Imagine being three years old, abandoned forever by your drug-abusing mother and left with your three older brothers and older sister, ages 8, 9, 10 and 12.

For the next two years you are placed in five different foster homes. You are always hoping to see your brothers and sister again. But you never ask where they are. You don’t know why you have to move so much, but you do remember hearing the words “bad,” “slow” and “retarded.” Maybe it is your fault.

When you are five, a strange woman comes to the sixth foster home and takes you away with her. She says she is your grandmother. What is a “grandmother”? But, you feel better because your sister also lives with “Grandmother.”

You are big for your age when you start school at age six. You hate school because you are stupid and get into a lot of fights. Grandmother locks you in your room when you are bad.

When you are eleven. Franny, your sister and only friend graduates from high school and leaves home. You are angry and alone. You begin to skip school, run away from home and stay out all night, hanging in the streets with older kids and beginning to get in trouble with the law.

At age 14 your grandmother gives up and asks the Department of Family and Children Services and the Department of Juvenile Justice to find a place for you to live.

For the next two years you are placed in 19 different foster homes, Youth Development Centers, group homes and Residential Treatment Centers. Sometimes you go to public school and sometimes you go to school on the campus of the treatment center and Youth Development Center. You think that you are stupid and you have trouble sitting still.

Jonathan was 16 when he came to Project Adventure’s ILP program. He was 6’5”, constantly looked at the ground and was difficult to understand, because he mumbled. His mannerisms were child like and he seemed starved for attention. We placed him in our accredited school, had him assessed by the psychiatrist and psychologist and had individual tutors work with him one on one. The psychiatrist and psychologist both agreed he had average intelligence, needed medication for ADHD as well as individual and group counseling.

At this time PA had a basketball team and Jonathan quickly became its star. Between school, tutoring, group counseling, the ropes course and basketball, Jonathan began to gain self-confidence and to know and believe in himself.

The real test of his growth came in the 04/05 school year when we placed him in public high school in the eleventh grade. During this school year he maintained a B average played on the High School Basketball team and worked part time at a fast food restaurant.

Jonathan went to summer school at PA in order to graduate from high school at the end of the 05/06 school year. He graduated from North Atlanta Prep Academy in May of 2006 with a B average.

In August 2006, he entered Alabama A&M University with a full athletic scholarship. We wish him every success and hope that he continues becoming Jonathan.