to do when I have it okay thank you for telling me now this is how you do it I’ll walk you through with it and then now you gave them the
confidence for them to be able to do it on their own so it’s like it’s not a Reliance Factor I’m actually teaching you how to be independent and I need you
to be independent because I’m not going to always be here that’s why when I’m very big on like making sure that I
don’t burn out I’m very big on the boundaries because I’m like no I actually walked this I walked through
you with this you know I I walked through this with you thank you yes I’ve
rocked through this with you you know and I do that with the adults I do it with the students you know it’s it’s the
same thing I do it with younger clients with older clients I see that there’s you don’t have your why I’ll give it to
you but you have to be receptive enough to be able to receive it but it’s not their responsibility to do that it’s my
responsibility to to meet you at your level so that you are willing to receive
it because I get why your boundaries are up I get why you got a 20 foot thick wall 100 foot tall I get it I understand
it’s my job to figure out how to get over that it’s not your job because EV life has showed you to not let it down
every person has let you know why has Justified the reason why you have it up you know so it’s my job to to figure out
how do I go about this and let them know that I’m a safe person to go over this wall how do I do that that’s not their
job to figure out it’s true that is true mhm so how do you
think uh you give the people like what what like thing in the system could you
change like the education of The Advocates to have more of them give them
the why or like maybe like with the therapist like do you think that there should be could be something that like
is changed within I don’t know like the I don’t know what you call it like therapeutic model like cuz it seems like
what you’re saying is like it’s almost up to the people it is MHM um honestly
it really has to do with how um it has to do with Staffing because everything will fumble
it has to do with yeah has to do with leadership has to do with with with Staffing and and making sure that the um
leader is leading everybody correctly and well because then all the people that you’re assisting and helping are
going to get and reap the benefits of how well your staff is being taken care of and how well you’re you know and then
it’ll it’ll literally take care of itself it’ll take care of itself so if you have
leadership who willing to accommodate the needs of the staff first right and
then allow them the tools to be able to be successful and it’s not just like okay here’s some random training it’s
like actually let me meet y’all let me show you how to do this let me I’m going to show you how to do it effectively I’m
going to show you how to do it in the way that you need it to be done because this is how you work it’s not going to be for everybody it’s not it’s not a
this is how you do it um and follow this exact plan everybody’s different so you
have to be willing to be like okay who did I hire how do they learn okay this is how they learn all right cool let me
let me figure out a way to teach them in the way that they can so they can understand it and now they can properly
do their job effectively and well you know how do we avoid burnout you can’t
have one person with a million clients you can’t do it it’s impossible you cannot expect your your staff and your
directors and stuff to have um to be burnt out so how do we avoid
that you know how do we avoid them feeling like that like you said like they probably didn’t go to her thing
because they were probably tired you I completely agree with you they probably were you know
unfortunately that was a that was something that could have been avoided and people think that
burnout isn’t avoidable it is it is you just have to figure out what that looks like but the person in charge also has
to identify how to avoid this you have in order for the things to run smooth
otherwise your workers are exhausted now your clients are not getting what they need and now everything falls everything
is going to fall so when I saw that that was the is that’s where it’s stemming from I was like oh bet if this is runw I
can make an srtp know what I need to do to run it well and this will be successful it will be everything that
this because this isn’t my baby this is God’s baby I know that right I know that it is so with that being the case he has
been very slow in teaching me in how this how things need to be run that’s why I’ve been collecting all the
information from all the jobs the way that I have and I’m like Lord what are you showing me what are you teaching me
and that was the thing that he taught me there was the Staffing was I was like okay all right this what we got to
do I totally agree with that I love that so you know I’m I’m extremely
grateful for the experiences I’ve learned a lot this is nothing against anybody cuz I understand I remember
doing that job and actually getting burnt out because I was trying to do everything I was trying to save
everybody and God was like girl if you don’t sit down I need you to sit down and I was like but God he’s like you’re
not me I need you to sit down somewhere I brought you here to see and to learn and observe but you cannot be the Savior
for everybody so when you know even with my clients now I’m like I’m available this time I’m available here but when
you got me you have me you know like what are we doing today you need you need help with applications let me show
you an easy way to do it I’m very look work smarter not harder we’re not going to work harder if you need to do
something you don’t know how to do it let me show you all the things and all the ways that we can do it so that when
we you don’t have me here you know how to do it on your own right so I’m giving them the tools and the resources
teaching them walking them through it right without just being like okay this
is what you got to do have fun it’s like no you got to learn how to do it you need sometimes you do need your hand
held not forever but sometimes you do you just need that little you know yeah
I think that’s what you have to learn in I mean yeah they’re working in these systems
because there’s always somewhere where it’s going to need Improvement and it’s going to let you down and you’re going
to have barriers so what can we do about it and how can we like work around it
for the people MH um it’s hard on both ends from the patient to the staff like
everything like the system itself the government like it’s just like a never ending cycle it seems MH and like with
the government for example these kids are the government’s kids and the social workers are like their parents right and
I feel bad for the social workers because they have like 200 clients and it’s just like heartache after heartache
or fail failure so then they’re just like and then you’re burnt out and then you’re over seen this before like okay like she graduated the program like you
know it two weeks give it a week what they don’t understand is like they’re the ones that are contributing to the
cycle so then how do we stop that and it’s it has to do like you said with
leadership how what kind of leader are you going to present yourself to be to run a successful whatever it is that
you’re running you know so with this I was like I mean I’ve been
Gathering people now they’re like Courtney have you opened it yet you know like are are we doing this yet and I’m
still communication like hey get ready you know like okay guys I’ve taken this class or I’m going to do this or I’m
still collecting you know um you know staff who I trust and I’m like oh you have the right heart for this we can do
this you know when I get it ready and when I get it open I’m calling you and they’re like I’m just waiting like I’m
literally waiting I’m like so I’m grateful I’m grateful for all the connections and I’m grateful for all the people you can’t teach people how to
care though right so you do have to be very choosy with
who you decide to have on your team to make sure that it does run like a smooth engine cuz building any type of business
or nonprofit is going to be difficult but it doesn’t have to be in certain
areas it there are things that’s going to naturally be difficult there are things are going to be naturally challenging but there are also ways that
I can avoid certain challenges and so knowing and identifying what that is and what that looks like who’s a good fit
who’s not who can I work well with you know as a leader I don’t work well with the these type people okay maybe I just
shouldn’t hire it’s nothing against them I just know that for me it wouldn’t be a good fit because I’m just not or there
are certain ways that I know that I lack and so I actually need to hire somebody to help me in this area because Lord
Jesus you know like I can’t no thank you oh yeah you know like you got that you’re very logical I’m extremely
creative so like I can create things but when it comes to rules I’m like oh wait
okay I don’t know you know and what what leader what uh what role did the leader
of that company play like were they like a like what what were they um for the person that was over
that part of the of the facility um she was a supervisor what
did she have any credentials she did she was a doctor she was a doctor yeah she had her doctorate in Psychology and she
was like she was aw she really was awesome um it was
and she ended up leaving because of other pressures from her bosses and her and I was like you know yeah everybody’s
just not understanding CU they’re also not on the ground floor and so I was extreme I made my voice very loud in
that building and some people loved it and some people did it but I just didn’t care because I was like it’s for the
clients I understand how you feel I understand that your master’s degree looks beautiful on that piece in that
you know plaque and that’s great however she needs this or however we’re talking
to her wild and she needs more Assistance or she needs a new social worker because her social worker
literally told her that she could die and she wouldn’t care oh my God you know heck a social worker said that you would
be so surprised the amount of things and it’s wild because the most like the
clients with the like riskiest Behavior they would always have like the most laidback social workers like super chill
give them whatever they want but the clients who were doing everything right would have like social workers from hell and you’re
just like if you were on the street if if I knew what you look like you know it
was it was hard it was so hard sometimes dealing with them however again like I
said I understand how they’re what they’re
probably experiencing cuz I’ve heard it from so many different social workers they’re burnt out they don’t get paid
enough you know they have their own personal things happening on top of 200
clients that they got to take care of like that’s insane you know that’s a lot of houses to to have your eyes on a lot
of kids that you got to have your eyes on so um I understand that if you have
great leadership then you can have great staff and your clients will be well taken care of period it literally
trickles down it’s as simple as that it sounds simple right but like it is
possible it’s just another piece of the system yeah yeah but it is possible it really is yeah do you have any final
thoughts about anything I mean I know we went over a lot yeah we did
um I don’t know like maybe like words to one of the girls in that situation then
maybe some words to like somebody that is uh from a like a case work a social
worker MH I could equally say something to both
that would mean different things to them but I could say the same thing and I would say toine your why why are you
doing what you’re doing you know if you’re in a leadership position if you’re a case worker social worker
working in the foster care system why find your why and if you’re a a client
or if you’re in the foster care system or if you are using substance substances
or whatever you know it is that you’re going through find your why because then you can find the solution but if you’re
not concerned about the why you’re going to be stuck you’re going to be in the same going to be issu same thing
mhm I appreciate you coming on the show thank you so much no problem you guys
