Today we share with you a success story of a small family with huge heart and growing resilience.
What grabs your heart first is the laughter – Julian’s absolutely contagious laughter. It could be the delight of a neighborhood dog, Play-Doh® or toy cars. It doesn’t take much to gain that huge smile!
First referred to Triple P – Proud Parenting Program as a four-year-old, Julian had limited peer social skills and a reputation for aggressive behavior at pre-school. He didn’t know how to share and his frustration was often explosive. Because he needed speech therapy, it was a challenge to communicate with others.
Now in a special education kindergarten class, receiving therapeutic services and speech therapy, Julian is making great strides. Julian and his mom Ania, now 19, are a formidable team. “I was in foster care most of my life,” says Ania. She and her sister were abandoned when their own mother followed a boyfriend out of state. The young girls did their best, but life was hard. Ania found natural supports such as The Hub (an independent living resource center for transition age youth) where she volunteers today.
She is determined to be a good mother to Julian. On the living room walls are reminders to make theirs a warm, healthy and welcome home. The most important note is about Julian —“I will praise my little king every day!” Sometimes when snuggling to read a bedtime story, sometimes in play—Julian knows how important he is to his Mom.
It’s not easy. Ania struggles with depression and backbreaking poverty. There’s little food in the refrigerator, and what’s there is seldom fresh. Determined to stand on her own two feet, Ania is enrolled in a job skills training program. She dreams of becoming a social worker — because social workers helped her and her sister when they needed it most. She’s helping others at The Hub – and maintaining a vital resource for her own mental health by staying connected to those whose life challenges are familiar.
Before the school year began Ania knew Julian needed uniforms, but she could only afford one shirt, one pair of shoes, one pair of pants. She visited local schools searching lost and found boxes for uniforms for her growing boy.
While Ania and Julian were both born in the United States, she is determined to share the rich cultural heritage of her family’s native Mexico that she and her sister were denied. She speaks and reads to him in English and Spanish. She cooks the foods of her parents’ homeland. She IS a good mother and needs our help to do more for her son and to role model healthy self-care for long-term balance so that she can role model the benefits of good self-care to her son.
So Many of Our Families Still Need Your Support