By Dr. Lois Lee | Founder & President
![Tutors Working From Our Headquarters]()
Tutors Working From Our Headquarters
From January 1, 2020 to September 18, 2020 there have been 2105 tutoring hours to 93 prostituted youth in 14 states.
These youth have been tutored for the high school equivalency exam in their home state.
88% were female
10% were male
2% were transgender
Our prostituted youth are made up of Latinos, African Americans, and Caucasians primarily.
They come from all over the United States 37% from Los Angeles and 20% from Florida.
They are referred by Social Workers, friends, relatives, other prostituted youth who have completed our program, drug programs, schools, drop-in centers, and other agencies or advocates.
Iris, 19 years old, was introduced to prostitution when she was 12 years old.
An older teencame to live with her family and gave her a Xanax and introduced her to prostitution. When she woke up, she had money.
Currently she is in extended foster care, but government is limited in providing immediate and one on one assistance. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.
When she called, she was desperate for help with food, a job, clothing, and a long-term housing placement. She wanted to go back to prostitution for food to eat and our case managers said, “You don’t have to do that, we will help you.”
Iris needed transportation to and from her eye doctors, and we also paid for her glasses. We gave her job leads, COVID 19 supplies and sent progress reports to her social worker to demonstrate her efforts and assure her benefits were not cut.
Social workers have resources but lack the time required to provide the extensive ONE ON ONE communication required to raise a child and to help a child transition to a successful adult life.
Children of the Night provides these essential services and most importantly TIME – 24 hours/7 days a week whether it is a nightmare, bad boyfriend, or worse. And Iris has a boyfriend who will not leave her alone, a problem with her father and no one to talk to about these issues.
She has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder and her social worker has provided a therapist 1 hour a week but she needs daily support to get through each day and the $200 a month government allowance is just not enough.
Iris was frustrated with her ZOOM tutoring because her government funded housing created WIFI interference, so our case managers upgraded her WIFI.
Iris began tutoring for the High School Equivalency exam the first part of August and she was testing at a 7th grade reading level. In one short month we have her reading level up and she is ready to test for the GED – High School Equivalency Reading section.
The positive effect of Children of the Night, in the lives of children who are dependent upon government assistance, is a testament of the need to augment government services with a private sector initiative to make the difference between life and death.
Jenny’s mother was a prostitute and sold her to men when she was 8 years old.
The Department of Children and Family Services removed Jenny from her mother’s care and placed her with her father.
In high school she met a pimp and when she called the hotline our case managers successfully identified a safe shelter.
Her pimp stole everything from her including her birth certificate, identification, and clothing.
When she escaped him, she left with nothing but the clothes on her back.
We applied for her birth certificate and replacement identification. We provided her with clothing and a grocery gift card for food and hygiene items. Our case workers identified long-term housing for Jenny so we could begin her stabilization.
Caseworkers assisted Jenny with an application for benefits from the social security office and identified a therapist because she has been diagnosed with PTSD, depression, anxiety, anger, and behavioral problems.
Our case managers provided her with transportation to her medical appointments and paid for her glasses.
We enrolled Jenny in our ZOOM one on one high school equivalency tutoring program and despite all the trauma and drama in her life she is ready to take her first exam.
Jenny is consistent in her tutoring and obtaining a high school diploma is important to her because it offers a permanent solution to prostitution.
Because the government continues to open and close testing sites, Children of the Night has opened its headquarters as a testing site and been joined by an IT company in Santa Clarita as a testing site for kids in Palmdale & Lancaster and Now a law firm in Chicago, Ilinois. We continue to look for a corporate partner in Florida.
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