A hard start in life with a great view towards the future!

 

Did you know that scrapbooking (aka telling your story) can work miracles? 

 

It has for Miss Hattie Jane.  Hattie is a 17-year-old with an event-filled past; one that kept colliding with her present. After her parents split in a very nasty divorce  when she was 5, Hattie moved in with her dad while the rest of her siblings stayed with mom.  Needless to say, the shock of the event, combined with the continued ugliness between her parents, left her scarred and hurt.  

 

When Hattie was 12, she was moved from a private school into a public school.  There were 10 times the number of students there and so much peer pressure.  This dramatic change left her in a miserable state; one where she felt ugly and without friends. She found acceptance only among the misfits and druggies. While she had been involved in competitive cheerleading since she was 4 years old, she was off the team by the 8th grade for failing drug screens.

 

She "entered the system" 2 years ago right and was a force to be reckoned with. She rarely went to school and when she did, she came for lunch hour and then left. She had a slew of "boyfriends," quickly forming "relationships" with any male that showed her a little bit of attention. She was defiant and quick to announce there was nothing to be done about her addictions and life choices. Even though her therapist couldn't help but agree with her, Hattie continued making choices that could've killed her.

 

Fortunately for Hattie, there was the "perfect storm" of legal charges that came about and, by a stroke of luck, she was picked up at work by the police.  Her first several months of treatment were quite difficult, as she was especially defiant and had no intentions of sticking to her treatment plan once she was out of her program.  After a while, though, she started to change and seemed to crave the attention she received for doing the next right thing. She was so proud the day she was awarded the "Culture Cup" (a reward for the patient who demonstrate the most positive attributes that week; ones that exemplify the values of the treatment program and its culture).

 

Meanwhile, Hattie Jane was introduced to scrapbooking by her therapist... and she was enthusiastic about it. She and her therapist would meet together and work on it for hours at a time, which helped her to take up journaling and spend less time with her old friends.  When school started, she actually started attending every day, every hour. She will be graduating this June, thanks to her hard work. She has had to take extra classes and earn extra credits to do so but she did!

 

Two weeks ago, she finished her album

 

Recently, Hattie met with her therapist, telling her all about sharing her book with her friends at her treatment group.  Needless to say, it impressed both the staff and the youth.  Hattie has been asked to lead a scrapbooking group at the treatment center...and she can hardly wait to get started!

 

Scrapbooking and miracles? Yep, they definitely go together!