Being separated from your parents is a difficult experience and journey, so some children and youth who are placed in foster care feel their childhood has been taken from them. Tiana* is now in the After-Care Youth Program at the Bruce Ford FYI Center. Now that she has aged out of the foster care system, she was hoping to experience the childhood she missed and yearned for. What she didn't expect though was entering the workforce, and this new challenge has made her feel she would continue to miss out on even more of the youthful desires of her heart.

After getting personal coaching from her Buckner case manager, Tiana has realized that employment doesn't have to be the end of her hopes but rather an opportunity to make some of her dreams actually come true. Together they worked on finding her a job close to home, to make transportation easier, since Tiana doesn't own a car. She applied for a position at McDonald’s and got the job. Another big blessing for Tiana was that Buckner After-Care funding was able to provide her a bicycle for her transportation to and from work. A huge smile filled Tiana’s face when she received the stylish, pink bike.

She felt a desire from her broken childhood had come true and insisted her case manager watch her ride the bike up and down the street once they got to her house. Children often need a little push from their parents when they learn to ride a bike for the first time. Tiana just needed a little push — a safety net — from her case manager to encourage her to get a job and to provide her needs to help her succeed. Tiana is now cruising on her bike, not only to and from McDonald’s, but with hope of a better and brighter future.