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Youth Stories
Just in Time has mobilized hundreds of volunteers and peers who now support hundreds of transition age foster youth in San Diego as an extended family, creating a sense of belonging and commitment. Our community-based model empowers grassroots efforts allowing youth to be positively impacted almost immediately. Here are just a few stories!
More Than Enough
Growing up as a foster youth, Sebastian never felt he had a place to call home. He often found himself living with other people such as family members, often ones whom he wasn’t close with or he...
Drive On, Thrive On
Growing up as one of five kids, Athina remembers a chaotic home. Her father, an abusive alcoholic, wasn’t in the picture. Her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer when Athina was 12. Alone and...
From Unsure to Understood
Alisha entered the foster care system at seven after enduring years of emotional and physical abuse from her father. Her mother, a drug addict and alcoholic, was never in her life. Over the next 14...
Set Up for Success
Torin grew up in a home defined by abuse and drug use until the authorities intervened and he went into foster care at 16. He was adopted by a friend but in the same neighborhood, exposed to the...
Ready to Grow
Makayla entered foster care in kindergarten and spent time in multiple foster homes, often separated from her siblings. She was eventually placed in a longer-term home with one of her sisters, but...
A Thousand Percent to Gain
Growing up in an abusive adoptive home, Jason didn’t think he’d live through the trauma and make it to his late teens, let alone graduate high school or attend college. But he found the strength to...
Mission Accomplished (& So Much More)
Marie and her three siblings were taken away from her mother when she was five. For years, they lived in toxic environments, bouncing between foster homes, her father’s house, and her older...
From Survivor to Caretaker: Caitlin’s Story
By Ginny Ollis Caitlin is the oldest of three girls who did not know their fathers. These men were absent because they had been murdered, were in prison or were just not around. Which puts the...
In Honor of Black History Month, JIT Joins KUSI to Talk About the Foster Youth Experience
In honor of Black History Month, JIT Chief Empowerment Officer, Don Wells, was joined on-air by participant Sandra Aaliyah Harness on KUSI's Good Evening San Diego. Together, they shared...