New Book Release Truth be Told: A Foster Child's Recollection
Philadelphia, PA, April 21, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Currently a doctoral student, Dukes is the author of the just released book, Truth Be Told: A Foster Child’s Recollection (Affluence Publishing), which chronicles her life & experiences growing up in the foster care system.…from her inauspicious birth to a teenage, drug-addicted mother who abandoned her when she was two weeks old to her triumphant graduations from Pennsylvania State University and Cheyney University. Shunned by her family and shipped to 13 different foster care homes, some of them with uninhabitable conditions and horrid caregivers.
Duke, age 26, is a survivor of physical, mental abuse and neglect she experienced at the hands of family members and foster care providers. She currently works as a behavioral specialist and mobile therapist in the foster care system that she was once a part of and is also founder, president, and CEO of Foster Children in Focus, Inc., a consulting company. “My goal says Dukes, as I work with foster kids daily, is “to instill hope into their lives and futures.”
Although she lived with instability on a daily basis, Dukes always had a strong belief in the power of faith and the power of education. That belief endured on even her darkest days. During a brief reconciliation with her mother at the 16 her mother & her 5th new husband packed up one day and left for New Orleans while Dukes was at work. Dukes came home to an empty house. She sat on the step and cried for hours until help arrived. But she stayed in school. During this time, Dukes outsmarted the foster care system for a while and actually lived on her own, taking an $8-a-day room in an elderly woman’s home in West Philadelphia. All the while she went to school, achieving stellar grades while holding down a job. But the Department of Human Services eventually realized Dukes was a minor living on her own and she was placed in another foster home.
“School had always been my escape from the horrors of home,” says Dukes, who lived in Pensacola, FL, San Diego and Philadelphia while growing up. “It was a place I had grown to love and flourished in.”
At age 18, after graduating in 1996 from Furness High School in South Philadelphia, she found an apartment with the help of one of nine men her mother led her to believe was her father. To this day, she says, she does not know her father’s identity.
Always intent on becoming a lawyer, Dukes won a full scholarship to attend Penn State and, despite some early adjustment problems, earned her bachelor’s degree in administration of justice in 1999 at age 20. Two years later, she earned her master’s degree in adult and continuing education from Cheyney.
Her plans on becoming a lawyer were altered when her car broke down on the expressway in rush hour traffic. A woman who came to her aid turned out to be a clinician in the mental health field and helped Dukes get a job helping children. From then on, she knew her life’s calling.
“Once I began working with the kids, I absolutely loved it,” says Dukes, who lives in the suburb of Elkins Park. “I felt like I could really reach them and make an impact in their lives. Being so close in age and sharing a similar childhood with them enabled me to relate to their circumstances.
“I love the independence of my work …just working with kids, building their confidence, and looking out for them.”
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Duke, age 26, is a survivor of physical, mental abuse and neglect she experienced at the hands of family members and foster care providers. She currently works as a behavioral specialist and mobile therapist in the foster care system that she was once a part of and is also founder, president, and CEO of Foster Children in Focus, Inc., a consulting company. “My goal says Dukes, as I work with foster kids daily, is “to instill hope into their lives and futures.”
Although she lived with instability on a daily basis, Dukes always had a strong belief in the power of faith and the power of education. That belief endured on even her darkest days. During a brief reconciliation with her mother at the 16 her mother & her 5th new husband packed up one day and left for New Orleans while Dukes was at work. Dukes came home to an empty house. She sat on the step and cried for hours until help arrived. But she stayed in school. During this time, Dukes outsmarted the foster care system for a while and actually lived on her own, taking an $8-a-day room in an elderly woman’s home in West Philadelphia. All the while she went to school, achieving stellar grades while holding down a job. But the Department of Human Services eventually realized Dukes was a minor living on her own and she was placed in another foster home.
“School had always been my escape from the horrors of home,” says Dukes, who lived in Pensacola, FL, San Diego and Philadelphia while growing up. “It was a place I had grown to love and flourished in.”
At age 18, after graduating in 1996 from Furness High School in South Philadelphia, she found an apartment with the help of one of nine men her mother led her to believe was her father. To this day, she says, she does not know her father’s identity.
Always intent on becoming a lawyer, Dukes won a full scholarship to attend Penn State and, despite some early adjustment problems, earned her bachelor’s degree in administration of justice in 1999 at age 20. Two years later, she earned her master’s degree in adult and continuing education from Cheyney.
Her plans on becoming a lawyer were altered when her car broke down on the expressway in rush hour traffic. A woman who came to her aid turned out to be a clinician in the mental health field and helped Dukes get a job helping children. From then on, she knew her life’s calling.
“Once I began working with the kids, I absolutely loved it,” says Dukes, who lives in the suburb of Elkins Park. “I felt like I could really reach them and make an impact in their lives. Being so close in age and sharing a similar childhood with them enabled me to relate to their circumstances.
“I love the independence of my work …just working with kids, building their confidence, and looking out for them.”
###
Contact
Foster Children In Focus, Corp
Tashima Dukes
214-718-6459
dtruthbtold.blogspot.com
Tashima Dukes
214-718-6459
dtruthbtold.blogspot.com
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