At Gilliard & Company, the Doll House Project exists to challenge the harmful mislabeling of youth in foster care. Many behaviors that are quickly labeled as non-compliant, defiant, or problematic are actually age-appropriate, developmentally normal behaviors—the same behaviors tolerated, coached, and guided in non-foster care households.![]()
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Youth who have experienced foster care and institutional settings are often held to adult expectations without adult autonomy, while being denied the grace routinely given to their peers. ![]()
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Forgetting chores, leaving dishes out, testing boundaries, emotional reactions, learning independence through trial and error, these are not failures. They are signs of growth.![]()
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The Doll House Project uses visual storytelling to reframe the narrative:![]()
This is not “damage.”![]()
This is not “defiance.”![]()
This is youthhood…learning how to live, safely and imperfectly.![]()
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Youth in foster care deserve the same margin for error as any other young person learning how to navigate independence.![]()
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Because when we normalize youth behavior,![]()
we restore dignity, we build trust, and we create pathways to permanency, not punishment.
Congratulations to Ms.Shantell for her Legacy Award! All throughout this year, she has committed time and helping the young adults prepare for independence. She goes into each of the apartments, and she teaches them how to clean, she demonstrates what Cleaning apartments look like, and the standards of what housekeeping looks like.![]()
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She donates most of her time and making sure that the young adults have what they need, and let us know of things that we can improve as a program to continue to support them.![]()
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The works that she does here is not just cleaning, she pays really close attention and gives more than just going in and tidying things up. She converse conversations with them, she cares about them, and she asked about how they are doing all the time!![]()
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We cannot imagine what the work will look like without Miss Shauntell.
