When faced with a blank canvas and paints of all colors, one teenage mother colored the whole canvas black.
“That’s trauma. She couldn’t see herself finding the color. Wow, that says a lot to me,” says Anita McCoy.
Ms. McCoy is Director of Our Sister’s Place (OSP), LSSNY’s foster care residence for eight expectant and young mothers and their babies. These women range in age from 15 to 21.
“A lot of these young ladies come from trauma…and some is unthinkable,” Anita says. “For some, it started when they were two or three years old. Some have been in other foster homes and lost sight of what love is. They might meet a young boy and they’re not looking at the future, they’re looking at what satisfies them right now. They’re raising a child and they’re trying to figure out who they want to be,” she says.
Some of the young women work. One expectant mother has two jobs and goes to school. Another mother, who just gave birth to her second child, is getting her GED. The children can be looked after by childcare workers at Our Sister’s Place or daycare.
Our Sister’s Place provides professional therapeutic services, informal parenting guidance, a weekly cooking class, and financial literacy from a Fair Futures coach. The Administration of Children’s Services provides for entertainment excursions. Anita says, “Laughter is important for the trauma that we suppress. We visited a haunted house. What came out of that was that we became closer because we had so much fun.”
She makes sure that the young mothers and their babies “do a lot of in-house family things.” Anita is working on a “no cell phones at the table” policy. Instead, they have conversations at the table.
Rather than strive for what she calls “grandiose opportunities,” Anita’s approach is “very simple and very basic.” So during her first year at Our Sister’s Place, rather than celebrate the month’s birthdays together, she separated them out and tailored them to each mother/mother-to-be’s favorite color and desired theme.
One woman wanted “Barbie.” Another wanted pink and black and a princess theme.
“It was unexpected because I made it like a restaurant setting,” Anita explains. “It wasn’t expensive. I’m teaching them something they can do for their children to make them feel special. Those little things matter because they grow into big things. When they haven’t had the basics, you have to start with the basics, It doesn’t have to be as grand as I did. I go all out. I do it from the heart.”
Anita has been with LSSNY for 15 years, the first 13 in our early education program. She knew that working at Our Sister’s Place would be a step-up and a challenge and she welcomed that. While she had worked with children and parents, this was on an entirely different level. During her tenure, she has witnessed the removal of a baby from a mother’s care as well as the loss of a baby who was not in OSP’s care at the time.
At Our Sister’s Place, each youth has a permanency goal. The first is to be reunited with a family member. The second is to acquire housing. When a program participant turns seventeen-and-a-half years old, they can apply for APPLA housing (Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement – A permanency planning goal for youth in foster care who are unlikely to be reunified with their families or adopted.) Last year, four of the young women moved into their own apartments.
One lady who is on trial discharge thinks of Anita as her grandmother. “She looks at me as the mother she never had,” she says. Not in contact with her biological mother, she calls Anita when she needs advice.
A mother to a 39-year-old herself, Anita names her own mother as her female role model. She cites the encouragement to strive, to be resilient. The importance of being family oriented. The determination to make sure that everyone shows up for Thanksgiving.
Says Anita, “She made me who I am now. The loving nurturing person I am with my son. She showed me what love is. What being a family is about. How you take care…I come from a family of eight and I am the second youngest. So I’m the baby girl. I come from that kind of upbringing and it helps me with what I do. You can run something very well but the feeling is not there. It can trigger the trauma that these girls have experienced.”
She is so humble that when we reached out to her to recognize her as part of Women’s History Month, she thought it was spam.
Anita, this year’s theme is “Moving Forward Together! Women Educating & Inspiring Generations.”
We couldn’t think of anyone more deserving of the spotlight than you.