Jeremy was born in Nova Scotia where he resided with his mother and father until he was approximately four years of age. His family moved to Alberta in search of work and better life for them. After some time Jeremy’s mother and father separated and he and his siblings resided with his mom. Sadly, during this time she became a heavy opioid user and Jeremy and his sibling were often left alone, having to care for themselves. On numerous occasions Jeremy has shared that his mother would often abuse them and that her drug use was so bad that his older brother would take her debit card and cross busy streets to go to buy them McDonalds in wintertime with no proper jacket and boots. Due her heavy drug use, Jeremy’s mother moved around a lot throughout his early childhood and then became pregnant with twins while she still heavily using substances. Shortly after the twins were born all of the children were apprehended and brought into care.
Jeremy and his older sibling were placed in a foster family in Airdrie. Sadly, their placement became unmanageable for the boys to reside together and Jeremy was placed in a more intensive placement with 24/7 staffing. Jeremy resided with Wood’s Homes for many years living in a therapeutic live-in setting before seeing success and moving into a community-based program. Jeremy resided there for some time until his level of need, after multiple incidents with aggression and property damage, exceeded the abilities of the community-based program within which he was placed.
Jeremy came to the Altadore program in September 2021. After experiencing such significant upheaval in his early life, Jeremy has a strong desire to find belonging. Sadly, Jeremy’s maternal aunt unexpectedly passed away a week before his move, after transitions plans and travel arrangements were already made for him to have the first visit with his biological family in 8 years. He has sought connection with his biological family throughout his time in care, and after experiencing this loss – and many others – Jeremy entered into a depressive episode and his behaviour became incredibly explosive. For all of these reasons moving to Altadore was absolutely imperative.
Jeremy went through four 1:1 staff before I met him. As is typical with youth who have experienced significant trauma and loss, Jeremy had a hard time trusting adults and being vulnerable with them. With previous staff he had done everything in his power to push them away resulting in staff leaving to a different position. Jeremy would result to verbal abuse, intimidation tactics and property damage to distance himself from staff, and to reinforce his negative self-image. Historically, he would even go for weeks without showering or changing his clothes. When I first started to work with him I experienced him being combative and yelling and screaming daily. Jeremy would often throw or break things and got face to face and would use his body to intimidate me when he was upset. It seemed as though he was waiting for me to walk away as well and reinforce his belief that he was undeserving of care and attention.
After many daily uphill battles Jeremy started to form a connection with me and build relationships with other staff. He was beginning to learn, through our tenacious refusal to give up on him, that there were adults in the world that are trustworthy. While he did continue to have daily struggles within the program, including breaking a window to the house, Jeremy began to work through his emotions and grief and loss. Jeremy cried and asked to be taken to the hospital for mental health supports, and after his return to Altador he then began to work with staff to rebuild his sense of self-worth and create belonging with the professionals that were supporting him.
While Jeremy was in the hospital, the staff supported with painting his room in the hopes of creating a new space for him to return to. One day during a team meeting, Altadore discussed how we could create a space that our boys would be proud of and want to stay at the house. This is when the idea of hosting our fundraiser came to be. The foundation of change is to create a strong sense of belonging for our clients. Our team decided that in five short months we would host an event to raise funds to support our dream of making this house a home.
After his hospital stay, Jeremy was excited for his new space and began to focus on his independence skills and became engaged with school again, through the Wood’s Homes Explore program and become involved with the fundraiser. Jeremy was a huge support with the house fundraiser in summer 2022 by getting items from the community for the silent auction and was the only client to want to engage in it. With his support the program was successful in raising over $17,000. These funds were used to renovate the home and create a home dynamic for the clients to enjoy and engage in treatment.
In June his trip to Nova Scotia finally became approved and he became excited to plan it with staff. He was engaged in the process of picking the accommodations, flights, and rental car. As time got closer Jeremy became more open with staff about his worries and concerns and sought out staff support. In July the day was finally here, one that he had dreamed about for many year finally going on the flight to Nova Scotia. Jeremy was so nervous and excited that he could not sleep. On the drive he became more nervous and excited because his Aunt was texting him to come over for breakfast. When we arrived both Jeremy, his aunt and Grandmother were outside to welcome him with open arms. They had a long embrace and were crying tears of joy to be reunited. Jeremy and I spent five hours chatting with them to make him feel comfortable and talking. Throughout the trip Jeremy spent as much time as he could with them and became less reliant on staff. Before he left his family advocated for more visits especially over Christmas. Jeremy advocated that he go independently this time to Nova Scotia for two weeks over Christmas. He shared that he did not want to go longer as he would feel “home sick” for his friends and staff.
Jeremy continued to remain engaged with his courses at Explore and set future goals for himself. This past school year Jeremy earned 22 school credits, maintaining his volunteering at AARCS one or two times a week and obtaining a part time job employment. Jeremy is now 16 and is working on getting his learner’s license.
Each day he is learning to navigate the complex dynamics of teenage life, but he has learned a valuable skillset of seeking out support from staff when needed and managing his own complex dynamics. Most importantly, Jeremy has learned to trust adults and be willing to create meaningful relationships with others.
