Public commenter says cartoons helped build trust with youth in care

A public commenter described how simple visits and shared cartoons helped her build trust with a teenage foster youth after a tense wrap-around meeting in a resource home. She said the resource father had publicly criticized the boy, and that her approach of bringing comics and laughing together changed the relationship.

The commenter said she first met the youth at a wrap-around meeting in the resource home when he was 14, and recalled that the resource father "was ranting about how he's not listening, he's not doing the things he should, he's not behaving right." She said that scene prompted concern about publicly shaming the boy.

The speaker said she began visiting the youth regularly and used cartoons to connect: "I would bring like Farsight cartoons, and we'd laugh, or Calvin and Hobbes and we'd laugh." She described that repeated, low-pressure interaction as the basis for building "this relationship of trust between the two of us." According to the commenter, that bond continued after the youth left care: "He's now aged out at age 21, but... now he's 23, and we still connect. We still I keep up with him and and by texting and whatnot."

The remarks were offered as a personal account rather than a proposal for formal action; the speaker did not request a specific policy change in the transcript. The comments illustrate one participant's view of relationship-based support for young people involved in foster-care settings and the potential long-term value of stable adult connections.