Rep. David Bradley, D-Dist. 28, who is also executive director of La Paloma Family Services in Tucson, has compiled a collection of memos to his staff that he says urges them to not give up hope and hang in there in dealing with foster children.

“We run group homes for kids,” he says. “The whole idea is to not surrender to what I call the tragic triad of the kids that show up in our system.”

The tragic triad, he says, consists of poverty, violence and substance abuse.

“We did a comprehensive follow-up study with our kids, and the most salient thing we discovered was that those three elements were involved in just about 85 per cent to 90 per cent of our cases,” he says. “The kids were victims of it or their families or somebody.”

Mr. Bradley has self-published the collection as a book entitled “Management by Essay.” Profits from book sales will go into a transitional living program run by La Paloma Family Services.

The program is for teenagers who have become too old for the foster program.

“They turn 18 and have no place to go,” says Mr. Bradley. “It is a fairly startling statistic that, in the United States, 50 per cent of the homeless are former foster kids. That’s one out of two. That’s amazing.

“The trajectory of their lives 10 years out is that their average income will be about $7.20 hour. If they’re female, they will probably be pregnant twice. Thirty per cent will end up in some kind of incarceration.

“We don’t do a great job with this group of people,” Mr. Bradley continues.

“When you think about the average 18-year-old going off to college with mom and dad supporting them. That’s usually a difficult adventure for many, many kids. Now let’s take away mom and dad. Let’s take away resources. Let’s give you a GED, but you have moved 14 times in your first 18 years of life. Now, let’s see how you do.”

Collection Of Essays

In the book’s introduction, Mr. Bradley writes, “This collection of essays was written by an executive director of a nonprofit agency during a 10-year period. The pieces were distributed to staff and others through the agency’s quarterly newsletter as well as in separate memos or letters on various occasions.

“As a quarterly newsletter, nature’s cadence, i.e., the season of the year, is inspiration for many of the pieces. The book is divided accordingly, although some of the essays do not necessarily have a seasonal theme. The introductions to each section will reveal my perennial mindset to that time of year.”

Mr. Bradley says he has been successful in getting some smaller bookstores to handle the book, and he is working to get it into a couple of the major chains.

“It’s a bad time because the chains are working on their holiday sales, but I’ve gotten a good reception so far,” he says. —