Author Archives: sc137418

Foster care: what it means to give a hand.

Communication consulting and mediation is located in Brooklyn NY; this is a center that helps children in foster care interact with their biological parents. Every Saturday morning, rain or shine, the parents and children come together for a four-hour visit. During this time the families interact with each other and catch up on their week, along with sharing a meal together.

Anita Petikans has been working for CCM for about 5 years. She first went as a volunteer and from that moment she stayed on. She loves kids and helping reunite families on the Saturday visits. It means a lot to her because a lot of kids in the system do not get to see their parents; she stays in contact with them to make sure they eventually reconnect with their kids. She started out 12 years ago by adopting her husband’s nieces, and later became apart of CCM “if they knock on my door I won’t turn them down.” She’s also an adoptive parent of four girls; they were toddlers when she adopted them. She has children of her own and that is why she started working in the system, she consistently reminds everyone that “kids need a chance” and that’s why she is there, to give them their chance. Although the visits only last 4 hours, there have been times when she stayed past those 4 hours to give the families more time to visit with each other.

https://vimeo.com/93667008

Every child in the center needs to have an achievement/dream, and in order to remind them of their dreams the kids write/draw on a piece of construction paper which is then hung up at the center. Their dreams help motivate the workers and volunteers everyday; the goal is to help these kids achieve that goal they have. The dream board is essentially there to help achieve your dream. “If you want to be whatever you want to be, you have to go for that dream and shoot for the stars. It helped my daughter, she has a 4-year scholarship and it’s a blessing because she worked hard”. Ms. Petikans daughter achieved her dream. “It helped me because I didn’t have the money to send her and it really helped me.” She thanks CCM because they pushed her and helped her accomplish her dreams. According to Ms. P, her daughter was not apart of the dream board nor CCM but every time she came to visit CCM she would look at it and it motivated her to accomplish her dreams of going to college.

https://soundcloud.com/shaima-chowdhury/iwatch

https://soundcloud.com/shaima-chowdhury/amanda-knox