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8 years in Montana’s Foster Care System
Daniel is a 19-year-old from Montana. He experienced four placements while in care. Three foster homes and one group home. Daniel is passionate and eager to share his story about resilience, strength, and love.
Daniel experienced a lot of adversity in care, including sibling separation, loss of a biological parent and ambiguous loss of the other parent, and physical and emotional abuse within a foster home. Daniel struggled feeling connected to his community, lost friends due to community judgement of his family name. He experienced two false hopes of adoption. Eventually, his fear of experiencing false hope again caused him to reject other adoption opportunities.
Daniel has many accomplishments despite the adversity he faced. Daniel graduated high school in 2017. He participated in multiple sports during high school and enjoyed the friendships created and leadership gained. Daniel attends Missoula College for an associate’s degree and plans to transfer to the University of Montana to achieve his bachelor's degree. He is striving to become a motivational speaker, and the all-star internship is a big step to pursue his dream.
Daniel participates with a worship team on campus, CHI Alpha (XA), a christian fellowship where he provides leadership to a more personal fellowship (Discipleship Group). Daniel’s connection to his higher power is what drives him to be a leader. Daniel is excited to engage in the greek life at the University where he hopes to join a fraternity.
Daniel is hopeful to become an ambassador on Montana’s Youth Advisory Board. Daniel is bold, caring, ambitious, and a natural born leader who empathizes with others with a strong sense of humility that helps him connect with those he leads.