Miami Bridge Youth and Family Services Inc.
According to the institution’s website, Miami Bridge Youth and Family Services Inc. (MBYFS) exist to promote the positive development, strengthen and support families to enable the full potential development for the youth and ensure they reach their potential and become productive to their communities. Essentially, the center deals with children who present as run-aways, truant, homeless, or those having issues back at home. Miami Bridge Youth and Family Services Inc. exist as the only center serving kids between the age of 6 and 17 in Miami and operate as an emergency home (“Our History | Miami Bridge”, 2020). The Miami bride services include in-shelter, counselling, field trips in-home counselling and reunification of kids with their families. As such, MBYFS operates in a unique society gap that has been created by various societal issues that have threatened the lives of teenagers and their coexistence with their families.
Miami Bridge Youth and Family Services was established in 1975 and existed as a small emergency youth shelter program until 1985, which was operated by Catholic Charities. After the exit of the Catholic Charities in 1985, the facility was taken over by civic leaders and registered as a non-profit organization and an independent board of directors established. The center’s infrastructure was significantly boosted in 1991 through an amount of $1,000,000 raised by the board, which included a $450,000 grant towards the construction of six buildings for the center. Over the 31years of its existent, MBYFS has been offering residential and non-residential services to children between 6 and 17 years, which has seen thousands of beneficiaries over the years. The center’s mission statement is “to promote positive youth development and strengthen and support families to enable children to reach their full potential to become productive community members.” Which is guided by their vision of a society where every child can access the full range of social, educational and institutional opportunities needed to succeed in life (“Our Mission | Miami Bridge”, 2020).
In the United States of America, thousands of youths run away from their homes, are asked to leave their homes or become homeless every year due to underlying situations (Kim, 2019). As such, centers for the youth such as MBYFS comes handy in protecting these youths and securing their dreams and ambitions through in-house shelters and community-based programs. At times, the center runs its programs in the community setting by targeting families facing reconcilable challenges and ensure children and teenagers are protected from maltreatment, and their potential is nurtured. Ideally, there are reasons as to why youths run away from their homes or are asked by their guardians to leave their homes. These reasons include abuse, separation and divorce that introduces stepparents, deaths in families, economic situations, drug abuse by guardians or the children, peer pressure, among others. As such, these trends in the society do not only affect the social policies in trying to address the underlying problems, but still, some of these problems are caused by policies that exist and expose the families to the issues cited. For example, the policy on drugs and substance abuse, economic policies, child protection policies, and laws on divorce and separation may affect children and cause them to run away or become homeless.
To a large extent, kids run away from their homes due to their involvement in drugs and alcohol abuse and would not like their parents to find out. As such, their involvement in drugs is quite more than what their parents know, and they seek freedom to use the drugs openly and freely through exiting their homes (Smeaton, 2012). Additionally, the sense of fear, anger and failure makes kids seek a life of their own than live in a critical environment that involves their parents’ scrutiny. As such, kids with management behavior problems lose track of their lives and feel a sense of control of themselves and results in exiting their homes as a solution to their issues, without realizing the kind of help and solutions they require can be achieved through other means. Therefore, it is the lack of good problem-solving skills among the kids, and their parents that contribute largely to the problem, and children perceive leaving their homes as the only immediate and workable solution.
The run-away among children can be either episodically or chronic (Meltzer, Ford, Bebbington & Vostanis, 2012). Episodic run away happens when kids flee after an occurrence of a certain event and is not necessarily a consistent pattern. The child does not use it as a problem-solving strategy all the time. Also, they do not use the episode to gain power; rather, they fear the consequences of the occurrence, the humiliation associated or embarrassment. For example, teenagers who become pregnant are often afraid of their parents’ disapproval and would often seek to run away from home.
On the other hand, chronic running away is utilized by children to gain power in their families and presents as a power struggle, manipulation or acting out (Davenport, 1916). At times, they might give it as a threat when parents threaten with certain actions as they realize it is one of the biggest worries among parents and guardians. This, therefore, not only gives them power over their parents and family but also over themselves. For example, when such a threat sustains, parents will stop their routine disciplinary processes. However, running away does not solve the underlying problems with the kids, but only exist as a means they use to avoid accountability and utilize it as the only problem-solving skill.
References
Davenport, C. (1916). Why Children Run Away. Journal of Heredity, 7(4), 169-172. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a110677
Kim, E. (2019). Independent Living Experiences of Run Away Female-youth Discharged from Shelter. Korean Journal of Youth Studies, 26(1), 55-77. doi: 10.21509/kjys.2019.01.26.1.55
Meltzer, H., Ford, T., Bebbington, P., & Vostanis, P. (2012). Children Who Run Away From Home: Risks for Suicidal Behavior and Substance Misuse. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51(5), 415-421. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.04.002
Our History | Miami Bridge. (2020). Retrieved 8 June 2020, from https://miamibridge.org/our-history/
Our Mission | Miami Bridge. (2020). Retrieved 8 June 2020, from https://miamibridge.org/our-mission/
Smeaton, E. (2012). Commissioning emergency accommodation for children and young people who run away. Housing, Care and Support, 15(1), 16-23. doi: 10.1108/14608791211238395