Learning to Love
To see Trina* with her two small children is to see the power of love in action. But it wasn’t always like this. Trina had to learn what it meant to be a mother. She had been abandoned as a child and moved through a series of foster homes until a maternal aunt eventually took her in and at least gave her a roof over her head. This unwanted child grew up to be an angry, defensive young woman and the mother of two small children.
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Her loveless past and lack of a caring, maternal role model had not prepared her for motherhood. While she loved her children, her parenting skills were so poor that she didn’t know how to be a nurturing, loving parent. The only way she knew to make her children behave was to beat them. For the children’s safety they were removed from her care and Trina was referred to Volunteers of America for help. Trina’s Volunteers of America caseworker was soon to be a mother herself. She gave her the type of understanding and encouragement Trina had never experience before. After working with a parenting coach, Trina was eager to build a new relationships with her children and to care for them with the skills she had learned. Today, Trina is working hard to be permanently reunited with her children, and she knows that Volunteers of America will always be there to help her and her family should the need arise again. |
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* To protect her privacy, we have changed her name and some of the details regarding her story. Unfortunately, the circumstances are all too true.
