News stories tagged with "raise-your-voice"

(06/20/05) Some 2 million Americans intentionally injure themselves to cope with emotionally overwhelming feelings or situations. It's often called self-injury, or self-mutilation, or just "cutting". Krista is 15. She started cutting several years ago. She went to the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center twice for her behavior. She now lives in a foster home in Potsdam. Krista has stopped cutting. But like many people with an addiction, recovery is a constant struggle. As a part of our series Raise Your Voice: Stories from North Country Teens, Krista prepared this audio diary. A warning: some listeners, especially young children, may find the subject matter in this story difficult to listen to.

(06/13/05) For a lot of kids in high school, the opportunity to live in your own apartment is like a dream come true, a long awaited chance for independence and freedom. That's what Brittany LaBrake thought. Brittany was living in a foster home for five years. A month before her 18th birthday, while she was still in high school, she signed herself out of foster care to live on her own. Brittany moved into an apartment in Potsdam with her boyfriend, Gary. She wanted to live her life independently, bravely, like her hero, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, from TV. But it's not that easy. Here's Brittany's audio diary, a part of our series Raise Your Voice: Stories from North Country Teens.

(06/06/05) We begin a new project for North Country Public Radio. It's called Raise Your Voice: Stories from North Country Teens. We gave three young women recorders and asked them to document their daily lives. The resulting stories will air Monday mornings in June on The 8 O'Clock Hour. The project is a collaboration with North Country Adolescent Outreach, a peer education program based at SUNY Potsdam. Today we hear from Brittany Chase. Brittany is 16 years old. She lives in a foster home in Potsdam. Strife in her biological family landed her in the foster care system. Brittany says it saved her life.