Being an 18-year-old homeschooled student leaves room for a lot of opportunities. I am very active in my community through my church life, Girl Scouts, and also from working in the local grocery store in my small town. Watching my community is what helped me decide what I wanted to go to college for. There are so many families who suffer from poverty and also drug abuse in my small town. It is heartbreaking to watch the cycle continue in the families because no one is stepping in to give the small children the help they need.
I am going to school to be a social worker to work for DCS. I want to be the caseworker who takes her job above and beyond. I will be the one who goes in and makes sure that the child knows they can overcome that. I want to help intervene on their behalf, so one day their children are not calling DCS on them. The cycle can be broken! It starts with the young ones who have an advocate in their life to tell them they can achieve so much more. I have several personal experiences with this not of my own accord, but of family members and friends. I have seen drugs take over families and have just one or two make a different life for themselves. I will go to college and I will make a difference in my community.
Drugs come with its own abuse to children, but becomes worse when the parents subject their kids to situations for a fix. I have family members who were sold as young girls several times in order for their parents to get drugs. They are now grown adults who have chosen the same lifestyle to an extent because they were mistreated, and subjected to things they never should have been. I have friends who have been taken from their parents, but still make sure their parent is taken care of. They continue to make sure she has everything she could possibly need, and believe her when she says she is clean. I want what is best in the end for that family. I want the mom to do what is best for herself and her kids, but most importantly I speak over them that they are worth so much more. I have a child that is like a brother to me, and his mom chose drugs over him. She speaks negative things to him like he was a mistake and worth nothing to her. I remind him that is not true, he is worth so much. He has people who love him. I remind him he is not with her for a reason and even though it is hard to understand he is better off without her. I will make a difference in my community where drugs continue to tear families apart.