RACHEL GARRETT - COMMON THREAD

Vulnerable Youth

By Bianca Dumas | Photography by Rebecca Kay

WHEN RACHEL GARRET RETIRED FROM HER HIGH SCHOOL TEACHING JOB, she still had a lot of heart for Salt Lake City’s teens. She began working as a court-appointed special advocate, then got her family licensed and trained so they could serve as a foster home to teenagers. Little did she know how much that would change her life’s trajectory. Garrett would eventually create Common Thread, a nonprofit that has logged 20,000 volunteer hours in its first five years. 

But long before that could happen, Garrett had to face the challenges of foster parenting. The first barrier was the fear that you can’t successfully foster teenagers in your home because the abuses and traumas they’ve experienced could affect your own children. 

“When I first was licensed to foster teenagers, there was so much pushback by other people,” Garrett says. “There are a lot of stigmas and stereotypes, and there are valid roots to it because a lot of these kids have experienced hardships, and it’s important to be informed.” 

Garrett made sure to put protective measures into place for her two young children. At the same time, earning her master’s degree in Child and Adolescent Development, with an emphasis on how trauma affects the brain and behavior, gave her confidence that she could provide the support foster teens needed. She soon found the older kids were a good complement to the little ones. “If anything, I was having to be mindful not to burn the candle at both ends because I was parenting at all hours of the day,” she says.    

Over the course of a few years, Garrett mentored different teens through the reunification process with their birth families and saw varying levels of success. In one case, a father deeply desired reunification and did everything possible to get his kids back. Garrett built a relationship with the parent as well as with the children, and was able to watch the family happily reunite. In another instance, the mother was apathetic to the plight of her child and although reunification happened, it wasn’t a positive experience. 

“I think that’s when I realized some kids are going back and it’s actually worse,” Garrett said. “It was so unbearable to witness these kids you love not get the support that every kid deserves. I was like, there have got to be other resources to supplement them so families aren’t drowning when kids are united.”

The resources turned out to be within Garrett herself, and also within her family, friends, and colleagues in the social services and nonprofit sectors. As she inquired among them about their willingness to volunteer or offer financial support, Garrett found a groundswell of interest that led her to assemble and eventually incorporate Common Thread as a 501(c)3. It took four years to build the organization, which happened with a lot of faith and very little money. 

While others around her were creating nonprofits out of deep pockets or their connections to huge investors, Garrett was building Common Thread from scratch. Her strengths were her immersion in the teen experience, a thorough knowledge of the welfare system, and connection to a lot of people with heart. Garrett drew from friends who had needed support when they were young, or from professionals who also saw gaps in the system. Everyone on her team recognized that a well-run, trauma-informed and teen-centered social organization could ideally provide a necessary ‘third space’ for teens outside of school and home, which was often just the place they slept.

“We maximized every cent we had, then we started being able to show the results,” Garrett says. “We’ve had kids come to events who are in different homes every other week. We have kids who are aching to come and will do anything to attend.”

Today, Common Thread offers monthly events, 8-week programs, and therapy for teens 12 to 18 and partners with another organization to help them transition to adulthood, providing the absolutely necessary sense of ongoing family support that everyone needs. Transportation is provided through public transit, carpooling, and hired drivers. Food and drink, essentials that are often lacking in the teens’ lives, are ever-present at Common Thread, without stigma or limitations. 

While an event like s’mores by the campfire obviously attracts a lot of youth, Common Thread also has great attendance at 8-week courses like Adulting 101. This is because of Garrett’s core belief that kids will be drawn to relevant subject matter by the fact that it’s joyfully presented. Learning to travel by public transportation, for example, isn’t a dull classroom lecture, but a hands-on field trip around the Salt Lake Valley. That positive experience then leads to a willingness to sit in a classroom and learn to budget or write a resume. 

While skills are essential, community should never be overlooked. During one 8-week equine-assisted therapy class, Garrett saw the power of personal connection firsthand. The teens attending had all experienced what she calls “capital-T trauma” and were very nervous around each other. “They were all giving each other the side-eye,” she says. “I was worried, but I was hopeful that this group would be able to connect.” Not only did they connect, they became a tight group who may not have even realized that making friends during class was part of the therapeutic process. 

Teens in Common Thread don’t necessarily share the same backgrounds and personal challenges as the teens they know from school. At events, they learn to let their guards down and share their hearts and experiences. That’s when relationships become real, both with peers and with the adult volunteers. 

“Recently I overheard a few teens talking, saying I didn’t know adults could be nice,” Garrett said. That sobering statement shows the level of trauma in many students’ lives and the reality that parents and caregivers are often the ones who hurt them the most. While those relationships can’t always be healed, Garrett insists, and demonstrates, that positive and consistent connection will bear fruit over time. 

Common Thread is seeing teens who were previously at risk for homelessness graduate from high school or earn a GED, apply to college or trade school, obtain internships or enter the workforce. They are becoming independent of the system and taking their lives into their own hands in a positive way.

Garrett has structured Common Thread so that it’s not a matter of adults solving kids’ problems, but kids leading and informing one another. Common Thread’s core direction is provided by a board of up to 15 teens from the community they serve who are paid for their time, leadership and expertise. They are the ones who know the challenges of getting across town when they don’t have access to a car or a bus line. They are the ones who know the difficulties of life in a shelter and the possibilities that start to take shape when someone starts to see beyond the limitations of poverty. 

One student, who hadn’t been able to attend school for two years while living at home, has become the first in her family to work towards a GED now has her sights set on higher education. Before Common Thread, her life looked bleak, now the student is now brimming with hope. 

“Pulling oneself out of poverty is a feat for anyone. Her life is going to be different because she wants it to be different, and she has tangible support to make that possible,” Garrett says. “If that’s not a success story, I don’t know what is.”