Q: David, Mr. Rugby player, Ris4Thursday leader, and tuba extraordinaire, how do you describe yourself?
A: I am very passionate, especially about teaching. I do tuba lessons at Guthrie public schools, volunteer assistant coach the youth homes rugby team, teach music at El Sistema, and serve as president of Ris4Thursday. I dedicate myself to promoting foster advocacy and awareness.
Q: Tell me about Ris4Thursday. What do you do?
A: Ris4Thursday started as a way to connect foster kids in college, but ours expanded. Now, we hold life skills events and help transitioning foster youth in the area prepare for college. Recently, I’ve been involved in planning for the Oklahoma Foster Youth Bill of Rights and a grant that affects at-risk youth aging out of foster care. I have also been a part of several panels and focus groups at conferences regarding transitioning foster youth. At one conference, I got to be the black guy in Star Trek. We made a video to help empower the teens during their life skills training.
Q: What is your ultimate life goal?
A: I want to teach tuba no matter what. I’m also looking into starting a non-profit for transitioning foster youth. Through that, I would go to individual counties and teach life skills. I also want to gather more support for DHS (Department of Human Services) and their efforts to teach youth. Eventually, my non-profit would work with kids from age 14, all the way to 21, and then hopefully include homeless youth.
Q: What are some examples of these life skills you keep mentioning?
A: It could be putting gas in car or teaching kids how to drive (not all foster parents are comfortable with the kids driving their cars). Most kids don’t have a job because they don’t have a car, or they’re moving all the time, so we teach them how to interview, make a resume, apply, and spend and save money. It could also be cooking food, doing laundry, or anything else they might not learn at home. Fifty percent of youth have had 13 placements or more, and workers have too many caseloads to teach these kinds of things.
Q: What are the biggest changes that need to be made in the foster care system?
A: For a long time, I told people that DHS needed to be fixed. Then, I realized that all of the problems were due to lack of funding. Now, I try to raise money and support for DHS. Better funding will allow smaller caseloads and better training for the case workers. Currently, their average burnout rate is 18 months. The job isn’t what they expect, so it turns into a paycheck.
Some workers have around 20 caseloads, meaning they are responsible for the welfare of 20 different foster youth. This includes meetings, visits, court dates, and placement searches for each kid. Workers are not trained to be caretakers, but some cases include babies. Many workers have their own families, and this job does not allow overtime pay. The overwhelming amount of work causes workers to dread their job.
Additionally, there are never enough shelters or foster homes. When one of the shelters was closing, there were so few foster parents that workers had to put out the ages of the youth on Facebook like they were puppies in a box.
Q: Do you think you could tell me a little about your history in the foster care system?
A: I was abused until the age of 8, when I was taken into care for first time. My first night in care, I didn’t know that the family had dinner on a first come/first serve basis, so I did not get to eat. I had an 8-year old tantrum on a day that the worker called, and my caretakers, scared of liability, placed me in a temporary inpatient institution that I would eventually revisit three more times. For about a year, I move around to several inpatient facilities, some of which had pharmaceutical departments. At the time, I was on bipolar, ADHD, and anti-depressant medicine, so when the facility did not have a pharmacy, I went off the pills cold turkey, once for a full month.
At age 9, I was placed back with my mom without my consent. I stayed with her for 8 years and was placed in juvenile facilities twice. My first time in juvy was the best 2 weeks of my entire life that far, so the second time, I intended to be sent there. Through the whole ordeal, I was an AP student, and I was so far ahead in school that I could only take two classes while in juvy.
At age 17, I ran away for like the 20thtime. It was Christmas Eve and freezing temperatures, but I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, like usual. I was outside for two hours, and my mom had deleted all the contacts from my phone and told everyone there was a search warrant for my arrest (including me). Not knowing what to do, I turned myself in to the police. When they picked me up, I was confused because I wasn’t in handcuffs. They told me what had happened, and I went into my foster home at 12:03a.m. on Christmas Day.
At my foster home, I experienced my first family dinners, and I finally had a father figure to watch my rugby games and support me. I also got to be big brother. Once, when I went to church camp, my little sister thought I was leaving, so she gave me a gift and said, “I love you bubba!”
I was one of the lucky ones and got to stay in foster home until I aged out. I ended senior year as an all-state orchestral tuba player, being recruited by several universities. My placement allowed me to thrive, so my brain could process what had happened to me. I used to have a lot of PTSD, but through the help of people like my pastor, band director, foster parents, and Bea Martinez, I have been able to overcome my past and help other foster youth. I do still maintain a relationship with my mom. I never got to have the experience of going to grandma’s house, so I want that for my children that I’ll have in the future, hopefully.
Q: What is something that absolutely no one knows about you?
A: I can throat sing. It’s when you sing two different pitches at the same time. Go watch “Bald monk throat sings.” It is life changing.
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