Charities became `home’ for former foster child By Fabvienen Taylor VIEW GALLERY (use keyboard arrow keys to navigate)
JACKSON — Removed, along with an older sister, from an abusive home at age five, Demarcus Hysten grew up in foster care — 15 years, 28 foster families.
“I moved so many times, people were in my life only briefly,” the 21-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst told over 250 people Tuesday, Oct. 28, during the Catholic Charities Journey of Hope Luncheon at the MS Telcom Center.
After being taken from his mother, Hysten said the hardest day for him was Oct. 23, 1991. “That day I was separated from my sister. She was all I had. After that I didn’t trust anyone.”
That changed in 1994 when he entered Catholic Charities’ Therapeutic Foster Care Program.
“From the beginning they treated me like family and still do,” Hysten said. “Catholic Charities will always be ‘home’ to me. I owe a lot of my success to Catholic Charities. They were there when no one else was.”
Hysten recounted parts of his “long strenuous journey through foster care “ at the annual Charities fund-raiser which this year high-lighted its Trauma Recovery for Youth (TRY) Program. Charities, the social service arm of the Diocese of Jackson, has over 30 programs.
In addition to Hysten, Shelley Foreman, director of the Family, Adolescent, Child Team at the Gulf Coast Mental Health Center in Gulfport, talked about the help TRY provided to her staff and office in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“Kelly (Wilson, TRY director) and her team led us from being survivors to being strivers. Kelly and her team put the umpth in TRY and allowed us to triumph,” said Foreman.
Wilson met Hysten when she worked in Therapeutic Foster Care.
“He was 10 and very angry when we met,” she said. Over the years they formed a close bond and today keep in touch.
Wilson never planned to work more than two years with Catholic Charities, figuring by then the excitement would have waned.
“The foster children of Mississippi forever shaped my life and my work,” said Wilson, who has worked for Charities 11 years.
As TRY director, Wilson’s goal is to expand her program’s services in the diocese.
Greg Patina, Catholic Charities executive director, said in 2007 Charities touched the lives of over 30,000 people with their range of services from mental health to domestic violence to immigration.
“I’m so lucky,” said Patina. “Every day I get to ‘work my faith.’ Every day I get to witness the love of God for his people, I get to witness people reaching out to provide a healing touch to his people.”
Patina said .90 cents of every dollar goes to program services. “We hold ourselves to the highest of standards.”
He asked people to dream that Catholic Charities services could be available to people in need all over the Jackson diocese. “We can do that with careful planning and in building partnerships,” Patina said.
“We can dream because people have fallen in love with our mission and responded. So today I ask you to fall in love with our mission and respond,” Patin said.
Generous giving over the years, he said, has enabled Catholic Charities to live its mission.
Development director Rebecca Harris said the goal of this year’s luncheon is to raise $100,000 in pledges and donations.
The Trauma Recovery for Youth project is working to increase the awareness about child trauma and best treatment practices, to improve access to supportive services for children and their families that have been traumatized.
Staff members of this program are available to do training and informational presentations. For more information visit www.trynetwork.org.
