Letter From Wendy

I joined the United Friends Board of Directors in 2000, when our founder, Nancy Daly, recruited me to help with the design and planning of our transitional living program. I wasn’t recruited by accident—I had run into Nancy at a fundraiser earlier that year, and told her that I was interested in helping with mental health issues affecting foster kids. She filed that away, but not for long.

From my very first board meeting, I was hooked. I want to try to tell you why I’ve never looked back, and why you might want to get involved with UFC. I am a clinical social worker (and a teacher of social workers) by profession, so I’ve long been aware of the unique situation of foster children: often traumatized early in life by abuse, neglect or loss, separated from their families, frequently moved from placement to placement and school to school, and most importantly, having little opportunity for lasting relationships with a caring adult who looks out for them in the present and for the future. Foster youth were people I felt our society overlooked too often and in too many ways. I was eager to find a place and a way to make a difference.

And then came United Friends of the Children. Having been at many community meetings with the public child welfare and mental health systems, the UFC Board meeting was a rush of exhilarating fresh air: no red tape, no bureaucracy, just a group of serious-minded people who cared deeply about helping foster youth move toward successful adulthood. We would start with a small transitional living program, but we would do it in a thoughtful, creative way, based on research and knowledge of best practices.

For me, the single most important thing I thought UFC could offer was programs which had at their heart, relationships that would be consistent and continuing. Housing, career and life skills, and education are essential parts of our programs, but they are inseparable from the relationships our youth have with our staff, board, and UFC itself. Every youth who participates in our programs becomes part of our extended family; it is this connection which makes everything else possible.

It is this connection that makes me love UFC.