c7146

Child's name: Mariah
Number: C7146
Birthdate: 10/96
State: Washington
Listed: September 2008

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

MARIAH (10/96) has many strengths to enjoy and encourage. She is engaging and friendly and has a bright personality. She loves hanging out with the adults in her life (especially going to the movies!), and thrives on one-on-one attention. Mariah is great about helping around the house, including doing the dishes and cleaning her room. Mariah and her grandmother, with whom she is living, joined a church together, where Mariah enjoys attending youth group activities as well as church services. She and her grandmother feel much support from their church and its congregation. In school, Mariah is performing at or near grade level in all areas.

Mariah has this to say about herself. “I love to sing, dance, have a great sense of humor, keep my room clean, am very organized, very good at math, love horses, garage sales, movies, taking digital photos, swimming, and I can cook my own breakfast. I recycle and love to help the earth. I love to help elders and recently helped one of our neighbors with gardening. I would love to have a puppy someday. I am now acting like the normal kid that I really know that I can be. Sometimes I still argue, but I am working on it. I can focus much better now and enjoy life, school, and my church. My teachers have told me too that they notice how much more focused I am. I am making 100% in my Math now. I am a loving and better person than I was earlier this year and I really think I can get through the tough times without being aggressive and can help people out.”

Mariah, who is legally free, Mariah came into foster care in May 2003. Several months later she was enrolled in a residential group treatment center, where the structure, emotional safety, and therapeutic child care and counseling gave her a boost forward in her healing and recovery. Since graduating in early 2008 from the treatment center and being placed with her grandmother, Mariah has had the support of wrap-around services to further support her behavioral and mental health needs. Medication therapy, which helps to curb her impulsiveness, is one component of treatment. She is actively participating with mental health specialists, too, to increase her ability to trust and form attachments, to help her grieve the multiple losses she has experienced and to lessen the feeling of trauma related to past abuse and neglect.
Mariah also has behavioral supports in the classroom to help her with peer interactions. During last spring quarter, she was able to ask for time-outs when she felt overwhelmed or frustrated.

Mariah will need to continue to have such therapeutic supports, including family therapy, for the foreseeable future. Being willing to participate with Mariah in family counseling during her transition into her adoptive home would be a wonderful act of love and commitment by her adoptive parent(s).

While Mariah’s grandma is highly appropriate and a great support to Mariah, she is not able to be a permanent resource. She does, though, want to be a presence in Mariah’s life following her successful adoptive placement. She hopes their regular contact includes visits and taking some vacations together.

Mariah’s worker especially wants to hear from couples, in whose home Mariah can be the only child or the youngest of older, emotionally and socially healthy sisters. The worker does not, however, want to miss out on hearing from those exceptional single moms who have solid skills and a strong support system of family and friends, and excellent children and family resources in their community.

Subsidy and Purchase of Service may be available.

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