Creating strong and stable relationships as an adult

The relationships we build as young people have a big impact on the choices we make and the adults we become. STAY youth care a lot about building strong and stable social connections. They want to create rich, lasting relationships with their peers and with supportive adults as they become independent adults. Those relationships include:

• Romantic partners
• Friends
• Roommates
• Mentors
• Siblings
• Parents

Building permanent connections with new friends, current family members, or with a supportive adult can be difficult for anyone. It can be even harder for STAY youth, who are often dealing with different systems of care. STAY youth are also trying to meet their basic needs, just like anyone else. This article talks about STAY youth’s relationships with foster and biological families, their STAY case manager, and other supportive adults through mentorship.

One important type of relationship that STAY youth have is with their foster and biological families. These relationships can be challenging at times and may require support to navigate trauma and broken trust. STAY youth say they want these relationships to become healthier. One way that could happen is by learning how to set clear boundaries.

“We spend a lot of time talking about permanent connections and healthy relationships. Our youth can be vulnerable and easily taken advantage of, whether it’s by their foster or bio parents. When foster parents no longer receive financial benefits, sometimes they just totally drop off from supporting these youth. I have youth who really struggle with feelings of abandonment. We try to help with engaging in positive permanent relationships and establishing healthy boundaries with foster or bio parents.” – STAY case manager

Beyond their experience with their foster and biological families, one relationship that STAY youth can usually rely on is with their STAY case manager. STAY case managers are workers who help STAY youth navigate services during their transition to adulthood. These services can include:

• Getting a high school diploma and continuing education,
• Exploring careers,
• Job training and searching,
• Finding housing and resources,
• Learning daily living skills,
• Preventing substance abuse, and
• Finding resources to stay physically and mentally healthy.

Quality time with STAY youth and their case managers is very important to youth. Quality time helps STAY youth build trusting relationships with adults in their lives. But STAY case managers are busy and manage a lot of different kinds of work. This can mean they have limited time to spend with youth. Several case managers said that if they had more staff working with them, STAY case managers would have more face-to-face time with youth.

“One of the things that I have been screaming about for years is that I need another staff member. There is not enough of me to go around. I do 4 programs. I feel really spread thin. If we could have extra staff for 10 hours a week, 5 hours a week, I would love that. I did have someone 5 hours a week for a while in the past who did my busy work, and I was able to really focus on youth. We served 21 youth this quarter, so there’s 21 on me in 4 different programs. I think sometimes kids get forgotten about because I’m dealing with so many other things.” – STAY case manager

STAY youth also form relationships with other supportive adults through mentorship. Finding a mentor is challenging for STAY youth though. STAY case managers can refer youth to mentorship programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters. But not many programs like that exist, especially in rural areas of Minnesota. Playing sports or other hobbies are a way to find mentors, but they often cost a lot of money, which makes them hard to access.

“I really struggle with that because we don’t have any type of mentoring program in our area, no Big Brothers Big Sisters. We have nothing. So, I just try to rely on getting them out and meeting people in the community and doing community events so then they can connect on their own with other supportive adults or at their jobs we encourage them to make friends. But we’re strapped as it is with our funding, where we could do a mentor program because we just don’t have it.”

– STAY case manager

STAY youth care deeply about having strong and stable relationships, but they can face challenges in building and keeping them. Based on youth’s input, and the reflections of case managers, we recommend creating a mentorship program specifically for STAY youth across Minnesota. This should be a priority for future funding and programs. Read more about this and our other recommendations for change here!