Summer is here, and area schools are beginning to let out. To kick things off, we're launching a new season of WYSO Youth Radio. We’ll hear stories from students across Dayton, Springfield, and beyond.
Teenagers want their voices heard, especially about issues they see in their communities. A teen-led group called BATS, or Bringing Awareness to Students, in Clark County, visited WYSO in February to create public service announcements (PSAs). Today, we will hear from BATS member Sydni Howard. Howard shares how the foster care system shaped her family and why finding a loving, stable home can improve a child's life. First, we will listen to Howard's PSA, and then we will hear her reflect on why she wrote it.
WYSO Youth Radio is produced for the ear and designed to be heard, not read. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio by clicking on the blue "LISTEN" button above, which includes emotion and emphasis not on the page.
Finding a home is hard. Children get sent away and don't stay. I would know. My brother was the exact same way.
Please help a kid feel comfortable and loved while the world is cold and gives them a huge shove.
Fostering children may be the right choice because finding a home is hard, and finding a good one is harder.
Find out how to become a foster parent at NECCO.org so you can become a loving home in this not so loving world.
Sydni Howard: I'm Sydni Howard. And I'm a freshman at Greenon.
So my amazing grandparents, they're raising me. I love them so dearly. And my two little brothers, or cousins—they're actually my cousins—they live with us.
So my little brother, he was put into the foster program. We already had my two other brothers, and we couldn't take him in because we had too many people in our household.
So we had to, you know, give him away to a foster home. And luckily we found a really good, a really great home.
It was weird, finding a home was kinda weird for my brother. He was born, and he was immediately sent somewhere, so we had to go get information on that. It's hard to find good homes for foster care, but when you do, it's like a family friend at that point.
What I would say to the foster family that took my brother is that I'm so grateful that they could be able to give him a good home and take him to Great Wolf Lodge, and see him grow up, and I'm super grateful that they could send us pictures of him while he was growing up, you know, his one-month picture, a picture, two-month, picture. And I'm just really grateful for them. I love them so much.
And, you know it just kind of inspired me that, you know there's hope to find good homes.
I really recommend fostering. It can be hard; there are some children who definitely need a little work, more than others, and I just feel like it's so rewarding at the end too, seeing them grow up and find themselves and the thing is with foster care it can be hard because like they might go back to their homes after it's not a permanent thing so being able to just nurture someone while you can it's really inspiring.
Special thanks to Beth Dixon from WellSpring and Cuyahoga County poet laureate Honey Bell-Bey for working with us on this project. WYSO Youth Radio is produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO. WYSO Youth Radio is made possible by supporters like you, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation.
