“When you are the adoptive parent of a teen struggling with depression/mood swings/alcoholism/eating disorder, your world is turned upside down. Instead of family Yahtzee games on a Friday night, you end up driving around looking for your daughter who has run away from home yet again. There is no respite from the fear of losing your child to dangerous choices.

Night after night, month after month, for years, her Dad and I tried every intervention including residential stays for her. Whenever she could, she would run away and we would be left in paralyzing fear for weeks on end until she’d call from points unknown and we’d send her a bus ticket home.

Throughout this time, I always prayed that she’d meet caring souls along the way who would literally offer her shelter. These are the angels among us. There was a kind female police officer in Syracuse who bought her a meal, a person in Texas who found her wallet and mailed it back to us, a mechanic in California who gave her a dog to keep her safe, a doctor in Louisiana who called me. And finally, when she came back to Burlington, she went to the Spectrum Shelter for a short time. What a relief to know someone out there cared!

The staff was warm, concerned and offered her just what she needed- a respite and a good dollop of respect. I was impressed then with the work that they did on behalf of at risk teens and my admiration for their work has grown over the years. With so much dysfunction in our toxic world, Spectrum is a voice for the disenfranchised of our teens (of which there are far too many and far too few services for). Thank you Spectrum for being the angels among us!

Epilogue : Our daughter is now in a long term committed relationship raising a beautiful son. She no longer runs from the world but instead has gone back to college and is getting straight A’s!”

Want to share your story? Share online by clicking here or contact
Charlotte Steverson at csteverson@spectrumvt.org.

Want to read more stories? Click here.

The post Points Unknown appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Here is a recent letter from Mark Redmond, our executive director, on his experience visiting Detail Works, our social enterprise that teaches youth the soft skills they need to be successful in the workplace.

Last summer I ran into a young woman in our counseling waiting room who works for Detail Works, our social enterprise that teaches youth the soft skills they need to be successful.

Her name was Ariel. I asked how things were going and she said enthusiastically, “I just got promoted! I’ve never been promoted in my whole life!” She was beaming.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by the shop to check in with the youth staff there. These are just a few of the things they told me:

“Without this program I’d be pretty broke. Because I would go to another fast food
restaurant and work there and it would suck.”

“It’s really helping me be able to manage people better. I’m learning different ways to approach people and asking them to do stuff, but in ways that help them meet their needs too.”

And when I asked why customers should bring their cars to us:

“Because we actually try. We care about the car and try to make sure it actually looks nice. I mean we take care of it and we actually make it look a billion times nicer.”

“We put our heart into it. We try our best and we all work together to push out a great product. There’s a lot of love around here.”

If you’d like to give our youth—and your car—a fresh start, you can book an appointment online here. In the meantime, Ariel said it best:

“I’m so grateful for your donation. Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to have a good life, a better life that I want.”

The post It’s All in the Details appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Ben, pictured left, with Spectrum’s executive director Mark Redmond on the day of Ben’s college graduation.

The following is a speech presented by Ben, a former client of Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Born and raised in Mankato, Minnesota, I came from a low-income household originally comprised of 4 people including myself and three others. My mother, like all other women in the family was well-educated and had a good sense of direction and discipline and was well brought up in an average, middle-class family. My father, who hailed from San Jose, California did not achieve the same prestige as my mother did. Like his father before him, mine never graduated from high school, nor did he finish college and was notorious for unlawful activity which was suspected to be the reason for his many personal flaws. As my father left the family without a trace early on in life, my mother, sister and myself began a long tenure of hardship and anger spanning over a decade. Often times, it was difficult enough that my remaining parent had to work long hours and had to have close friends take care of myself and my sister to even attempt to make her ends meet.

Since parents did not have much of a factor in my life anymore, I myself became distant and troublesome as to even have law enforcement involved numerous times during my adolescence period. As a result, I became a lost figure in the eyes of society and delved further into quarrelsome behavior as a way to both cope and retaliate back at the community I lived in. This, in combination with drug abuse and other elements eventually led to my forced departure from my high school in 2005. Being devasted and clouded in judgement, I felt the conclusion that my life was meaningless and that putting the effort into bettering myself did not matter nor would it create a long-term impact on my life as a success.

After barely pulling through a second chance at high school in 2008 and after many unsuccessful attempts at rehab treatment for my problems, I was given an eviction notice by my mother who struggled to have me in her home, without any fault of her own. Not having anywhere to go nor anyone to rely upon as I was already a notorious figure in society, I felt hopeless again as I did years previous when my substance abuse was at its peak.

However, I was relieved again when I found out about a social-services organization based out of Burlington called Spectrum; they had offered me a place to stay at Maple Street, good people who supported my recovery, my personal development, and a chance to get an apartment within the Section 8 program.

I was relieved, yet I was hesitant about doing this, for I was not accustomed to living with a plan to be better than I was at the time. However, little did I discover how important the interpersonal skills and development I achieved at Maple St would be applied to me quite literally. I could say that going through this program at Spectrum was the very reason I am alive today and why I still have success now in life.

Fast forward to 2011, after years of treatment for my problems, I became well enough where I felt the need to find a profession that helped release me from the struggles of poverty and Section 8 housing. At the time, I maintained an apartment of my own and had a full-time job but was at a dead end in my career in retail. This in addition to the growing financial obligations from subsidized housing led me to the conclusion that I could no longer live in the conditions that I was presently in.

Going back to school was almost a dream for me as I could neither afford it, nor did I feel like I could be motivated enough to stay committed to my degree program. As someone who made a lifelong career of not holding commitments, I was almost positive that college would not be a realistic choice for me. That being said, one day while talking to Mark Redmond, I brought up the issue of outgrowing Section 8 and the need to better myself again. Little did I discover the impact of my words again as Mark Redmond encouraged me to go back to school to get a degree. Not only did he encouraged me to do so but ensured that my tenure at Vermont Technical College would be supported by him and Spectrum. As a result of the help I received from Spectrum once more, I was able to complete my Associates of Applied Science in Automotive Technology and begin a career as a technician for one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the country. Without the help of Spectrum or Mark, I doubt that my success would’ve became a reality nor would it motivated me further to continue pursuing a bachelor’s in business from the same college.

For the donors, your contributions to Spectrum are the reason people like me have hope and believe they can be greater than themselves.

So many in our society are at risk, so many of our youth are displaced, disenfranchised, or discarded because they don’t have any hope, because they feel lost and they feel society doesn’t care about them at all. My solemn request of all of you in this room right now in response to this growing crisis before us today, pay it forward and help those who need it most.

Because of you, I am no longer in poverty. Because of you, I am no longer a statistic of the Prison Industrial Complex that held its iron grip on me. Because of you, I am no longer afraid to stand tall in the darkness. I thank each and everyone of you for what you did and I hope will all heart with all heart that you will continue to help those in need like you all did with me. That is all.

The post “Because of you, I am no longer a statistic” appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

“It’s meaningful beyond belief when youth get to see people showing up for them. Someone to say ‘you matter, your next steps matter, your future matters,’” says Katie Upton, our conference organizer.

On May 5^th, a group of 65 young people came together on the Champlain College campus with a goal: to build leadership skills, learn about leadership opportunities in the community, and create bonds with their peers.

The occasion was the Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference, organized by Spectrum’s Multicultural Youth Program and made possible by community members like you.

The agenda for the conference, now it its third year, is set by a Youth Advisory Council, who decides what types of workshops, activities, and resources their peers would benefit from the most.

Youth started off the day with a lively team-building exercise led by Mellisa Cain of Learning Through Laughter.

A community collaboration

The workshops at this year’s conference were led by some amazing local organizations, including the Young Writers Project, Burlington Free Press, the Community College of Vermont, King Street Center, Learning through Laughter, Bright Blue Media, Burlington High School, the University of Vermont, and the Peace & Justice Center.

Afternoon workshop were led by The Vermont Center for Independent Living, South Burlington High School, the Speak Up Roosevelt Forum (SURF), and the Community College of Vermont.

Planned Parenthood was just one of the many community organizations, job programs and volunteer-led projects that presented at the Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference resource fair in the afternoon.

Thinking back on the most memorable parts of the day, conference organizer Katie Upton mentions a student who approached her after “First Hand: Life After High School”, a workshop led by youth from King Street Center and the Community College of Vermont.

“I had a young person come up to me after ‘First Hand’ and tell me ‘This is the first time I’ve really learned what options I have when I graduate,’” says Katie.

To all of our supporters—thank you for caring about the future of youth in our community. It’s because of your compassion and generosity that this year’s Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference was possible!

The post By Youth, for Youth: The 2018 Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

“Every person that I have met is an amazing human soul, whether they realize it or not.”

A group of students from Champlain College recently set out to tell the story of the young people that use Spectrum’s services, resulting in a short documentary titled “Spectrum Voices”. The teens and young adults featured in the documentary are getting the help that they need thanks to kindhearted and generous people like you who support Spectrum’s programs.

Want to learn more about the lives of the people that you’ve helped? Watch “Spectrum Voices” today to hear their stories.

The post Hear the stories of the youth you’ve helped support. appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

I’m guessing you already know the kinds of services Spectrum has to offer and I’m also guessing you have some assumptions about the individuals Spectrum works with.
Before I accessed Spectrum services, I assumed every person was homeless because they were in foster care or in some other type of unfortunate living situation. Boy was I wrong.

Every individual who utilizes these services is as one-of-a-kind as the circumstances that brought them there. I am no exception. Three years later, I still find a knot in my stomach and a little water in my eyes when I think about the events leading up to moving into the Landing, Spectrum’s emergency shelter.

However, when I think about how far I have come and everything I have accomplished, I am amazed and overflowing with gratitude. Four years ago, I was on top of the world after being accepted and awarded presidential scholarships at all of the colleges I applied to. I was graduating magna cum laude, I couldn’t wait to get out of the seemingly small and mundane town of Burlington, and I was ready to take on the world to make a change. What I didn’t know was that I would return less than a semester later and make my impact here.

It’s still too painful for me to delve into specifics about my return, but it happened at the end of 2015. For many months after being back in Burlington, I somehow carried on with life. I smiled, I made commitments, and I packed up the house I had lived in for 15 years and watched it start its own new adventure with its new inhabitants. Despite all this sadness that was weighing me down, I continued to smile, and have summer adventures and just take life day by day. Except I’m a planner and spontaneity was not, and still isn’t, my forte. So, summer 2016 can basically be titled “The Summer of Pretending.”

Like most things in life, I found that the pretending was manageable until it wasn’t. By the end of the summer I found myself falling down the all-too-familiar rabbit hole of depression, anxiety, and more.

I managed to pull myself out of the rabbit hole with assistance from inpatient psychiatry at UVMMC and, when I was ready to be in the world again, I came to the Landing.

Without a job or school, I spent my days at the Drop-In Center and what I realized after about ten minutes of being there was that I was not ready to be in the real world. I was still seriously depressed and anxious and, for lack of better terminology, a “hot mess”. I might have been out of the rabbit hole but I wasn’t ready to wander away from it.

Fast-forward two years and here I am. I have now been living on my own for nearly four months. I also just took a midterm for one of the two classes I am taking at CCV. Neither of these things would be happening if I hadn’t found people to encourage me to wander a little farther from the rabbit hole every day. And I definitely wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had Spectrum help me understand the importance of building and maintaining healthy connections with positive peers in my community.

I still don’t have a job and I am still a hot mess, but I have something that I didn’t have when I first came to Spectrum. I have a wonderful community of people who support me with pretty much anything and everything, and I have an endless amount of gratitude for the work that they do and the people who support them. I have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of what being successful in life means, and I have a clearer idea of who I am and who I want to be.

I don’t know what I would be doing these days if I hadn’t stumbled into Spectrum when I did, but I know I am so glad I did. And I’m really glad it wasn’t easy because now I know what I stand for and what I value. Today, I am standing here because of Spectrum, and Spectrum is here because of people like you who show support—whether it’s making meals, making monetary donations, or being crazy enough to sleep outside in March. So, from the bottom of my heart to yours, thank you!

The post “Spectrum is here because of people like you.” appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Terry and Kiara have been a mentor pair for about six years. In honor of National Mentoring Month, they sat down to talk with Lt. Governor Zuckerman to share more about the mentoring programs they’ve been involved in, such as Grand Isle County Mentoring and our own mentoring program.

Asked how their partnership has changed over the years, Kiara told “We used to play Trouble a lot, and different board games. Now, we go ice skating a lot, we go to the movies, and we go to [my mentor’s] house and cook.”

Plus, Kiara is involved in Girls Who Code.

“Kiara just amazes me,” says her mentor Terry. “She’s very bright, and very interested in technology and computers. She was showing me this program that she wrote, and I didn’t know anything about it, and I thought, how can I help her in an area that I don’t know anything about?

Hearing about Kiara’s interest in coding, Terry’s daughter recommended Girls Who Code.

“So we contacted them, and found out that it was an agency, and located at UVM, so now every Saturday, I help by taking her to Girls Who Code,” says Terry.

Plus, there are countless other activities, too. As Terry told Lt. Gov. Zuckerman, “it has been great to branch out to [the Spectrum mentoring program]. It gave us a lot of flexibility.” Together, Kiara and Terry can go on all kinds of adventures, or out in the community together.

“Thanks to Mobius, there’s a bunch of businesses that offer discounts for the two of us.”

For example, when Kiara told her mentor she wanted to learn to ice skate, Terry took advantage of the Mobius discount to visit the Cairns Arena in South Burlington. It’s free for Kiara to skate, and Terry pays just $5.

Plus, they’ve been able to go to several shows at the Flynn, thanks to Mobius’s generous discounted ticket program for mentor pairs.

Lt. Governor Zuckerman asked how their mentoring relationship has impacted their lives.

“[Having a mentor] has helped me have a little more self-confidence,” says Kiara.

“I feel young again,” says Terry of her experience as a mentor. “I feel like a teenager when I’m with her. I feel excited to show her new things, but often Kiara is the one who is teaching me more.”

And says Kiara of the partnership, “it’s good to know that there’s someone there to bring you places and help you do stuff when nobody else wants to.”

“And, it’s good having someone to talk to. Sometimes, people don’t want to listen to you, but mentors do.”

Listen to their full interview on Lt. Governor Zuckerman’s Facebook page.

Interested in becoming a mentor? Contact Stephanie, our mentoring coordinator, at sball@spectrumvt.org or (802) 864-7423 x321.

The post Mentor Pair Interview: Kiara and Terry appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Happy Valentine’s Day, from all of us at Spectrum. Today and every day, we are so grateful that people like you open your hearts to our youth, to make sure they have a safe place to be, a supportive community, and the help they need to thrive.

Thank you for keeping our youth in your heart.

With love and gratitude,
The Spectrum Team

The post Thank you for keeping our youth in your heart. appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

Photo by James Buck.

Today’s the day!

Detail Works is moving to 22 Avenue C in Williston, VT (effective today, January 4th). Our youth staff has been able to increase our volume, and thanks to supporters like you, we are quickly outgrowing our space for car detailing.

We’re excited to move in to a space with two other auto-related businesses.

Click here to make an appointment at our new space.

See you there!

Questions? Contact Mike at (802) 497-2296 or mcioffi@detailworksvt.com.

The post Detail Works is Moving! appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.

This piece was written by a young person who accesses Spectrum’s services, thanks to people like you, who keep our doors open. It is part of a series of Spectrum Youth Voices.

Dear reader,

I am nearing 21 and under the impression that society would prefer it if I had my act together, and I was nice to you and smiled when you said “hello,” even though I don’t have my act together, I don’t feel smiley, and I don’t want to say “I’m fine” when you ask me how I’m doing.

What I want to say is “horrible.” I am doing horrible because everybody is supposed to be happy around the holidays but all I feel is empty.

I grew up with a comfortable home life but, due to events I won’t go into detail about, that life was taken from me almost 3 years ago. I was thrown into a world that didn’t make sense and I had to make decisions I wasn’t qualified to make.

I had to go with my gut, and it didn’t always lead me in the best direction. So I also spent some time backtracking, so to speak.  I’m not telling you all this so you pity me; I’m telling you this so you understand me.

I’m not the only individual accessing Spectrum who has undergone significant—even traumatic—loss. I’m not the only one feeling empty or struggling with the enormous isolation brought on by all these complicated feelings.

So, reader, this is where you come in. I can’t speak for everyone, but to me, the holidays are just a big, national reminder of what’s missing and what I can’t get back.  The holidays have so much emphasis on material goods but I would give anything to have back the life I lost.

So over the next month or so, take time to hug someone a little tighter, and listen a little longer, because these are the memories that count. These are the memories that will never lose value and can never be replaced.

The post An open letter to those who don’t know how to help. appeared first on Spectrum Youth & Family Services.