HOMELESS AND RUNAWAY YOUTH

Liz Shumate: One thing that the Federal Government has found is that youth are leaving their small rural towns to go and look, you know, for jobs or other housing options in larger areas.  In 2009, DHS was awarded a federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, specifically the Family and Youth Services Bureau, and the funding is specifically for runaway and homeless youth in a rural area.  So we were looking at Blaine and Kingfisher counties, which is our target service area.  

Earl Hartfield: When I work with these kids, it’s more than just as a social worker.  These are kids that I’ve known since birth, a lot of them I went to school with their parents, so this project and what I’m doing is something that’s very close to me in my heart.

Cameron: We get in little groups, about five or six, and we just go through telling basically our life story, just you know, about where we’ve came from and what we’ve gone through, and how it’s helped us to become stronger. 

Earl Hartfield: To me the kids are the ones that have done all the work, shown up to every meeting, and everything that we’ve asked they’ve stepped up and done.

Jessi:  I graduated.  I’m the oldest.  I graduated in ’09.  Half the people that come, I never spoke to in high school. Ever (laughs).  And now, I mean, we work together, we decide on, like, stuff together, to get it all done.

Earl Hartfield: We’re trying to address employment.  That’s a big thing.  A lot of kids are now dropping out.  Through this, what we’re trying to do is catch the kids before they fall in the cracks.  And then see how many kids we can reach that, you know, have fallen before we got this together.

Liz Shumate: And so, it was decided that they wanted a place of their own which they named “The Spot”.  And so, within The Spot there’s going to be endless possibilities but we’ll be able to do these three core things that the Federal Government wanted us to do.  But in doing that, we’re really going to utilize the concept of positive youth development which means that we use youth as a resource.  We don’t make any major decisions, really any decisions, without youth input.

Da’Ron:  And The Spot is just somewhere you can come to, and like, away from your problems and, like, there’s people you can relate to and stuff.  And, it’s kind of a getaway.  And we have the individual name, called the Spotters, and that originated from lifting.  And the spotter stands over you when you lift and helps you out in case you’re struggling and that’s what we aim to do.

Liz Shumate; And I think it’s really great that the Federal Government has taken an interest in rural America because these youth and these families are just as important as people in Oklahoma City or Chicago, New York City, anywhere else.  I think that’s one thing that this town and this community can really benefit from, is that you’re bigger than Watonga, you’re bigger than Blaine County, you’re bigger than Oklahoma, and just developing those relationships.  And I think it would be awesome if, you know, we look in ten years and, you know, this project is referenced as something that really, you know, changed policy for youth nation-wide.