August brings about the closeout of summer. August is typically reminiscent of final summer vacations, getting ready for the start of school, and preparing to welcome Fall. Summer of 2021 began with glimmers of hope. Life started to resemble "normal" again. Face masks came off and we got to see each other smile again. However, it is safe to say that this summer is ending in a much different way than it began. The headlines are filled with COVID cases rising and the Delta variant spreading throughout the country. Thoughts of fear and uncertainty are starting to cloud our minds once again triggering feelings reminiscent of those that occurred in mid March of 2020.
As a person who has struggled with their fair share of anxiety, I have to constantly assess my own feelings and sometimes ask myself, "how am I doing?" And yes, like many of you, I am struggling. The constant news reports that we are bombarded with multiple times a day do not paint a very positive picture right now. But in the same breath, I have to acknowledge a sense of peace and gratefulness I have for those relationships that are most important in my life right now. These serve as an anchor for me as the ground starts to shake once again and reminds me that, while things are scary, I am not alone. This is one thing I have found so genuine about BEST Kids since I stepped into our office for the first time. Our youth have to endure the constant transitions of the child welfare system and face uncertainties that many adults will never know. We at BEST Kids, unfortunately, are unable and can't promise to make life less scary for our youth. However, what we can do is come alongside our young people with a loving and caring long-lasting relationship through that of a mentor - someone who shows commitment and consistency through whatever life has to offer and reassure our youth that they are not alone. Through disappointments, setbacks, uncertainty, and even pandemics, you are not alone. I have had the privilege of seeing this in action for the past six years, especially since March of 2020. Mentors would show up to mentees' homes when phone numbers stopped working just to maintain connection. They came to our office to pick up care packages for their mentees and they kept their relationships moving forward even through virtual communication. Words cannot express the kind of selflessness and dedication our mentors bring to BEST Kids. We encourage anyone reading this newsletter to come join this amazing community of people as we continue to cultivate relationships and provide a peaceful presence to our young people.
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"The Beauty In MeWhen I think of the term “the beauty in me,” two words come to mind: self-esteem and identity. One of BEST Kids’ goals in working with our youth is to help them gain self-esteem by seeing concrete results of something they worked hard on. Self-esteem is the confidence we have in our own worth or abilities. It is garnered by intentional self-love and self-respect. How often do we, as people, challenge ourselves in this area? How often do we doubt ourselves and focus on our deficits rather than our strengths? Just think, if we, as adults struggle with this how much more of a challenge could this be for youth in foster care who are battling traumatic circumstances and constantly searching for their true identity?
This is one of the reasons the mentor-mentee relationships BEST Kids’ stewards are so key. We work extremely hard to ensure that our youth are connected to mentors who have a heart to see the best in them and to keep their best selves at the forefront. This is why we strongly encourage our mentors and mentees to come up with goals that actively work towards building up our youth’s innermost beings. This is why BEST Kids keeps the importance of fostering healthy relationships at our core. Our youth need this level of love and support in order to continue to build up their self-esteem and courage within themselves. I personally take joy in knowing that we are not simply a program solely focused on building up the youth externally (academically, physically, or socially). But we care deeply about seeing our youth thrive as a result of being confident in the beauty they carry within and being assured of who they are. Our goal is to build upon their strengths and dismantle any thoughts that their deficits or lack in area is what defines them. We believe whole heartedly that there is beauty in each and every one of the youths we serve and we will continue to make sure they understand the importance of self-value, self-worth, self-love, and self-respect. If one can show these beautiful attributes to themselves, just think of how easy it will be for them to spread this positive energy to others, ultimately making the world and the communities they reside in a better place. As we approach the middle of the year and reflect on a series of months (and the full year prior) that have been ever-changing, I am once again amazed by the resilience, creativity, and commitment of the BEST Kids team, youth, and mentors. Despite remote outings, events, and activities, our youth and mentors have been able to remain connected - and in more cases than not have thrived! But like many of us, our youth and mentors alike are eager to get offline and back to in-person connections.
With the increase in available COVID-19 vaccinations and changing regulations across the D.C. Metro Area, we hope to do just that! The BEST Kids team is looking forward to returning to safe in-person activities with our youth, mentors, and supporters in the coming months. As are our mentoring matches! In recent weeks, we've seen more and more matches returning to one-on-one in-person outings - from outdoor yoga classes to summer festivals and more. Some of these matches were made during the height of quarantine and have never interacted off the screen. As we all start to establish our new normal, I look forward to watching the progress of new and old matches as we navigate hybrid connections together! Check out our COVID-19 Response Resources to learn more about how we plan to keep our mentors and mentees safe as we make the transition to in-person outings and events. Learn more about BEST Kids events at bestkids.org/events and stay up to date with our team and mentoring matches on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @BESTKidsDC. Recently I spent some time back home in my hometown in Hawaii and I decided to go for a walk past my elementary school. As I strolled past the front gate, I was flooded with memories, reminded of relationships with teachers and peers, and reflective of how my time there nurtured who I have become today over 30 years later. For whatever reason the metaphor of “roots” struck me as I continued the rest of my walk that day.
We know that plants thrive the most when planted in fertile soil, given consistent amounts of light and water based on their individual needs, and allowed the freedom to establish vast and strong roots. The same is true for us as people. The strength of the roots we grow through our past experiences helps us to weather storms and shifting environmental changes, and the resources and people around us provide us with the nurturing we need to grow and adapt in order to live healthy and successful lives. This got me to thinking about the foster care experience that affects over 700 youth right here in DC community each year and hundreds of thousands more throughout our country. How has their ability to thrive been impacted by being uprooted time and time again, being replanted into environments that don’t necessarily provide them with the nurturing that suits them best? How can we expect them to live healthy and successful lives if we aren’t investing in building stronger and more life-sustaining roots they can depend on throughout their lives? Here at BEST Kids, we recognize that we can’t undo all the harm endured by youth in care, but we can provide youth with nurturing that helps them to grow as best they can regardless of the environments they are planted into. We strive to provide youth with positive memories, relationships, and experiences that help to strengthen their roots to survive through difficult times they are currently facing and that are in store ahead. We also are committed to addressing inequities in our community that perpetuate these harms leading into and during time spent in foster care. May is National Foster Care Month and my challenge to you is to think about how you can help to build stronger roots for youth in our program and youth in foster care nationwide. You can consider becoming a mentor, a CASA, a foster parent or making a donation to support our work and the work for so many others that specifically serve this population. You can advocate on local, state, and federal levels for equitable housing, health, employment, and education services that reduce the need for foster care on the front end, as well as for legislation that supports higher levels of care and support for youth and families during and after involvement with foster care. We all can do something, whether big or small, to help youth and families in our communities to thrive together and there is no better time to start than now. A Year of Virtual Mentoring This month marks a year since the pandemic began, in which we’re still going through. It’s been a year of figuring out zoom meetings, working from home, loss and of course in our case a year of virtual mentoring. Let’s rewind a bit – at this time last year I was at the end of my maternity leave and feeling a mix of emotions. I was anxious on how my work life would look and how as a program we would be able to sustain effective mentoring especially since the “outside world” shut down so quickly. Peer groups quickly canceled along with mentor trainings and we were all forced to figure out our new normal.
While in-person mentoring came to a halt, the many amazing friendships built in our program did not. Mentoring is essential and is an important aspect of so many of our youth’s lives that not going full speed into virtual mentoring wasn’t an option but a necessity. The BEST Kids community all relied on each other to make virtual mentoring work and worthwhile. BEST Kids staff got to work and quickly came up with a list of virtual activities that included activities such as virtual tours of Museums and video/iPhone games for our matches to indulge in. While staff began to create a foundation of what virtual mentoring should look like, our matches immersed in it. I have to be honest, it was tough in the beginning for a lot of our matches. We had youth who didn’t have consistent Wi-Fi or have laptops to make it easy for them to connect with their mentors but we somehow navigated through all of these challenges. Laptops were donated and resources around our community became available for Wi-Fi services along with other resources for our youth. Our matches knocked down these barriers and awesome moments came out of it. We had matches compete in push up challenges over facetime, matches connecting over the phone almost every day, weekly zoom meetings that were full of fun games, we had matches who discussed Presidential debates over text and we even had new matches start virtually. Virtual mentoring was different but it’s allowed not only our matches but the BEST Kids program as a whole a moment to explore a different way of connecting. While we can’t wait to see each other’s faces without masks and In-person, I think we can all say we’ve learned a few things during virtual mentoring - and not just how to take ourselves off mute - but lessons we can cherish and grow from. One thing I’ve always known but was made clear this past year is that the BEST Kids community is and continues to be resilient, beyond committed, and creative (virtually and in-person)! |
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