He is only 10 years old and yet when he opens his mouth to speak, he sounds like an adult. His worst enemy is his memory. His memory of all the trauma. Being removed from his family as a two-year-old. Yes, his parents used drugs, he rarely bathed, his clothes were broken and there wasn’t much food. But this is all he knew. He thought this was normal. It was his normal.
Jeandré* was eventually placed into foster care whilst social workers worked hard towards reunification with his parents. His foster placements broke down a few times and he had to be placed with various families. Minimal effort was made by his parents to improve their circumstances.
Jeandré finally found his niche with a wonderful couple 2 years ago and they love him so much. Whilst the foster placement is going well, Jeandré is struggling emotionally. He finds it very difficult to accept that his parents are not actively involved in his life. He feels worthless and rejected. How can his mom and dad not want to see him? Not want to be part of his life. How do you explain this to a 10-year-old?
We are concerned that if Jeandré does not deal with his trauma, it will escalate and start negatively affecting his behaviour. Badisa Trio would like to allow Jeandré to work through his trauma through therapy. The therapy will be beneficial in terms of offering Jeandré the necessary skills and strategies to assist him in understanding, coping with, and processing emotions and memories tied to the traumatic experiences he has faced. The end goal would, therefore, be to enable Jeandré to create a healthier and more adaptive meaning of the experiences that took place in his life.
Please consider donating to pay for Jeandré’s therapy.
Total cost outstanding for therapy is R800 (This consists of 4 sessions).
Use the following reference for donations: Jean10
*Not real name, image found on Pexels.com
