Thursday night, the Bay area chapter of the Michigan Youth Opportunities Initiative presented a program on the success of foster care children. The message was geared at educating the audience of their journeys from an abusive home to foster care; surviving all the trials and tribulations to ultimately rising above the pain, the sorrow, the fears and tears to joining the trail of productive adults. MYOI is a Department of Human Services program made up of children and young adults who are currently or have been in foster care.

The MYOI youths set the tone for the evening by reading poems that they personally wrote which reflected in large part their emotions, their experiences and their lives. Titles like "My Feelings About You," "Who will Cry for the Little Boy," "System" and "Necessities" gives insight to the content of the poems.

The keynote speaker was Cherish Thomas, a master's level social worker and founder of the "Cherish Our Youth" foundation who is also a product of the system since she was one year old. Her story is about an area of life that most people don't know about the trauma and pain that too many of our children experience. Ms Thomas also shared statistical information that spread more light onto her message. Such information included that one out of every four children who end up in foster care as a result of trauma suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome), less than 3 percent got to college and one out of five will become homeless at some point in their life.

For more on this article by John Keuvelaar please see the link: http://www.mybaycity.com/scrip...mp;P3_articleID=9967