Portland State Magazine Fall 2015

18 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE FALL 2015 “absolute nightmare.” That lasted about a month until she was transferred to another group home. “It made me a stronger person, albeit more cold and jaded than I would have been otherwise,” she says. “There’s a fine line between someone who gains a lot of strength and the ones who can’t take it and resort to self-harm, suicide or a life of mental problems.” She used that strength to get her own apartment at 18 and to go to college. People involved with the My Life program heard about her and asked her to be a foster youth peer mentor. She was a mentor for two years: four six-month rounds, each of which involved 20 to 30 young people. “My time as a mentor was telling youth how to successfully gain independence, but to also let them know I knew where they were coming from. That had a deep impact,” she says. SIXTY-NINE FOSTER YOUTHS were involved in My Life when it started as a small pilot project in 2003. Grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health to expand the program have resulted in 300 more young people being involved during the past five years. There is a large research component to My Life, so while half the youth participants receive weekly coaching to help them for- mulate goals and work toward a plan of achievement, the other half—the control group—receive standard state services. Analyses from the larger My Life study are still being conducted, but data from the pilot study show that 72 percent of the young people receiving the intensive mentoring graduated from high school and 45 percent of them had paid jobs compared with 50 percent and 28 percent in the control group, according to Geenen. Even though it’s still in the research stage, two Portland agencies helping youth in foster care —New Avenues for Youth and Albertina Kerr—have adopted the My Life model into their own services. “Our approach is helping young people identify and work toward goals that are personally meaningful to them,” Geenen says. “The traditional way is to fit kids into existing services. My Life is very individualized and focused on meeting youth where they’re at.” Shawn May is one of those people. He’s been coached by Summer Pommier, a My Life manager. At 19 years old, May now has a job, 29 college credits and is working toward an associate’s degree in order to be a park ranger. He says he’s considered a role model in his foster home, and soon will be moving to an apartment with one of his foster brothers. “Before I met Summer, I didn’t think about going to college. I didn’t want to go to school again. But she helped me develop the mindset that I can do anything I set my mind to,” he says.  REACHING OUT THROUGH RESEARCH The Regional Research Institute for Human Services is the research arm of Portland State’s School of Social Work, which has graduated more than 5,000 students since its first class in 1962. At any given time, RRI is conducting as many as 65 projects in partnership with agencies, municipalities and service organizations in Oregon and around the country. Projects may address outcomes anywhere from attendance at a single elementary school in Portland to HIV prevention in the Amazon. Some important projects in the past few years include assessing the quality of services for emotionally at-risk American Indian youth living in Portland, and evaluating Catholic Charities’ services for victims of human trafficking who now live in Oregon. In addition, RRI staffs Reclaiming Futures, a project started in 2001 through a $21 million grant that is now in 41 communities helping young people involved in the juvenile justice system. Two Portland agencies helping youth in foster care—New Avenues for Youth and Albertina Kerr—have adopted the My Life model.