Max Moran and Voices of Youth

Max Moran (second from right) poses with other staffers from Voices of Youth. From left to right: Gessy Nixon, Jennifer Nelson, Max Moran, Giselle John and Lenny Jones.

 May 19, 2001 -- Max Moran is a 25-year old with a confident air. He was born in Honduras, but now he's an old hand at New York City. Walking down the streets he doesn't stand out, but his story does.

Max grew up in the city's foster care system. Although he's counted as one of foster care's "success stories," it's been a tough road. Max put himself through school, and is poised to graduate at the end of this month with a master's degree in social work from Hunter College.

Max's experiences in foster care have been published in several magazines and books. Max has also been an adviser to the National Resource Center on Permanency Planning at Hunter College. For the past few years, he has been working with an organization he helped develop called Voices of Youth. Its mission is to encourage foster care kids to tell their stories to social workers, lawyers and other professionals in the child welfare system. Until Voices of Youth came along, no one solicited the youths' opinion about the quality of their care. Voices of Youth teaches them how to tell their stories so that adults will listen and learn from them. In this report, we hear from Max Moran and other members of Voices of Youth, as well as New York City's Commission for the Administration for Children's Services.

To contact Max Moran or Voices of Youth send an email to Voicesofyouth@aol.com or visit their Web site listed in the yellow box below to check out other Web sites devoted to foster youth.

This story was produced by Davar Ardalan

Here is an excerpt from an essay Max wrote when he was 18 years old. It's called No Way Out (published in the book The Heart Knows Something Different, Persea Books, 1996) Here I am chilling on the last car of a Brooklyn-bound train. Don’t ask me how, but I always end up all the way back here. I'm dressed as if I'm ready for war. This is what I do when I want to get away from reality. I ride the trains all night long. Now I close my eyes and travel to a good place, a place where life is worth living. No crime, no rapes, no sound of gunshots and no discrimination. A place so far away from here that it is hard to imagine. People I know be saying there’s no way out from the streets, but I will find a way. I’m not ashamed of where I'm from, but I'm tired of this ghetto world. My new roommate has a gun in our room and yesterday we got into a big argument. Then he gave me that speech: "You better chill, you don’t know where I'm from." I laughed at him and told him that real men don't need guns. This is my senior year in high school and I'm feeling the pressure. I got two choices: a dead-end job or college. I can’t picture myself in school in the future, but I don’t want to keep on making $5 an hour from nine to five and feeling like a slave. I'm worth more than $5 and I’m too proud to beg for quarters. I'm an intelligent young Hispanic male who will never commit a crime because my mind is too precious to be trapped in a dark cell. Today I will watch the sunrise. But I never want the sun to set on me. I'm too young, I need the warmth of the sun. Only 18, but I'm running out of time. I will leave the streets behind me. Come and follow me if you want, but if you don't, I won’t think any less of you. In this life only the strong survive and I've survived long enough. I will find a way out, some day. -Max Moran Staten Island Max Moran (second from left) at a holiday party with other members of Voices of Youth

RELATED LINKS VOICES OF YOUTH www.youthcomm.org The goal of Voices of Youth is to make foster care a more supportive experience for teens so they are better prepared for the transition out of care. YOUTH COMMUNICATION www.youthcomm.org Youth Communication helps teenagers develop their skills in reading, writing, thinking and reflection, so they can acquire the information they need to make thoughtful choices about their lives. NYC ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN'S SERVICES www.nyc.gov/kidsnyc ACS and its network of social service agencies provide a variety of neighborhood-based child welfare services to help ensure that children grow up in safe, nurturing and permanent homes. FOSTERCLUB www.fosterclub.org FosterClub was started by a foster parent who saw that her two teenage boys, ages 11 and 13, deserved some "good stuff" for being foster kids. Foster kids are good kids who have had bad things happen to them, and she thought that she could help give them a break, and maybe help to make things a little easier. FOSTERCLUB.ORG - FOR GROWNUPS www.fosterclub.org To establish and maintain a nationally networked community of foster kids and provide them with support, motivation, education and benefits. SOS-FOSTERNET.ORG www.sos-fosternet.org "A place of our own," created by and for foster children. On this site there are personal stories and a forum for networking. CONNECT FOR KIDS.ORG www.connectforkids.org Connect for Kids, an award-winning multimedia project of the Benton foundation, helps adults make their communities better places for families and children. The Web site offers a place on the Internet for parents, grandparents, educators, policymakers and others who want to become more active citizens.