Troubled Kids Who Just Say No to Failure

It would have been easy to think of himself as a failure.

David Campbell never knew his parents, never lived in a place he considered home.

As an infant, he went straight from the hospital into a foster home . . . the first of 13 different “placements” he would pass through as a child. Twice, families took him and promised to adopt him, then turned him out when things got hard.

By 15, Campbell had joined a gang, done a stint in Juvenile Hall, was on the verge of being kicked out of school . . . and en route, it seemed, to becoming one of the thousands of youths who “graduate” from foster care each year into lives of drugs, dependency and crime.

But at 17, by sheer will, Campbell turned his life around . . . got a job, finished school, enrolled in college and began volunteering at church and the local YMCA. He’s now 19 and lives in San Diego.

And last Friday, Campbell was among eight former foster children who received scholarships from the Southern Area Fostercare Effort--awards honoring not only their accomplishments, but also their dreams.

*

They are products of a child welfare system that is more often criticized for its failures than recognized for its successes. They were rescued once from dangerous homes, then doomed to grow up without families.

Their accomplishments might seem puny to some: They have graduated from high school, enrolled in college. They work, pay rent, volunteer their time to work with other foster kids.

But they reflect triumphs over the kind of problems that most of us never see.

Khoi Phan came to this country alone from Vietnam and was a ward of the system from the age of 10. Today, at 21, he has a 3.0 GPA as a physics major at UC Irvine and is a peer counselor at Orangewood Children’s Home.

Jamal Wright, 23, was in and out of foster care from the time he was 5. At 15, he moved out on his own. Today, the Tustin resident attends college, mentors younger students and travels frequently to Sacramento to be an advocate for foster care reform.

Garrett Hull, 22, was so unmanageable as a child that he was shuffled among seven foster homes in 18 months. Jonathon Doyle, 20, battled a lifetime of anger wrought by abuse from parents addicted to alcohol and drugs. Now both are in college and living on their own.

Yazmin Navarro sought refuge from her abusive home in gangs and drugs and ultimately an attempt at suicide. Now 20, she has worked and supported herself since she was 12. She helps run a program for foster youth and studies industrial technology at Cal State L.A.

And Andrea Gordon spent her life shuttling in and out of foster care but still maintained a 3.9 GPA. Now, at 18, she is a sophomore premed major at UC Irvine.

Their stories, said Barbara Labitzke of the Fostercare group, are a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. Her group, an 18-year-old charity, works to improve the lives of foster children in the eight Southern California counties.

At the group’s luncheon Friday, each youth strode up to the lectern, looking not like an abused and neglected child but like a strong and capable young adult, going forward with resolve and pride.

They were realistic, not bitter . . . able to forgive parents who could not care for them and to give thanks to the families that took them in.

And grateful not just for the money that will help pay tuition and handle bills but also for the recognition, “for this room full of people who love us and care about us, even though we still have a long way to go,” in the words of Wright.

And they were full of advice for others like them, who are battling long odds, caught up in a system that makes them feel more like numbers than youngsters.

“Don’t sit around and pout about things that are done to you,” cautioned Gordon. “I have come up from the muck and the dirt of my past to make a life, and so can you.”

And if the foster care system didn’t save them, it kept them afloat, at least long enough for them to find their way.

There is something about growing up in foster homes that can force you to take stock, to realize that--thrive or die--you are ultimately on your own.

To accept, as David Campbell said, “that your life is your responsibility . . . that everybody has issues in their lives; you just have to roll with it, find a way to deal with it that don’t hurt nobody.”

His mantra, he says, is the slogan he has come to call DP3: Discipline, desire, dedication. Prayer, practice and patience. “Whenever I hit an obstacle, I just stop and think . . . DP3.”

Still, he mourns the childhood he never had. He is studying child psychology and hopes to be a social worker, working with children like the boy he was.

“And I know one thing,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “If I am lucky enough to get married, to have children, they will never have to go through this. I will work 10 jobs if I have to, to take care of them. Because this is not what a child deserves.”

*

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. She’s at sandy.banks@latimes.com.