Sam's Story

Sam is a 13-year-old boy who was initially referred to FrontLine following a domestic violence incident between his mother and his mother’s boyfriend.

Sam looked up to his mother’s boyfriend as a father figure. When the boyfriend physically and verbally assaulted Sam’s mother, Sam tried to intervene to protect her. When the boyfriend went to jail, Sam and his mother lost their home because they were living with him. Sam and his mother had immigrated to the United States, so they did not have a family support system after the mother’s separation from the boyfriend.  Soon after all of this, Sam began pushing, hitting, and yelling at his mom. Sam was referred to FrontLine’s trauma program to try to help address this.

Sam started working with a therapist on managing his anger and learning coping skills. Sam showed great insight and desire to improve his behavior. Also, during his trauma narrative, Sam disclosed how he felt hurt and abandoned by his biological father at a young age and now again by his mother’s boyfriend, whom he considered to be his “new” father. Sam and his mother were both able to talk about how the traumatic incident affected them and how they can try to work together in the future to accomplish their shared goals.