By Joseph Slacian
jslacian@thepaperofwabash.com
WABASH COUNTY, Ind. – A program at White’s Family and Residential Services is helping to prepare the facility’s students for life after high school.
Called “Growing Teens for Life,” the program is one of the few of its kind in the State of Indiana.
“The history goes back about three years or so,” White’s CEO Dee Gibson said. “We began working with a lot of older teens … and we realized we had 140 teens whose average age was 16- to 18-years of age.
“It just kept coming up over and over and over again that these older teens who were getting ready to graduate from high school, wanting their independence, but they had little or no support from home. These kids were leaving and going into the adult world, but they had limited support. They were so poorly prepared to live independently on their own.”
Many teens are in the same situation, regardless of their family circumstances, he noted.
“Just because they graduate from high school doesn’t mean they’re ready to live on their own,” Gibson said. “Certainly they have a lot of mentoring, a lot of guidance, a lot of support.
“But you take that to our kids here and it’s compounded more because they’ve got tough backgrounds to boot.”
To help the students, White’s officials developed the “Growing Teens for Life” initiative.
The program is based on a five-pillar philosophy.
“If kids are going to be successful, there are five pillars that we, as an organization, are going to have to do to help the kids get ready to be successful on their own,” Gibson said.
The pillars are getting an education and vocational skills, learn life skills, gain work experience, learn about financial stability, and have mentorship and after care for when the youth leave White’s.
The educational and vocational skills, as well as the work experience, come through White’s. Education, obviously, comes from the high school, while the work skills are available through such programs as the facility’s greenhouse, working in the facility’s food service department and more.
As for financial stability, “we set them up with bank accounts while they’re here so they have that,” Dawn Marseilles, White’s Independent Living and After Care coordinator, said. “That helps them get some education on how to do things financially.”
Other life skills are taught health-related issues, grocery shopping, and getting them set up for college.
“We do applications for different colleges,” Marseilles said. “We help them in getting set up to take their SATs and ACTs, and we do a lot of college tours.”
Partners around the community also help with the program.
“Monthly we go into town and they do some type of activity,” she said. “They go to Beacon Credit Union and they talk about the importance of having good credit and how to build credit. We take them to INGUARD Insurance, and they talk to them about how to get car insurance when they need to do that, or the importance of life insurance.”
Mentoring and after care is an important part of the program.
“We know that if the kids go through this program here, and leave to go back home and they’re just dropped off and there’s no support or after care back home, the risk of them being unsuccessful increases substantially,” Gibson said.
The program will seek to connect with individuals in the students’ hometowns to work with them and “give them a little bit of the accountability partner, someone to talk to,” he continued. “One thing we noticed about the kids coming out of foster care, when they’re finally on their own, when they have their independence, is what do they do with their down time? What do they do when they’re not working and don’t have other responsibilities. What do they do with their time?
“So we try to connect them with a church, a volunteer group, something to give them a place to go and people to be involved with.”
Growing Teens for Life goes hand-in-hand with the goals that White’s founder Josiah White had — education, religious affiliation and work, Gibson noted.
It is through the work experience that the students are able to earn money for their savings account. There are now about 40 students working in one aspect or another at the facility. The area that employs the most is the cafeteria and food service area, with roughly 20 students employed.
However, the most visible area is the White’s greenhouse, where 14 students are employed.
Students are busy getting ready for the greenhouse’s opening this year on April 22.
Samantha and Joey are two of the 14 students employed at the greenhouse.
“I’ve always loved working with plants,” Joey said. “It’s more of a hobby for me. It is still entertaining.”
He said he’s learned many things through the greenhouse, including the proper way to water plants.
Samantha was pruning plants being grown in trays in one of the greenhouses. She has been employed at the greenhouse for three months.
“I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve learned the difference between biennials, perennials, annuals. I’ve learned about succulents and a lot of different stuff. I’ve learned how to dead head (prune). When you dead head, you cut off the old and up comes new growth and stuff.”
She said that through working at the greenhouse she’s had thoughts about pursuing a career in gardening.
“I feel there’s an element of science about it,” she said. “It’s real earthy and it’s refreshing. I’m still kind of thinking about what I want to do for a career.”
The greenhouse is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 4:30 on Saturday. It has more than 10,000 plants and about 45 varieties of flowers and bedding plants.
Gibson and Marseilles thanked the community for supporting the Growing Teens for Life program, both through purchases made at the greenhouse, as well as allowing White’s to partner with them for other aspects of the program.