Reply #67

and kids in long term inpatient A&D treatment.

It was run by the St.Vincent DePaul. If a kid had ANY resources they were sent to other facilities. We got kids who had nothing.

I'd say about 90% of them were sexual abuse survivors, and more than a few had been selling or scoring drugs for their parents before running away.

And then we had gang members - I had one wonderful therapy group with a skinhead and a Crip. Both sentenced by the court for treatment instead of jail.

Actually - that group made BOTH of them think about race more than anything I can think of.

Good times.

Out of the hundreds of kids I had in my range at one point or another, I remember three or four who actually made it.

A mother of one sought me out after several years to tell me that her son - one of the hardest children I had ever met, got sober, married, was working construction and attending community college.

I wept like a child.