Silent No More

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I have not written in many months, having retreated into silence. This is where I go when I am absolutely intrigued, or stunned, even baffled, by the complexity of human conditions. Bombarded by recent media flashes of social devastation, silence is comforting when my own perspective is confused, unclear. Uncertain about the state of the world. Silence is self-soothing when I am distressed or fearful.

Surviving Ferguson. Michael Brown. Having a son, I simply will not allow myself to touch this exquisite pain.  The sudden, senseless, and tragic loss of young life, my baby boy.  No amount of blaming softens such a vicious blow to the core of a parent’s very being, and desire to keep a child safe. Living under the Taliban. The youngest Nobel Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai.  Would I allow my own daughter to continue her insistent global campaign to make education available to girl children around the world, while she recovers from a murderous assassination attempt by a Taliban gunman?  Would I support the sacrifice of her childhood to empower so many others? Unimaginable.   Finding Relisha Rudd.  Taken from an emergency homeless shelter by a janitor. The reoccurring nightmare of looking for an 8 year old, praying for her life, perhaps forever. When family chaos and poverty results in a young child being lost. How could my life go on in the glare of public grief and anger?

Next week, the National Center for Children and Families (NCCF), a former orphanage, will celebrate 100 years of addressing desperate human circumstances.  Children without parents.  Youth without role models.  Women fleeing abusive mates.  Families without homes or sufficient food. Mental illness, addiction, discrimination, violence and death.  This is the mission focus.

More importantly, however, we will celebrate the sheer human resiliency we observe and encourage.  Healing through the power of human connection. Four African American adolescent males will chronicle the betrayals they have experienced and their emerging hope, in a short film entitled Fighting for a Good Life. Amazing. They successfully reframe both the personal battleground and the goal. They display their vulnerability, the source of their newfound courage.  And I will narrate their stories that night. Inspired now. Silent no more.

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Author

Name: Dr. Sheryl Brissett Chapman

About: Dr. Sheryl Brissett Chapman, Executive Director, is a passionate, internationally recognized and award-winning advocate for children, youth, and their families, who struggle with extreme poverty, abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and disabilities and related trauma. An author and expert in child and family welfare, she believes in the sheer power of “community” as it reinforces unimaginable resilience when it provides the basic support to those in its midst who have need. Dr. Chapman envisions a healthy, happy childhood for each and every child, regardless of the circumstances of their birth or the socio-economic status of their family.

ABOUT US

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Founded in 1915 as an orphanage in the District of Columbia, NCCF is a private, nonprofit child and family welfare agency with a commitment to serving poor, disadvantaged, abused, neglected and/or abandoned children, youth, and their families.

Current program services include emergency shelters and transitional housing for homeless families, a high-intensity therapeutic group home, therapeutic and traditional foster care and adoption, independent living for youth transitioning to adulthood, teen parent services, and community-based prevention services that promote academic achievement, parental involvement, economic and vocational stability, and healthy families. Our programs have become social service models, redefining both NCCF’s reputation and the agency’s position in the human service continuum in the Washington Metropolitan Region.

blog-sidebar-aboutUs-logo

Founded in 1915 as an orphanage in the District of Columbia, NCCF is a private, nonprofit child and family welfare agency with a commitment to serving poor, disadvantaged, abused, neglected and/or abandoned children, youth, and their families.

Current program services include emergency shelters and transitional housing for homeless families, a high-intensity therapeutic group home, therapeutic and traditional foster care and adoption, independent living for youth transitioning to adulthood, teen parent services, and community-based prevention services that promote academic achievement, parental involvement, economic and vocational stability, and healthy families. Our programs have become social service models, redefining both NCCF’s reputation and the agency’s position in the human service continuum in the Washington Metropolitan Region.

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NCCF's Back to School Drive 2022