Book Offers Hope for Youth in Care

BY DON MCSWINEY

“YOU NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND a person until you consider things from his point of view,” wrote Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird, “until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Youth in Care Chronicles: Reflections on Growing Up in the Child Welfare System is an astonishing new book, written by 18 people who grew up in Alberta’s child welfare system. The book provides a rare opportunity to really understand what life was like for them while highlighting the impact we can all make on someone’s life.

“I hope it provides inspiration,” says Cody Murrell, BSW, RSW. “When I was growing up in care, I didn’t know a single youth in care who had successfully gotten a job and maintained it for more than a year. The bar was really low. I’m really hoping that this book will show [youth in care] ‘Hey, there are a lot of really crazy, insane, difficult stories and challenges that everyone went through, but keep going through it. You can get through it and you can be successful. Know that that is an option.’”

Murrell, who graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work (with a 4.0 GPA) in 2016 from the University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work’s Edmonton campus, has come full circle in a way. He’s now a supervisor with Alberta Children’s Services and he says he hopes the new book will also bring awareness and reframe the narrative about youth in care. “There’s often a lot of shame that you experience,” says Murrell.

“There’s a lot of stigma that actually keeps people from openly sharing their experiences. And it internalizes guilt for them and makes them feel bad.”

Like many of the other authors in the book – which is available on Amazon.ca – Murrell overcame unimaginable odds and hardships in his life. His father was in and out of prison and died shortly after Murrell turned five years old. His mother sank into a depression and began to use heavy drugs, working to support her family with sex work, before social services intervened.

From there it was a steady procession of foster parents and group homes for Cody. Not surprisingly he lashed out and “troublemaker” was a permanent addition to his growing list of labels. The cycle continued until somebody actually showed they cared.

It was the mother of one of his high school friends who took an interest in him and began to nurture him. She cared about doing little and big things like taking him to rugby or football practice and teaching him, as he says, what it means to be part of a family — no matter how hard he tried to push her away.

“I hope people really hear the difference my adopted family made,” he says. “They had no need to, and at times I certainly did things to push them away. But they stuck at it, and it has been what has changed my life.”

The project, which was funded by the Canadian Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Research Network (CanFASD), was compiled by a diverse editorial team that included Murrell and two other former youth in care who are now child welfare supervisors (Theresa Tucker-Wright and Megan Mierau), another recent UCalgary social work graduate (Erin Leveque), UCalgary social work professor Dr. Dorothy Badry, PhD, RSW, and Penny Frazier, a freelance writer who has worked with marginalized youth for over four decades.

YOUTH IN CARE CHRONICLES: Reflections on Growing Up in the Child Welfare System is available on Amazon.ca

DONALD MCSWINEY is the manager of Communications and Marketing in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Social Work.