A Foster Parent’s Dilemma: All Is Not Lost

A foster parent to a Penikese-typical boy is, after six months of doing a wonderful job, at the end of her rope. She knows she needs to let go but struggles with how this might affect her foster son, likening the decision to “throwing him off a bridge” and adding yet another loss to an already loss-filled life. I listened to her and replied with the following:

True, this boy has been dealt a shit hand, but it is still up to him to play that hand. In the real world people have their limits, there are consequences for how we treat people, and we get only so many chances. Yes he has been victimized, but he is not a victim here, and no one should be keeping him from learning these things just because they feel sorry. This is on him.

But ending the foster placement does not mean he has to lose his relationship and connection with you, and that’s the most important thing. Get some help framing what you want to say, and then tell him that he is still worth it and still matters to you (and why), that you will still be there for him in certain ways, and then follow through the best you can over time.

He might say something like, “Yeah, yeah, that’s what everybody says,” but boys like your foster son have enormous difficulty imagining different outcomes, and failure only confirms what they already know: I screw up and people write me off. You can prove this wrong over time, but only if you follow through on your words!

Try to keep in mind, too, that you never know when a kid is going to get it, and sometimes the only chance they have is when they lose something they could've kept if they had taken the opportunity a bit more seriously. It's a harsh way to learn a lesson, but these often teach us the most. Over the years Penikese has kept in touch with dozens of former students that never graduated, and many tell us that getting tossed helped them wake up and start taking responsibility for their lives.

Bottom line, letting go does not have to mean all is lost and, if handled with care and compassion, may in the long run do more for the boy than all your previous six months’ efforts on his behalf combined.

Thank You, Shirley McIntire

With heaviest of hearts we post the news that dear friend and Penikese stalwart Shirley McIntire passed away Easter Sunday. Her obituary appeared in today’s papers. For those of us at the Penikese Island School and the countless others her life graced in many ways, words cannot describe our admiration and love for Shirley, nor our grief in losing her.

Those who had the good fortune to meet Shirley know that she was diminutive in physical stature, but extraordinary in every other way: her forceful but unassuming character, compassion for those who suffer and strength and comfort in presence of that suffering, a spirituality that matched deeds to words, and a practical, no-nonsense way of getting jobs done.

I hold up Shirley and her husband Bob as instrumentally supportive during a difficult time when the mantle of a faltering Penikese unexpectedly fell upon my shoulders in 1996. They rallied an entire community to the school’s cause with prayer, volunteerism, donations of all kinds, and most importantly, their belief that Penikese’s mission was worth supporting and I worthy of its leadership. In many ways, Shirley helped save Penikese then and since worked with us towards the place, stronger than ever on the eve of our 35th anniversary, we hold today.

With more stories and tributes to come, our hearts go out to Bob McIntire and his family as we contemplate the empty feeling of going on without her.

Castaways, Revisited

Today I reread the preface to Castaways, Penikese founding director George Cadwalader’s account of school beginnings in 1973. Cadwalader can flat out write: pointed and colorful in reserved old-school fashion. Remarkably, George’s prose squares with the man himself, evoking his salty visage and piercing gaze that can spot and shoot down bullshit from a mile away.

Ever fascinating, Castaways is also somewhat pessimistic. Even George regrets penning certain words contributing to its occasional bleakness. In fairness, 1973 is a long time ago and today we understand more about the problematic behavior that puzzled him so then. Never a clinician (God forbid!), George nevertheless draws an uncannily prescient diagnostic picture of learning disability, emotional disorder and psychological trauma.

Then there are passages like these: “Whatever the verdict on that question [of success], I know of no inner-city kid who has taken the long boat ride to Penikese and there listened to the mysterious night calls of the petrels and watched the moon rising over Buzzards Bay is likely to ever forget those experiences.”

Here George captures Penikese’s immutable and unmistakable magic that works under the skin of staff and student alike, instilling a hope and longing for something better that keeps us coming back for more no matter what. That about Penikese will never change.

Happy 35th Jerome Miller

Fitting that the inaugural post of Over the Bar, the blog inspired by and related to the Penikese Island School, concerns Jerome G. Miller, the first Commissioner of Massachusetts’ Department of Youth Services, appointed in 1969 by Governor Francis X. Sargent.

An ardent believer in rehabilitation over punishment, Miller spent two years attempting reforms from within the state’s antiquated juvenile corrections system before losing patience and closing down its infamous training schools. During the ensuing upheaval, minds and opportunities opened to alternative approaches working with delinquent youth, a heady and generative time that helped give birth to Penikese in 1973.

Now residing in Vermont, Miller recently submitted a letter to the Boston Globe in response to a Globe article about proposals for an ombudsman for youth in state custody. Never one to spare his words, Miller clearly has lost nothing off his fastball, at one point buzzing a nasty heater under DYS' and the reader’s chin by decrying our “nation besotted with a violent, decency-deprived juvenile justice system.”

Love him, despise him, appalled or enthralled by him, Penikese is here today in part because of events he set in motion three decades ago. On the eve of Penikese’s 35th anniversary coming this summer, we tip our hats to the redoubtable Jerome G. Miller.