Zara's Story

Spending more of her short life in foster care than out, Zara had seen a lot of different out-of-home placements by the time she turned 13--Emergency Shelter, basic foster care and even a couple of group homes. As a young girl growing up, Zara experienced so much trauma, she expressed her pain and fear the only way she knew how--in violent outbursts and defiant behaviors, pushing all of the buttons and limits she could to demonstrate feelings she didn’t understand and didn’t want. When her latest placement in a group home was on the brink of failure, her team decided to place her in a Wraparound Foster Care Home; one where she would receive a great deal of structure, stability and one-on-one support from a highly trained foster parent. The hope was that Zara might respond better in home-based care than institutional.

On the surface, Zara was a tough nut with challenging behaviors; ones she utilized to keep people at a distance. But she was also immensely resilient, funny, and she was deeply committed to her only biological family, her grandmother and cousins. Even though Zara accepted that she couldn’t live with them due to her needs, she made it a priority to maintain her relationships with them. Her WFC team wanted to build on these strengths of Zara’s, hoping that more engagement by her family would motivate her to engage more as well.

Once settled in her WFC home, Zara’s team held its first meeting and included her grandmother. Zara was cooperative but also slow to trust, as was her grandmother. They had both been through a lot of Child Welfare programs and things hadn’t always “gone their way.” When talking about goals, Zara shared that she wanted to get caught up in school and that she wanted to leave foster care for good to live with her family. While this second goal was one that her grandmother encouraged she also voiced to the team that it scared her as well. She worried that Zara would never be stable enough or have the skills she needed to live successfully with her family, without running away or starting fights.

To help with her short and long term goals, Zara was matched with a Rehabilitation Specialist, Annie, a volunteer tutor through her school, and began working with a new therapist. Unfortunately, Zara started to display some of her old behaviors as the “honeymoon” period of her new placement ended and she started to push against the stability and routine of WFC. She also struggled to accept her new responsibilities, like attending school, participating in therapy, working with Annie on building social and life skills, and engaging positively with her foster family. For Zara, her feelings of mistrust, fear and anger triggered her to push everyone away to protect herself from their eventual rejection--she was convinced that no one really cared about her.

While Zara experienced natural consequences for her poor choices--skipping school and violent outbursts--her team never stopped supporting her, nor did her grandmother give up like Zara assumed she would. In fact, Zara’s team worked hard to validate all of Zara’s efforts to heal and improve--no matter how small--as well as those of her grandmother’s. They supported her grandmother in finding a larger apartment and in her participation in community provided parenting classes. In time, Zara’s efforts were no longer few and far between; instead, she was applying herself more consistently in therapy and school, responding to all of the positive reinforcement she was receiving and enjoying her developing relationships.

Zara’s journey in WFC was not simple or quick--she had some false starts, regressed a few times when things got tough, and struggled to trust those who cared about her. But through it all, her team remained committed to helping her reach her goals--even when she appeared to no longer want them. By employing the principles of Wraparound with Zara, her team were able to continue to meet her where she was, regardless of their timeline, and go forward or step backwards with her to make sure she was really ready for the next step. All the while, Zara was slowly moving forward, building her skills and confidence as she went. The result was Zara being successfully transitioned into her grandmother’s home with continued Wraparound services for support. And while this isn’t the end of Zara’s story--far from it--it is certainly a hard earned highlight that Zara, her grandmother and her WFC team celebrate.