hello and welcome to pathways i'm jenny hartshorn your host have you ever wonder what happens to teens who are abandoned sexually abused or just suffer from a trauma or trafficking or something awful where do they go well life ty's is an organization that houses these people helps them gives them services and i thought i'd be really interesting to talk to them so we're going to go talk to the founder and a few of the people in the organization so let's go when i arrived i was warmly greeted by a wonderful member of this organization from there i got to meet the rest of the team that make this vital organization work so let's meet these wonderful women and see what life ties is all about lifetime's has been in the business for about thirty years of providing a safe haven for youth who are at risk homes that i work and the first one is rainbow house which is located in trenton rampal house specializes in services for girls who are ages twelve to twenty one and among that group of young women there are girls who are pregnant and parenting  we had a very insightful man come from new york and working at the state division of health his name was bob humble and he came up to me and he said mary i love what you're doing here a triad would you consider opening a group home house started it was actually the first group home in mercer county home seems to be the key though mary i mean you've really really building a home so so in these homes they have services right that they provide and and then how do you decide what services should be you know for each program or each home or is it different for each home or is it all the same well it's pretty much the same but what we really tried to do is tailor it to each child part of it is about teaching the young people regular adult daily living skills so with the thought that when they leave us if they don't transition back home with family some of them will be on their own try a house with sixteen to twenty one so when  twenty one year old is leaving me what would they need to know how to manage a bank account how to rent an apartment how to get a job how to keep a job so we have a clinical services department that provides treatment to our youth and hopefully eventually provide services to the community we now have a clinical department back when rainbow house opened and triad house open we did not have a clinical department because the kids that were getting into programs now really have very most of them have serious psychiatric backgrounds i'm the clinical director of clinical services so that means that i'm that they had their best year ice supervise the therapists that provide the direct services to our youth and on occasion i'm the one that's doing individual or group care for them but for the most part i'm supervising other there i'm also reviewing all referrals for youth that might potentially come and live with us and making sure that when they do come and live with us that we have services set up that are appropriate for them for example if we have a youth coming in that we know has issues with the trauma history i'll make sure that they get connected with our trauma therapist here or if they're in our youth that wants to transition because they're transgender we'll get them connected with the only center in philadelphia or with some other services if there are youth that struggling with substance abuse before they come in we want to make sure that we have all the supports in place so that they can maintain their sobriety while they're living with us that might mean setting them up with meetings or external supports the whole process that happens the goal is always to keep kids at home with their family so they provide you support at home in your community and if you need more then eventually you can end up in a home like this one to prepare you to go back home eventually they are here because the services that we have they needed some of which were not available in their own homes or in communities or you know was in the identifiable adult some kids have been homeless some kids have parents who are struggling you're struggling and they need support and one of the supports required a kid to come out of home in they can end up in a program like this you know what is it you're kind of traumas to deal with here  frequently it's compound did grief or loss issues abuse neglect child sexual abuse it could be witnessing domestic violence or it's witnessing a parent substance abuse problem or mental health issue it could be living in a war torn neighborhood or country they're angry they're depressed some of them are just acting out all of the time we have a number of kids  displaced from their families in other places because of other people's inability to accept their lifestyles that means let's say a father and mother are on except thing your son's desire to not desire but him being gay so he has to leave home in it where there is a lot of the synch and there's fighting there are a number of other things for everybody is different and then home becomes a place that isn't safe so we have to find a safe haven for this kid and try to house has been that place for many years give you an example of one man young man that we had a triad house a young gay man and he said he came to us from a psychiatric facility and look i'm a big pushover i just love these kids i really do and he came and he said to me you know he said i wound up in the psychiatric facility because i was in for foster home my list foster home they said they would never throw me out and he was a reverend and he said you are not gay he said i see something in you i think that could become a minister he said so you're not gay just pray read the bible and this young man and actually had a breakdown because he tried so hard to be what they wanted him to be in their process the religious right feel a big can do that there's a program where you can sort of dig a someone or something i mean that's so how do you live with that where you feel like you know you're not living up to what this guy expects and you know so many of our kids are like that you know so many of our kids get referred to perform care or sometimes they call triage directly and then we navigate them through the process to get the support they meet what we want for all of our kids is to have them graduate have them start their lives independently get their driver's license go to college get a bank account and we want them to work on whatever got them into trouble in the first place or got them into care in the first place and it might be it's most likely going to be trauma and do that work and choose to do that themselves and  maybe do some healing of relationships where they burned some bridges with their family or with their or that just feeling with their family life skills you know we teach them we teach them how to apply for a job we teach them all kinds of life skills taking a boss you know doing things that you know well good parents might do you absolutely and i've had parents say i wish you could teach us something i don't think they were that program could go over and over  not only the length of time that a kid could in our in our mary's place program at their apartments and we teach life skills but these are the kids who are either going to college or working where we do some of the interfacing if they're not doing too well on the job you know we talk to you all the way from and that's a component i would love to see expanded and i mean what helping the apartments and but having them we can only keep them up till they're twenty first birthday and i think i mean parents know with their own children twenty one i don't know they were that you're nurturing parents exactly so i think if we could keep them beyond that to about twenty five i think that would be phenomenal many of them are aging out of programs like ours after twenty one there needs to be support to continue you know that safe keeping for them apartments a lot of programs are looking to develop things like that it's with the hope that we continue to do the  same we have some partly but growing that will be important so that these kids are not forgotten even when they are still twenty one twenty two and twenty three year olds though our kids have been you know in and out of so many different places they've been through so much you know they just you know to expect that magically at twenty one they're going to be fine is just really an illusion that it just isn't possible for them to really with a with the exception of a very few  it's not achievable and the other the other group that i would love to see us be able to have apartments and really provide that service for as the moms and babies because they really they really need that support they really you the state ok funding ok but we've we've been very fortunate to have people like whitney houston you know involved with yes tell us about that as a matter of fact when she won the ronald mcdonald golden heart award in   meet some very famous people but one of the things that they did is they came into rainbow house and they did some filming and the gentleman who was over all of the film crew and who was  guess he was in charge of me rather than the camera a point person from the agency one day when we were filming the girls were telling their stories and he pulled me aside and he said to me you know mary he said shortly before i came here he said i was diagnosed with hiv he said and i actually contemplated committing suicide he said i came here he said and i see how these girls what they have been through and how they still have hope wow and he said i'm almost ashamed of myself with all that i have for you know wanting to to do away with my life the most rewarding part of my job by far is being able to see our youth go out into the world when they leave us and it's a successful discharge it is very exciting for everyone and so that's what we want we throw a big graduation party for everyone every june and we essentially have an equivalent party for whenever anyone an equivalent an equivalent like a party whenever anyone leaves us but lots of them leave at the end of the school year and that's a happy it is it is when a kid is successfully discharged back to family or back down to independent living that is a huge day is such is important work and somebody has to do it these kids they deserve it but what i think that that's really what life ties is about hope no matter who