At 13 years old Amara was living in foster care, depressed and dealing with the complicated feelings that came from being separated from her family.
She struggled with feeling depressed on a daily basis, became increasingly withdrawn and was receiving poor grades. She felt the family that she was living with weren’t taking the time to listen and try to understand how her experiences were affecting her.
Building Trust One Session at a Time
When Amara first came to Western Youth Services, she was both silent and withdrawn, and had a lack of trust in other people. We knew we needed to start with helping Amara feel safe enough in therapy that she could openly express her thoughts and feelings.
We created a safe space for Amara and she began to utilize Mindfulness practices to help her to feel more grounded. She learned things like using different types of breathing and energy visualization exercises to help her learn how to self regulate her big feelings and Amara became more active and talkative. Amara was then able to begin to share more about her story, to people she trusted including subjects such as issues that were causing her great discomfort at her current foster home.
Advocating for Her Own Needs
Once Amara found her confidence to voice these feelings, she was able to share her struggles with her Social Worker and advocated for herself and her needs. We’re happy to share that Amara was moved to another relative caregiver who was a much better match.
The next time we saw Amara we were struck by the positive and loving energy that her new caregiver exuded for Amara. Amara had a big happy smile on her face and was no longer exhibiting signs of depression.
