Ask the former group home resident

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My senior year of high school, I was hospitalized for clinical depression. (Helpful hint: If your daughter has been hospitalized for attempted suicide and depression related in part to your reaction to her coming out to you as a lesbian, it is not a good idea to tell the social worker that all queers should be quarantined or, preferably, die.) CPS determined that it was not in my best interests to return home, due to ongoing emotional and physical abuse. So I entered the foster care system. Since I was seventeen, they gave me a choice: I could go to a GLBT group home in San Francisco, and finish out the school year at Harvey Milk High School, or I could return to my home county and graduate from the school I had been attending. I chose to return to my home county. Looking back, I think I made the wrong decision, but who knows? This was in 1991.

So I spent a week or so in the adolescent unit in a psychiatric hospital, while they figured out what to do with me. Foster home beds are in very short supply for teenagers, but usually, beds open up fairly quickly in group homes. My parents visited me in the hospital, once. They behaved normally, for them, and the hospital called the sheriff’s department to have them removed from the premises.

Finally, a foster care bed opened up in my county (hospital stays are expensive, but they had nowhere else to put me) and I stayed there for a week or so. The foster parents were decent people, and it wasn’t a bad experience, but they were used to really little kids, so it was a little strange for all of us. And I still had no clothes. Oh, I forgot that part. When I was hospitalized, they sneaked me out the back door, away from my raving parents (that hospital had them escorted out by security. Another helpful hint: Do not threaten to kill, assault, or maim your children while being interviewed by CPS. That does not go over well.) So all I had were the clothes on my back.

So, the group home. Finally. It was one step up from lock-down, meaning that there was extra supervision, but not a locked facility. The usual staff ratio was 4:1, residents to house parents. There were 4 bedrooms, with 2 girls to a room, with 3 bathrooms, plus a living room, dining room, staff office and bedroom, and a (very) small school in the back, with a large yard. It had been an ordinary house before being converted to a group home, so it didn’t stick out in the fairly affluent neighborhood it was located in. This particular set of group homes was fairly small, and only took adolescent girls.

Residents were on probation/parole, wards of the state, or some combination of the two, and ranged in age from 12 to 19. All of us had Issues, of course, or we wouldn’t have been there. For the most part, girls were removed from their home county, so that they wouldn’t be tempted by their old friends, dealers, pimps, etc. That was the theory, anyway. In practice, it was fairly easy to find new friends, dealers, and so on.

Living in the group home, while dramatic, was easier for me than living at home. There were rules, written ones even, and whether I followed them or not, I knew what the consequences would be. I received an allowance and a clothing allotment, regardless of behavior. Chores were clearly described and fairly assigned. I had an assigned day for laundry, I had designated closet and shelf space, and I could put anything I wanted (barring obscenity or drug-related) up on my wall. No one ambushed me, or yelled at me, or hit me, and if the rules changed, the changes were clearly described in our house meeting.

I was lucky. I have heard horror stories, and in fact, my first room mate had been sexually assaulted at her previous group home. Foster care can be hazardous to children’s health, and when you age out, that’s it. You’re done. If you had foster parents, they might be able to help you, but they might not. If you’re in a group home, you’re completely on your own. The county I live in now does have a program in place for foster kids transitioning out of the system, but when I aged out in my county, I was out of luck. I ended up having to move back in with my parents, which is another thread entirely.

I’ve tried to be brief, so I’ve skimmed a lot. I’ll add more as I think of it, but ask away. It’s been 13 years since I aged out, so I’m sure some things have changed since then, hopefully for the better.

2

Were your parents charged with anything for abusing/threatening you?

What was it like moving back in with them after you left the group home?

Do you keep in touch with any of the girls you met in the home?

3

Wow! So how’s your life now, did your family ever come to grips w/ reality?

4

What do you mean by Home Country? I’m a little confused.

I’m sorry that your parental units are so farked up and they could not accept you for who you are instead of what they wanted you to be. Are there any other kids in your family? If so, how is it with them? Are they still nuts?

It takes great courage to tell others our secrets and our past problems ( real and perceived.) I, too, have heard horror stories about foster care and group homes and I have witnessed the depression of a group home experience with a late brother’s tenure there.

How are things now? Do you still have contact with your family at all?

You need to write a book about it all.

5

No, my parents weren’t charged with anything, somehow related to the fact that I was 17. There was, apparently, some legalese dancing around until I reached my 18th birthday, at which point I signed myself in to foster care, which doesn’t end until high school graduation or age 19, whichever comes first. I’m still not sure what happened, exactly, although I do know that my parents had their tax refunds garnished, whereupon they busily proceeded to hide their assets. My mother held that against me for years, and as far as I know, still does.

Moving back in with my parents was hell. I was desperate. I know now that I could have received assistance from the battered women’s shelter, but I didn’t know that then. My brother was allowed/encouraged to beat me, as a proxy for my parents. I was informed that if I called the cops, I would be evicted and disowned. We lived in the middle of nowhere, and, since you can’t hold a drivers license in foster care, I had no license and my parents weren’t about to let me get one. There was one bus, 4 miles away. I plotted my escape for years, and it wasn’t until last year that I finally broke the last tie. My mother and I no longer speak. My brother is a homeless alcoholic. My father committed suicide 10 years ago.

I kept in touch for a while with some of the girls, but by and large, most of them ended up pregnant, on welfare, in jail or prison, or flat out vanished. And so the cycle repeats itself. During the time I was in the group home, I think about 40 girls came and went in my house alone. I wonder about some of them sometimes.

6

How did you go about establishing a normal life once you escaped your bioparents?

7

Your home county is your county of residence before arrest, or becoming a ward of the state/county. I was a county ward, and ended up staying in my home county.

Normal life? What’s that? Seriously, it has been a struggle to figure out what “normal” is over the past decade or so. I’ve been hospitalized several times, been partially hospitalized (a day program, where you go home at night, instead of staying at the hospital) several times and spent a lot of time in therapy, both group and one on one. It wasn’t until I became a Kaiser Permanente member, believe it or not, that I started receiving any kind of effective psychiatric care. That pretty much coincided with California’s health care parity law, which is that a psychiatric diagnosis must be treated equivalent to a medical diagnosis.

I’m not sure that I qualify as having a normal life, even now. I have huge trust issues, and I like for everyone to stay---------------->over there, away from me. That’s something I’m still working on, and may always work on. For a long time, I thought I was broken beyond redemption, reinforced by my psychiatrists in high school, who thought that I would always be institutionalized, one way or another. In that respect, I do have a somewhat normal life, in that I can hold down a job that pays well, keep food on the table and a roof over my head, and most of the other trappings of a “normal” life. But personal relationships are still difficult for me, although that has gotten a little easier over the years, and with distance from my family. I’ve come to understand that most people aren’t anything like my family.

8

OK, let me rehrase that question: How did you go about getting a job, finding a place to live, etc?

I undertand the interpersonal stuff is a problem still…

9

Getting out from under the family was an extended process. I was allowed to work for the family company, so I was earning wages. I had to turn over a significant portion of those over to my parents because I “owed them.” Other than that, I was only allowed supervised trips into town once a week, so I saved up some money. I paid for driving lessons and finally got my drivers license. Next, my grandparents agreed to loan me money for a car, at standard interest rates. I came to work one time too many covered in bruises, and a co-worker convinced me to move out of my parent’s house, hence the shotgun shack in the mountains with no electricity, also owned by my extended family.

After a year without electricity, I was making enough to move into one of my uncle’s rentals, with electricity! Woo hoo! That was a huge step. So, it’s been about 3 years. I am living on the family’s land, driving a car my grandfather holds the lien on, and working for the family company. My closest neighbors were mostly relatives. I finally save up enough money to pay off the car, and quit working at the family company. Surprisingly, :rolleyes: I’m making a lot more money, part-time, than I was working full time for the company.

Then my father commits suicide. Due to him dying intestate and being a control freak, his estate is split 3 ways between my mother, brother and I. My parent’s money was actually my father’s money, and my mom had no access to it, since his bank accounts were all in his name. Once his estate was settled, I could leave the family compound, and didn’t hesitate to do so. This was 5 years after I moved back home.

For the next 8 years, I continue to have a relationship of sorts with my mom, which pretty much absorbs all of my non-work time. At this point, work was the only thing that was working for me, and I became something of a workaholic. My mother continues to drink, my brother descends into his own private hell, and I spend a lot of time in therapy, not understanding why I’m not feeling better.

2 years ago, I had a complete breakdown. When Abu Ghraib broke, I started having flashbacks to my childhood. I spent a week in the hospital, followed by 6 weeks of partial hospitalization. I found a sense of self-worth, and realized that I wasn’t the horrible person I’d been told I was all of my life. I read Forgive for Good, and was finally able to forgive myself for what had happened to me. Just before Christmas in 2005, I severed my relationship with my mother. We haven’t spoken, or otherwise communicated, since.

Just last week, I gave notice at my job. I’ve been here for seven years, and could have quite possibly stayed on forever, if I’d wanted to. It was soul-deadening, and my co-workers understand Machiavelli at a deep level, without ever needing to read The Prince. It was my last link to the past. And now I’m free. I act, instead of react. I am capable of making choices, and understanding when my past is all too present, but that is less and less often now.

10

Back to the group home.

We had a daily point and percentage system. Points were for behavior, percentage was attitude, as judged by the staff. Points were awarded for various activities, from bathing to chores to safe sex.

We had a rulebook, accessible at any time before lights out at 10 pm. Most of the rules were pretty standard: hands above shared blankets, curfew at 9 pm, smoking areas, when and how chores were to be performed. Some of them were funny, for example, no group groping. At that time, girls in group homes had a lot less freedom than boys. Maybe that’s still true, I don’t know, but there were a number of rules, like curfew, from the counties that differed according to gender.

Each girl received a weekly allowance, based on several factors - her current level, her average percentage for the last week, and whether or not she smoked. Non-smokers got an extra dollar a week, much to the smoker’s disgust. Monthly clothing allotments were similar, although the base rate was determined by your home county. You could buy almost anything with your clothing allotment, except straight up hooker wear. All clothing had to pass a final inspection by the house manager, but really, as long as it covered the naughty bits, you were fine. Clothing allotments had to be spent each month, or they were lost. You couldn’t roll unspent clothing money over. When you entered the system, you received an initial, one time allotment to buy the basics.

Levels were based mostly on behavior. Everyone started out at the same level, and worked their way up to Basic. Basic meant that you were allowed a certain amount of semi-unsupervised free time away from the house, and you got a bigger allowance. The higher the level, the more freedom you were allowed. In the other houses, most of the girls were on Basic or higher, and had a much lower turnover. Some of them had been there for years. In the house I lived in, well, not so much. Story time! One summer weekend, the house decided to run, as in run away. Out of 8 of us, 6 of them decided to run. They straggled back over the next couple of days, in various stages of hungover wretchedness. They all got busted down to O1, the very lowest level, as in, you may not even go into the yard without permission. And they owed the house 20 hours of house labor. Each. We were all on house arrest for the rest of the weekend. I made a lot of cigarette runs over the next couple of weeks down at the local Quik Mart.

House labor was assigned for various infractions, and you were on house arrest until it was completed. Nor would you receive your allowance until it was completed. We already had assigned chores, so house labor was whatever the houseparents felt needed to be done. Do the house laundry, sort the dishes or the pantry, clean the staff office, whatever. As you can imagine, though, when the house is owed 120 hours worth of labor, there’s not a lot that needs doing. However, “paid” chores could be done for house labor, if the person assigned to it agreed. For example, preparing dinner was worth $5 or an hour of house labor. Sweeping around the house was $3 or 30 minutes of house labor. What usually ended up happening is that the person whose chore it was would sell the right to do the chore for house labor. So, $6 to not fix dinner, or $4 to not sweep around the house.

Razor blades and other sharps were not allowed in the rooms. All sharps and medications, including OTC, were kept in the staff office. So were sanitary products, so that they could track our periods. We were also weighed once a month. We were all on MediCal, which led to some pretty unpleasant experiences in doctor’s offices. Finding a dentist that takes MediCal is pretty much impossible. Contact lenses weren’t covered. If you got pregnant, you could have an abortion, or leave. Gyno care was via Planned Parenthood. We had a weekly allotment at the local food bank.

11

Interesting.

What good do you think came from the experiences? How did it benefit you, besides that whole “keeping you alive” thing? I’d wager that at the least, you’d be good at relating to a wide variety of people and getting along with others in the workplace.

Do you feel that the structure of it helped you with self-discipline and maturation?

Did you get birthday and/or Christmas presents, if applicable?

Did you ever think about some day when you’re ready, fostering another teen in the same circumstances?

12

Oh, by “self-discipline and maturation”, I didn’t mean to imply that you were delinquent and that’s why you were there- obviously, that’s not the case. I just mean in the normal, growing-up sense.

13

Wow :eek: . You were out on the street if you refused to get an abortion?! Or leave as in go to another, specialized, group home? :confused:

14

I learned to size people up quickly: Are they going to steal my stuff? Lie about me? Are they manipulators? Shit stirrers? Violent? Dangerous in some other way? I learned lots of different warning signs, which have definitely served me well in other areas. I also learned how to find the “human” part of just about everyone. I’m a lot more live and let live than I would be otherwise.

The structure was a huge help, and it also showed me that it was possible to, theoretically, not live in constant chaos. It also supplied me with a framework to interact with regular people. On the other hand, I was very dependent on external structure for a long time, so there were good and bad points. I think that’s typical of being “inside,” you just get used to being told what to do and when to do it.

Christmas and birthday presents were supplied by a variety of sources: the county, I think, the Salvation Army and other charities, and I suspect that houseparents chipped in on occasion if there was something that would be too difficult to get otherwise. We made up lists about a month beforehand of what would like. Our wants were pretty simple, things like hair dryers, blank journals, a certain CD or cassette tape, that kind of thing. Lee Press-On nails were always popular.

I have thought about fostering teens or working with foster kids/homeless kids. My biggest concern is that it could be triggering for me. We had a couple of houseparents that had breakdowns and who left suddenly, which was very traumatic for all of us. I want to be in a place where I can be relatively certain that I won’t end up inadvertantly abandoning them. For now, I donate money.

15

I didn’t phrase that quite right. You would need to go to another kind of group home if you got pregnant and wanted to carry the baby to term. The health care we received was inadequate for prenatal care for a teenager. Getting pregnant might also violate the terms of your parole/probation. That particular situation never actually came up while I was there. Birth control was always available for the asking, condoms in the staff office if you were brave enough to ask, and there was always Planned Parenthood. If you wanted or needed to go to Planned Parenthood, they had to take you. My room mate had Norplant installed. Theoretically, we weren’t supposed to be having sex at all, but they were pragmatists.

Which brings us to relationships between the girls. If two girls were having a sexual relationship, or considered themselves girlfriends, they would be seperated, and they would have to switch houses. Since the houses were in walking distance, this was not a great hardship, or shouldn’t have been, but we’re talking about teenaged girls here! If they were already in different houses, no problem, but house rules apply about touching below the waist, etc. Girls might have their girlfriend in the house, but have another relationship with a guy at home. Then there were the players, with a girl in each house.

16

Why could a girl have a “relationship” or sex with a boy and get birth control for it, but not have a relationship with a girl that might actually be emotionally meaningful since they knew each other well and carry no risk of pregnancy and lower risk of STD? Did they think you hadn’t experienced quite enough homophobia up to that point? :frowning: :mad:

17

My heart goes out to you, by the way, Jahdra. I truly hope you find some happiness and contentment, and soon. You’re certainly due. {{{{Jahdra}}}*

*from across the room, though :wink:

18

Uhm… how do you hug someone who doesn’t like to be touched…

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ Jahdra }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

did that work?

Your family makes mine sound like a caribbean cruise. My parents probably wouldn’t have hit a child who happened to be gay, but only because they didn’t do physical violence.

No questions, really, just the hug.

19

WAG beyond the usual homophobic possibilities - perhaps they thought that throwing a romance into the typical mix of troubles and hormones would be extra-disruptive to the house, especially if there was a breakup?

Jahdra, I remember when you wrote before about your unusual and tough home life, and I just wanted to tell you that you’re amazingly strong. It might not seem like it when you write about the hospitalizations and such, but you’re still standing, and that’s wonderful.

20

jellyblue, **Ferret ** **Herder ** hit it right on the nose. It wasn’t the relationship, per se, it was the break up and the jealousy. You need to think less college dorm, more Lord of the Flies. Ok, it wasn’t quite that bad, but bear in mind, these girls either have rap sheets as long as your arm, or longer, and not for petty stuff like shoplifting or graffitti, or even drug possession. We’re taking about assault with a deadly weapon (gun, car, knife), dealing large amounts of drugs, pimping, and prostitution, not to mention the wards of the state or county who had serious emotional problems. Everyone was prone to violence, one of the reasons we were there. It was supposed to be a therapeutic environment, a step up from jail or the hospital.

We weren’t prevented from having a relationship with another girl in the group homes, but the house rule was no sex in the house, period. Seperation was only enforced if you were actually caught having sex, and if all the houses were full, they’d just make you switch rooms, something we did all the time anyway.

Let me give you two examples (not their real names). First, Anna and Julie. Anna is a drug dealer on probation. Julie is a ward of the state. Since Anna’s on probation her things can be searched at any time, but since Julie’s a ward, her things can’t be searched without probable cause and/or a warrant. So Julie hides Anna’s drugs in her things whenever there’s a house search. Whenever Anna and Julie have a fight, Anna takes great pleasure in making Julie jealous, by flirting with the girls who would love to take Julie’s place. Julie, despite being 8 inches shorter, smacks Anna around, but Anna just and laughs it off. Nobody says anything to staff, both because nobody likes a tattletale, and everyone remembers the night Julie held a knife to Tina’s throat. Bearing in mind that not only do they live in the same house, they go to school together (schoolroom’s in the backyard), and due to their behavior, they probably can’t leave the house, and neither can anyone else.

Second example, Terri and Jen were roommates for 2 years, and probably lovers for as long. Everyone knew, but they had an actual, loving relationship, and moved in together after graduation. Staff caught them in the act a couple months before graduation, and they simply had to switch rooms and stayed in the same house.