This month’s blog post is written by Kyle Frink. Kyle is Chaddock’s Chaplain and works with all of our children and staff across departments. Kyle, along with his wife Cari and their five children, enjoy travelling whenever they get the chance. Kyle loves hockey and is a huge Colorado Avalanches fan.
“I’m only trying to self-harm, like, maybe once a week instead of everyday like when I got here.”
This was part of a conversation that I recently had with one of the kids that we serve. We were talking about how much they had achieved in their short time at Chaddock.
I’m sure that many of us can’t imagine our own kids self-harming even one time, much less daily. Yet, this is a regular battle for many of the kids that we serve and it is awesome to celebrate with them when we see progress like what this client shared.
I had the privilege of working as a paraprofessional in Chaddock school for a few years. It was during that time that I completed schooling to become a licensed pastor in the United Methodist Church. Even though I completed that schooling, because of the kids we serve, I never thought I would leave Chaddock. That’s not to say that there were not many challenges. There were, and the job required a lot of energy.
There were struggles that happened because many of our kids battle to be successful somewhere, anywhere, for the first time ever. Despite these obstacles, there was seldom any place that I’d rather be than at Chaddock with these kids. I was called, however, into full-time ministry in local churches and left to serve in that capacity for three years.
It is an even greater privilege that 2021 led to me being called back to Chaddock and now I am serving as chaplain. I, like many fellow employees, believe that I am here because God has placed me here. Regardless of faith though, working at Chaddock means that we are in a position to feed into kids that do not know that they are lovable. We have the opportunity to nurture positive relationships with youth that may have never had such relationships. We have the power to show kids that have had no one to trust, that there are people that can be trusted.
I cannot think of a more precious thing in life to do, than just exactly what we do here. I am humbled every day and full of gratitude to be able to be a part of the lives of our children while they are here at Chaddock.
Editorial Note:
At Chaddock we have a different way of viewing progress. We understand that “one size doesn’t fit all”. We know that each person must be met where they are at – emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually – and that success for one might look very different to success for another.
Many of our children and families come to us without hope and void of the knowledge that healing and change is possible. We view it as our privilege to instill this belief through the work that we do on a daily basis. Sometimes progress happens in minutes; when a child is able to accept adult support to regulate when their fight, flight, freeze responses are triggered; when a young person walks away from an escalating situation that they used to jump right into, or when a hand is raised to answer a question for the first time. Sometimes progress is just making it to school one day, or sitting in the cafeteria 5 minutes longer than the day before.
When you start to view progress from a different perspective you start to realize that anything, even healing and change, is possible.
