Tiffany was removed from her mother's care because of neglect, but that neglect wasn't willful. Her mother, Melissa, was suffering from a serious, untreated mental illness: bipolar disorder. It causes extreme mood swings -- from severe depression to mania.

Tiffany went into foster care, but she hated it there. Whenever she got the chance, she ran away -- always toward home, trying to get back to her mother. Tiffany developed emotional and behavioral problems. Finally, she spent a year in a psychiatric hospital.

Losing Tiffany was the jolt Melissa needed to get help, to turn her life around. She found treatment for her illness, got a job and established a home.

Tiffany was a statistic: one of the estimated 550,000 children in foster care across the United States. Youth Villages believes that many of these children, perhaps as many as half, could be reunited successfully with their parents or relatives if adequate support and counseling were provided. Our Home-Based Counseling Programs were developed to strengthen families and keep children from having to be removed from their homes to get help for emotional or behavioral problems. The programs has become powerful tools for bringing children home successfully from long-term foster or residential care.

Much of the success of our home-based programs can be credited to the work of the dedicated counselors, like Shuna, who have been drawn to the program. Shuna is a graduate of Hendrix College in Arkansas, and Bryn Mawr, the elite Pennsylvania women's college. Like all of our family counselors, she is intelligent, committed and willing to do whatever it takes to help a child and family find success.

To help Tiffany, Shuna had to help her mother. "I told her how important it was for her to stay healthy, to take her medications, to care for herself during this stressful time," Shuna says. "She needed to focus on the present, on what is best for Tiffany now."

"Her mother felt guilty about losing custody of Tiffany," Shuna says. "She had missed Tiffany so much and wanted her to be happy at home. She tended to be too permissive in her parenting style. I helped her learn to create structure for Tiffany, to set consistent rules and consequences."

Shuna worked to help Tiffany relearn important social skills, particularly how to interact with her sister at home and with the other children at school. Shuna met with Tiffany's teachers, easing her return to a public school classroom.

After six months of home-based help, Tiffany and her mother are doing well.

What's it like to be home after so long?

"It feels great," Tiffany says. "Free. I feel free."