You can lead a horse to water...

...and afterwards the horse will always know where the water is.

It's my slogan. Someone recently asked me how I can do what I do. Someone wanted to know how we foster parents can make traumatized teens get better, and how do we keep going when there is so little hope that they will get better?

This someone is a person in my real life and so doesn't know about the blog. So she hasn't read me say this over and over. But even so I wanted to say, "Listen very carefully. I'll say it one more time."

We cannot heal them; they must heal themselves. Sometimes the only thing we can do is to show them healing is possible. And that is something. That is success. Showing them where the water is, hell, showing them that there is water, is a gift worth giving.