Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Aron Myers’s story is grounded in his belief that the child welfare system virtually killed his siblings and that it would have killed him if he’d let it. After being removed from their mother’s chaotic home when they were little, his brother and sister were placed with their maternal grandma after one foster home placement and never re-entered foster care. Both ended up in prison. His sister is still there; his brother died a few years ago. Aron bounced between foster homes and kinship care with his grandmother before coming to the Children’s Village. By the time he left for college, he’d spent a dozen years in foster care, five of them at CV. Aron provides an inside view of life in an RTC, how family treatment and permanency planning feel from a kid’s perspective, the development and impact of CV’s unique pre-employment program (WAY), and how graduating to a group home worked (and sometimes didn’t).</jats:p>