Troubled Youth Teaching Medical Students
By Marie Walsh Condon, M'06
On Friday January 30th medical students from Tufts, BU and UMASS put down the books and picked up paint brushes to help foster children in the Chelsea area.
The Massachusetts Medical Society Medical Student Section (MMS-MSS) collaborated with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) to make the Chelsea area DSS office a warmer, friendlier place for families receiving services. DSS is the state agency that protects the safety and well-being of children in Massachusetts (www.mass.gov/dss).
Shoulder-to-shoulder with DSS adolescents and staff, medical students helped to renovate two visitation rooms in the Chelsea area office. The rooms are utilized for parents to undergo supervised visits with children in DSS custody. Children are removed from family situations that jeopardize their safety, such as abuse or neglect. With the intent of rehabilitating families, DSS provides counseling, therapy, and legal guidance. In some situations, however, reinstating custody to parents would endanger the child hence alternative placements are found. In any case, the best interest of the child is assessed by a team of professionals and care is delivered.
The service subcommittee of MMS-MSS contacted DSS in hopes of developing a cooperative community project. Subsequently the DSS youth advisory board, composed of DSS adolescents who advise administrators of youth needs, developed a project to renovate visitation rooms. The teens recalled visitation time with parents in drab white-walled rooms and wanted something more appealing for current and future families. DSS administration approved the proposal and allotted a budget for the project.
Not knowing quite what to expect we, the medical students, arrived ready to paint. Overachievers by nature, we quickly formulated a plan and executed it. However our scientific knowledge and goal-driven approach was no match for the expertise and perception of the DSS folks. The devotion displayed by the teens and DSS staff was overwhelming. These adolescents have experienced the pain of loving somebody who abused them. They have been neglected by the people who were supposed to care for them unconditionally. They know exactly how it feels to stand in the doorway of the visitation room each week and say goodbye to a parent. No shade of paint or box of toys could make that any easier, and most of us could not even begin to imagine how that feels. The adolescents asked us "how hard is college" and "how did you know you wanted to be a doctor" and we answered them honestly. We thought we would be positive role models, but it was the other way around. The DSS teens exemplified hope, survival, and overcoming adversity. You can't get that from any medical text.