With parents who were both drug addicts and two sisters too young to take care of themselves, Shannon took on the mother role. She learned how to find food and get her sisters dressed in the morning. By the time she was 11, she was constantly angry, a chronic runaway who seldom went to school. She trusted nobody. Her father lost custody of her to the state, and she came to Kerr.

While Shannon was at Kerr, her mother went into recovery and sought therapy for herself. With help from the Kerr by working with Shannon’s Kerr therapist, she is learning how to be a responsible parent and has been able to reunite with her three daughters. All this time, Shannon was a regular face in the Art Therapy Program, learning to express her anger and fear through art.

Kerr’s Art Therapist says Shannon was a good advocate for herself from the start. “She understood that she needed and wanted the art. It allows her to learn what it’s like to be a kid, and it builds her self-esteem.”

With art, “There are no mistakes. Many of the children are so traumatized that they are unable to talk about it, but their feelings come out in the clay or paint.”

Shannon will leave Kerr soon, and the staff is connecting her with a supportive public school and outpatient counseling. When she leaves Kerr, she plans to leave her works of art in the art therapy room.