If you have completed an adoption homestudy and would like to have your information forwarded to this child's worker, contact us.

MALIJAH (8/98), or "Mya" as she likes to be called, is a very charming, bright and personable girl. A pretty girl with dark brown hair, big brown eyes, and a slight build, she has a strong personality and a great sense of humor. Her social skills are very good, and she interacts with others by asking questions and giving compliments. She continues to make friends and is being more helpful and more nurturing to others. Her therapist, who sees her as organized, determined, and assertive, believes she has strong leadership potential. Mya is responding very nicely to the attention and special nurturing of individual time with the adults in her life. Mya, who is legally free, came into foster care with her sisters in October 2003.

To help Mya reclaim her childhood and move forward in her life, she was referred to a local residential treatment program in December 2006. The structure, emotional safety, therapeutic child care, and mental health counseling of her residential program have all been important components in helping her begin to overcome the effects of the severe trauma she experienced.

Mya has made important gains, especially over the past several months. She is more age-appropriately playful and has been better at “being a kid.” Academically, she appears to be developmentally astute and on target. And she has become very active in recreational activities, including skiing, various team sports, and horseback riding – all of which are so important in helping her enjoy being her age.

Following her graduation from her treatment program, Mya is likely going to need on-going counseling for the foreseeable future. Having adoptive parent(s) willing to participate with her in family counseling during her transition into her new home could be a very meaningful way for them to demonstrate their love and commitment to her. It could also help to demonstrate her new parent(s) willingness to use such therapeutic supports to help family members resolve personal and family issues.

Mya needs a highly skilled family with a level of experience that will allow the parent(s) to understand the damage that was done to her. Such a family will be able to side-step and/or redirect power struggles and provide clear, explicit, and consistent rules, expectations, and limits, as well as consistent follow-through on consequences. The family will have a safety plan in place in the home with very attentive parental supervision to help Mya stay on track. Mya needs to be an only child or the youngest of much older emotionally and socially healthy children. The family will also need to make sure that she routinely has many opportunities to participate in fun child and family activities and sports. Although Mya’s charm and personality are wonderful strengths, they can also be used to manipulate and act out. Mya needs a family able to stay at least one step ahead of her. Confident and firm adults will be the ones most likely to do well with Mya.


Subsidy and Purchase of Service may be available.

Return to Washington's Waiting Children index or see next child in Washington index.

View another state index: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon.

Copyright © 2008 Northwest Resource Associates. All rights reserved.