Safe Haven: One Young Man's Journey to Help

*Names have been changed to protect privacy

Sometimes, parents can’t seem to find a way to help their struggling teen. There often appears to be no recourse, no ideas on how to teach the young man or woman that they truly love. Saving Youth, a residential treatment center for troubled teens in Mobile, Alabama, is a place where both parents and their child can receive help and support.

For Jonathan, life was a difficult journey from the start. Abandoned by his mother and left alone with his nine-month-old sister when he was only a year and a half left a scar on his young heart. When his grandmother, Elise, took him in, he was covered in bruises and severely malnourished. For years, he struggled to trust again, and only Elise could make him feel loved. But then his mother, Ava, came back into his life and demanded her son back. Elise had no choice but to let him go.

The years that followed were brutal, and Elise worried for her grandson constantly. “I was devastated,” she said, “I knew that he was going into a world that he shouldn’t be in. I knew Ava wasn’t better.” And Ava wasn’t, as she continued to have more children and severely neglect her son. Elise saw Jonathan again when he was about twelve, and was horrified to once again see the ribs that indicated too little nourishment, and the bruises and cigarette burns that showed abuse. Elise finally convinced Ava to let Jonathan live with her and her husband, Derek. Jonathan soon blossomed into the handsome, happy teenager they knew he could be.

But the horrors of the past refused to leave him, and Jonathan began taking and dealing drugs. He was angry and manipulative, resorting back to the behaviors he had needed to survive in his mother’s house. Elise went through the strenuous process of adopting Jonathan, knowing that he was capable of so much more, and that her love for him far surpassed what he had seen thus far in his young life. After the adoption, Elise went looking for someone to help her beloved grandson; that’s when she found Saving Youth.

“Saving Youth is an absolute blessing,” Elise said, completely happy in her grandson’s progress. Jonathan will be there until he’s ready to take on the world again. He may never be 100%, but thanks to Saving Youth and the excellent counselors and teachers he has there, he’ll have something besides his ‘baggage’ to take with him into his adult life. He is an amazing young man; Saving Youth is helping him to realize that again.”