We Are Not a Statistic!

this post is a guest blog by one of our members of a program we run - the Teen Leadership Development Series... they had their final meeting of the season this past Wednesday and will resume in September

Hey my name is Zhade. I am 17 years old and I am a part of the Teen Leadership Development Series (TLDS). We learn important things necessary for life. For example, we learn things ranging from Independent Living skills, to learning how to deal with our family. We are all from The Division of Youth and Family Services otherwise known to others as DYFS. We are teens ranging from 15 to 19 who want to make a difference in people’s perception of DYFS kids no matter their age.

We want to get rid of the statistics that all DYFS kids are unable to be cared for and that we are incapable of handling ourselves and others. Guess what………WE'RE NOT A STATISTIC WE ARE HUMAN JUST LIKE YOU!!!!!!!! We are capable of many things that we are doubted for. Believe it or not, some of your favorite singers, actors, comedians, and even major people in our lives have been in foster care. For example Tommy Davidson, he was adopted and look at him…famous comedian. Do you still think we are incapable? This is why the TLDS is here to show and explain to the world that we are normal just like you or you. We are humanly capable of anything that anyone else is.

In the month of January we held a meeting and assigned people to certain positions such as president, vice president, treasurer, media, and so on. We did an exercise to simulate if someone was going to throw a party, what things we would bring to it, but instead we replaced the party with the group and had what leadership qualities would you bring to the group every time we meet and even outside of the group.

Also here at the group……you know what I don't like the term "group" instead how ‘bout we say family. Here at our family meetings we have a system to win money...YES real money. There is fake money we have that we call LEAD bucks, and every time we answer a question we are able to put one LEAD buck per answer to increase our chances of winning money. I personally like this because it allows us to interact with each other and our family leaders (TLDS Coordinators and Recruiters) and allows us to have fun. So this is a positive group that we all are a part of, even new members enjoy it. More from me Zhade, the media promoter, next month after our next meeting. Hope u enjoyed my first blog for our family TLDS.  Next time, and be safe.