I want to tell you something about the young people Rooted Forward serves.

They are not broken. They are not lost causes. They are not statistics, though the statistics about them are devastating. They are young adults who grew up in a system that was supposed to protect them — and who turned 18 and were handed a bag of belongings and told that the state's responsibility for them had ended. On a birthday. Often overnight.

No family required to take them in. No caseworker required to stay. No institution required to care what happened next.

"They chose to keep going in a world that gave them very little reason to. My job is to make sure that keeping going is enough."

They are young people who grew up without the invisible things most of us took for granted: someone to teach us how to open a bank account, how to sign a lease, how to cook a meal, how to trust another person, how to believe we were worth something. They are young people who learned very early that the adults in their lives leave — and that the safest thing to do is expect it.

I understand this. Not from research, though I have spent fifteen years studying it. I understand it because I lived a version of it.

My parents were addicts. My mother was an alcoholic without the ability to love and nurture. My father was a gambler with no sense of responsibility, who self-indulged in his own happiness. Our family was alienated from extended relatives and seldom interacted with them. My siblings — three brothers ranging from two to sixteen years older than me — were no better off, and we remained distant until well into our adulthood.

My curiosity as a young child was suppressed by tying me into a bed or placing me in a burlap bag to watch the day or night move on without me. No opinions were permitted, especially from a female. Dreams of success were bestowed upon the males. My father's behavior toward me was inappropriate in ways that no child should ever experience, and it left marks on how I understood my own body and my own worth. My paternal grandmother, when present, spent her time delivering insults to my developing body. From a very young age, I developed what is now recognized as Body Dysmorphic Disorder — an avoidance of mirrors as a strategy to prevent the feared consequences of social rejection, embarrassment, or being judged as defective. Love was not part of our family. We were there by accident, unwanted and unnecessary except to be at someone's beck and call.

Education and life skills were never discussed, nor were they of much interest to either parent. There were no family days, no moments of joy worth remembering. As the girl in the family, I had chores. Learning how to navigate life never entered the picture.

"I grew into adulthood still functioning emotionally like that child — fearful, uncertain, and carrying a firm belief that my brothers were smart and I was not."

As I grew into that emerging adult stage, I still functioned emotionally like that child — fearful of relationships, unsure of my path, lacking self-confidence, and carrying a firm belief that my brothers were smart and I was not. I married at 18, had my first child at 20 and my second at 24. Divorced at 27. I raised those girls alone in a world I was still trying to fit into and understand.

I got lucky. I had to work, and my employers became my cheer team. They helped me navigate the world, accept my high IQ, encouraging me to law and/or medical school, and pursue the future like I owned it. Looking at the world as a whole, I avoided the detail. One employer taught me the importance of the fine print.

I went to college after raising my children. I became a psychology researcher, a trauma specialist, a professor. I made a lot of mistakes along the way because I was learning what I should have known as I was growing up. I did not reach my peak until I was much older and wiser — until I had confidence and support, until I discovered that loving was all right, and so was the person in the mirror.

I became whole when I allowed myself to follow my passion. First teaching. Now Rooted Forward.

Here is what I know from both my research and my life: the young adults who age out of foster care are not lacking in potential. They are lacking in what I lacked — someone who showed up, stayed, and told them they were worth the effort. The difference between the version of me that struggled for decades and the version of me that founded this organization is not intelligence or talent. It is the people who chose to cheer for me when I could not cheer for myself.

"Rooted Forward is my answer to the question I have been asking my whole life: what would have been different if someone had stayed?"

Rooted Forward is my answer to the question I have been asking my whole life: what would have been different if someone had stayed?

I intend to find out.

In the years ahead, I will step forward and stand by for these children of the system.