Matt’s Fight to Survive

Abstract By the age of ten, Matt was using crack, living on the street, stealing cars, and running from fourteen foster homes. He could have stayed home if he’d been willing to bend to the righteous rules imposed by his Jehovah’s Witness mother and Baptist minister father. He could have stayed locked in the basement to study the Bible, but he ran away. Eventually he was taken to CV’s Residential Treatment Center. After an explosive start, Matt did well in school and developed work ethic and employment skills in the WAY program. Matt’s transition from CV into adulthood provides helpful lessons about what is needed by young people to succeed when they have little or no adult support. He’s certain he would have been killed had he stayed home. His long stay at CV’s RTC and a group home makes him an outlier, but it shouldn’t make him a failure.