My name is Kaylee Unruh, and I am a senior at Brattleboro Union High School, in a small town in the small state of Vermont. I was once described as "a young woman whose wheels are always turning" and I feel that is as accurate as one can get. At my high school, I am very involved in the theatre program, which has a production happening during every season of the school year! I am a stage manager, which means I am at every rehearsal taking notes and being bossy to my actors, and at every tech day, preparing for the show ahead. I have found time to also be involved in the 2024 class council at school, be the lead designer for the yearbook, and keep my academics up to be a member of my school's chapter of the National Honor Society. Through NHS, I have been able to create and take part in community service projects. Last year we baked pies for a local soup kitchen for Thanksgiving Day and helped our earth by doing our green-up day in May. I was able to run a clothing drive through a local elementary school for a homeless shelter. My volunteer service outside of NHS includes being a Sunday School teacher almost every Sunday morning. Every one of these activities and experiences brings me joy and has brought me closer to my community in some way. My post-high school plans include earning a bachelor's degree in communications/journalism to benefit my career in sports media. Perhaps this has surprised you based on your knowledge of my involvement in the arts in high school, but I pride myself on being multi-faceted. I can say I do not yet know anyone else who is like me in this respect. The reason I chose sports media over a theatre degree is because of my love for sports and my love for writing. My love for writing stems from discovering my love for poetry. My love for sports has been in me since my first day on this planet. You can find me watching any NFL game I can. I have seen multiple hockey games in my day. My first and only MLB game (so far) was at Fenway Park in 2016, where I watched my Chicago Cubs take down the Boston Red Sox; they went on to win the World Series, breaking a 108-year drought. I may have the magic touch; why not use it for good? You may now be expecting me to say that the charity I would start would serve youth involvement in both sports and the arts, but allow me to surprise you once more. My charity would benefit the foster youth of this country. Having cousins from Haiti, I have not once forgotten the joys adoption brings for so many kids, but I also have not forgotten the struggle they go through in foster care. The mission at my charity would be to bring a little more joy into foster youth lives. We would provide activities and plan fun days that will help the youth build friendships and get involved in their community. We would also be able to help fund their educational endeavors. The charity would bring opportunity and create a home-like environment for those who need it.

The dream version of my future self is a leader, an advocate, an artist, a homebody but also a traveler, a dreamer, a lover and a fighter, an adoption social worker, a wife and a mother.

Realites by Kaylee Unruh When I close my eyes, they hurt. But when I open my eyes, they hurt too. Because it hurts to dream of realities that aren’t reality for me anymore. But it hurts to open my eyes and see the reality of what’s before me. But when I open my eyes, they hurt too. War, poverty, climate change, famine, health issues, hate slamming against anyone. But it hurts to open my eyes and see the reality of what’s before me. I can’t tell if reality or my not-realities hurt me more. War, poverty, climate change, famine, health issues, hate slamming against anyone. And I can’t close my eyes to escape it. I can’t tell if reality or my not-realities hurt more. But I think my inner dreams of not-realities hurt me more. And I can’t close my eyes to escape it. When I close my eyes, they hurt. But I think my inner dreams of not-realities hurt me more. Because it hurts to dream of realities that aren’t reality for me anymore.

My name is Kaylee Unruh, and I am a junior in high school, in a small town in the small state of Vermont. My goals for the future are to get a social work degree so I can pursue a career as an adoption social worker. This is a career I am so very passionate about taking on because of the positive impact I hope to have on kids in the foster care system and everyone else involved in each child’s case. Something that has already been a challenge for me in trying to get into college is the fact that I am a first-generation student. My parents both went to the same Bible institute as their respective place of education after high school, but both also dropped out after a year. My grandparents did not go to a four-year college/university either, so I do not have any people in my personal life to help me navigate the world of further education. So far, I have been relying on the online resources I find myself to give me the information I wouldn't already have myself about college. That's been challenging for me, but I'm learning as I go, and am getting very valuable information if I find the right places! A degree in social work is not easily earned. Colleges and universities take it very seriously; at most places, each prospective student goes through a criminal background check before even being accepted into the social work program. You have to be a committed student who has ambition and a passion for helping others to be able to earn this degree. I am one of those students, driven and ready to learn with a passion for people. The coursework load for a social work degree gets heavy. Some examples of the classes to take for this degree include sociology and psychology, which are difficult in themselves. You also take human behavior, child welfare, and even sometimes more than one statistics class to earn the degree. I know that I will feel dragged by the courses sometimes, and this is coming from someone who is considering minoring or even double majoring in something else along with earning a social work degree. But I know that my ambitious state of mind will keep me going even when the times get rough. Earning a social work degree to start my career as an adoption social worker is my biggest life goal right now. Having a degree is what I need to succeed in my future career of keeping the youth of the US safe, happy and healthy. Even with every obstacle that has come and will come when I am pursuing a college education, I am betting on myself to keep going every day and not let them slow me down for good while I earn my degree.

I am pursuing a career path in social work. I plan to become an adoption social worker specifically. The reason I chose this career path was because of the positive impact I want to make on people’s lives. The foster care system in the US needs some work, and I want to help improve it for the sake of the youth of this country who have found themselves in that situation. I have a soft spot for kids especially, and having grown up as the oldest in my family I like to think I understand youth very well. Additionally, my childhood was not the most stable one you’ve ever seen, so I understand the emotional and mental turmoil that goes on in kids and how it affects them at a young age. All this and more is why I am choosing adoption social work as my future because I want to give kids a better life when they can’t get it for themselves. The foster care system in the US is not the greatest, and it shows. The number of foster care children in the US has consistently stayed at and even over 215,00 since 2017. This means almost one-fourth of kids in the foster care system live in group homes (specifically over 56,000 today), which is arguably the worst home situation a kid could be placed in after being taken out of their home. And kids constantly age out of the system with no support. Those are just a few examples of things I would like to help fix in my time in my social work career for a better, more effective and positive foster care system. If I can be someone who contributes to it in a good and positive way and make it just a little bit better that way, then I have already achieved half of my goal. In addition to the conditions of the foster care systems, children’s mental health has declined severely as we look over the past years. Children in foster care have a heavy amount of mental health issues from already being in the place they are. The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that came with it also had a big effect on mental health issues of everyone. I am a person who can testify to this as I was affected mentally by it and I know many other teenagers in my school were as well. But I can only imagine what being in lockdown at ages 12 and younger looks like and what adverse effects that has on a younger child. In my career, I want to bring more effective mental health resources to the children in the foster care system; not only to the ones I will personally get to know and work to help but those who I may not even meet in my time in adoption social work. I'm hoping doing so will bring a positive change to their lives overall as well as their mental health. I also have good emotional intelligence and emotional awareness, and I feel that having these skills will help me in my future career, bringing goodness to kids' lives when they know they have someone that understands them. Bringing a positive impact to my future field of work will be a task, but it is something I am looking forward to doing with my life. Everyone deserves a chance at a better, fuller life, and being able to bring that to the kids of the foster care system will be super rewarding for me. I can not wait to see it happen!

I am choosing social work as my career. I would love to be an adoption social worker specifically. This is my choice of career because of my own life. I had kids come and go in my elementary school classes as foster kids, and one of my best friends was adopted as a baby. I’ve seen families be torn apart by divorce and custody battles. Seeing my little cousins suffer from the effects of having divorced parents was what finally made me realize what I wanted to do in my future career. All of these things and more had really pushed me to think about what important work I wanted to do and would love doing with my life at the same time. I am so passionate about social work because it is a career that makes a major difference in people’s lives. Ever since I was younger I’ve always felt better when I was helping others, and loved when I could help make a bad situation good for them. Continuing to grow as a young adult, seeing and being in the situations I was in, it opened my eyes to how much of a need some citizens of this world have for someone to help them make a change. I have a soft spot for children especially. Pursuing a social work degree means one day I will have the power to be the voice for a child who is in a bad situation at home, and be able to place them in a better environment. This is a different kind of power than what people think of when they think of power, because it is a power that does not help yourself, but those you are serving. I understand the responsibility that comes with this power to change the course of someone's life, and plan to use it wisely. The sacrifices I have made to accomplish my goals may not have been huge, but they’ve had big impact on my life and the career I'm pursuing. I would not be here if I hadn't pushed aside my longtime dream to become an interior designer. To me, to pursue the social work career field is more important and I firmly believe the world needs me more in that area. Education-wise, I'm going to take only college credit classes my senior year. These classes will be psychology, sociology, among others that I know will benefit my future as a major in social work. I know these will be higher-level classes but I'm willing to test my ambition and push myself to do my best in these classes. I have not let the fear of failure and anxiety take me down on the journey I am on yet, and I don't see any place for either in my future as I continue to take this road to reach my goal of being an adoption social worker.

My great-grandfather was, and still is, one of the biggest influences in my life. He was very hardworking and saw only the best in every situation. He gave the best advice, and after every conversation I remember having with him, I either learned something new or walked away carrying something with me I’d never forget. I know not everyone is lucky enough to meet this generation of their family, so I will forever feel grateful for being close to mine. My great-grandfather passed away in 2021, and a few weeks after the 1st anniversary of his passing, another heartbreaking event happened to me, and I didn’t have his physical self there to comfort me. When I lost him, I had an even further understanding of what it means to hold your loved ones close, because you never know when your time with them is up. He always loved everyone he came across in some way or another, so I now remember to pay more attention to the family and friends that matter most to me. Because of the legacy my great-grandfather left in my life, my ambition has only grown in everything I do. He trained me to be a fighter for what I think is right. This is how I grew to know that being an adoption social worker is what I want to do in the future because I want to advocate for those who can’t do for themselves. He always told me to look for the best in everything in life; so when things go wrong, I think of the positive, even if it is a minor positive. He always told my cousins and me that we were important and had impacts on the world to make, and that has made me want to achieve my life goals even more knowing he’s confident in my abilities to change the world, even if it’s only just a little bit at a time. The loss of my great-grandfather was painful for me, and it seemed that he was leaving too soon. But it is everything he had taught and told me that I hold in my head and heart that keeps me going in everything I do to this day.