Birchwood Isle Family Roleplay

Basic Information

Where do you live? The Orphan Village
Are you married? If yes, to whom? Yes, to [TBD]
Do you have any children? If yes, list them. Yes. 18 year old Owen and 16 year-old Meghan.
Is your family open to adopting children or adolescents? Potentially

Appearance
Height: 6'2"
Build: muscular
Hair Color: blonde
Eye Color: blue
Distinguishing Features: always has a slightly scruffy beard
Brief Description: Vance could win the award for "best dressed man in the Orphan Village" if there were such a superlative competition. Somehow he makes even blue jeans look like designer clothing, but he also enjoys dressing up. His fashion sense almost seems to contradict the slightly scruffy, mussed look of his personal grooming, his blonde hair always a little bit ruffled, almost always sporting a five-o'clock shadow even with a jacket and tie. His face is warm, his blue eyes close-set, his mouth always seeming to curve into a smile, even when it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He exudes a sense of relaxed calm in almost every situation.

Personality
Strengths: purposeful; intentional; calm; intelligent; wise; excellent mentor; motivated; practical; centered; spiritual
Flaws: impatient; distracted; money-minded; superior; prone to depression; cares more for others than himself; blunt
Likes: dogs; swimming; crossword puzzles; the first cup of coffee in the morning; long, hot showers; the house before the kids wake up in the morning; date nights with his wife; getting dressed up; the theater
Dislikes: pharmaceutical medications; live sporting events
Vices: coffee
Fears: freezing to death; breaking a bone; dental work
Personality: At first glance, Vance is a terrible fit for Birch House. He doesn't enjoy sports, and while he's a calm and excellent mentor, he doesn't praise children and adolescents for physical achievements, but for mental ones. Often, he answers sports or activity related queries or stories with a grunt, and doesn't show a lot of interest in the active lives of the kids he cares for. He'll be the first to tell you that's what his wife is there for. Without her, this place wouldn't run. He'll answer this with a wink, a dimpled grin, and a nod of acknowledgement, then separate himself. His role at Birch House is the oft-overlooked spiritual and emotional side of wellness. This is where Vance most excels, and he focuses on what he already knows he's good at.

Relationships & Discipline

How do you normally get along with other adults? Vance typically has good relationships with other adults, in large part because he has good boundaries and enforces them. If he doesn't like someone, he doesn't seek them out or engage with them.
How do you normally get along with teenagers? He's the father of two teenagers who, while they sometimes drive him bonkers, he adores. Vance gets along well with most teens.
How do you normally get along with children? Having raised two of them into reasonably well-adjusted teenagers, Vance gets along quite well with children who are old enough to reason. The very young ones he often leaves to his wife.
Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village

What is your role at the Orphan Village? Co-Head of Birch House
Which house or building do you work for? Birch House
Do you live in the Village or commute? Vance lives in the Village
Do you have any special training, certification, or skills relevant to your role? Not especially. Vance has a medical doctorate in sports medicine
Do you prefer to work with a particular age group? Which one? School-Age children are the easiest age group for Vance.
Do you struggle with a particular age group? Which one? Pre-School children are tough for him.

Briefly describe your caregiving or mentoring style. Vance is generally exceedingly calm. He's not especially strict and never looks for reasons to punish the children he cares for. (He finds it odd that some adults in the Village do seem to look for reasons to punish!) However, when punishment becomes necessary, a lot of kids feel like they didn't see him coming until he was lighting their ass on fire. Whenever possible, he tries to teach without imposing consequences, which means that natural consequences happen a lot around Vance -- and he lets them, even when they are painful! But when he does decide it's time to punish, he comes down hard, imposing multi-layered punishments that don't end for quite some time -- regardless of the age of the child or adolescent being punished. He's not an adult you want to cross! Adolescents should also be warned that he is willing to impose "baby punishments" if he feels that their behavior is juvenile. This means that not only will he warm their bottom until they are well and truly sore, but that he will also wrap them up in a diaper, restrict their toilet privileges, and that their food privileges will be restricted to pureed foods, their bedtime set to 6:30 p.m. seven days a week, and that they are not allowed to be out of his sight until the term of their punishment is over. He's not strict, but he's sure harsh!

Describe how you see your role in the village. Vance views himself more as a mentor than he does as a parent to the children and adolescents in the village, although this is prone to change when it comes to the kids living in Birch House with his wife and him. He is willing to provide mentorship and a solid adult presence for any child in the village and doesn't see the children and adolescents in Birch House as any different from the other kids in the village. Over time, this is likely to shift to a preference for Birch House children and adolescents, however, and when that happens, the shift will be extraordinary, with an extreme preference shown toward those he works most closely with.

Is there anything else we should know about your role in the Village? It seems that Vance is something of a "recruiter." If he gets close enough with a child or adolescent who is not part of his house and there is available room in his house, he will encourage that child or adolescent to switch houses to Birch House so that he can provide more close contact for them and keep a closer eye on their needs. He bonds very intensely with the people with whom he bonds.

Background

Education: MD in Sports Medicine
Work History: Vance worked as an orthopedic surgeon for a long time before he decided it was time for a change in 2020.
Current Goals or Challenges: It's been hard to convince some people in the Orphan Village that he's right for the job he's doing.
Reason for Living on Birchwood Isle: When Covid hit the world, Vance was looking for somewhere isolated to take his family.
Brief History: His whole life, Vance knew that he wanted to be a doctor. Helping people meant more to him than anything else in the world. As a young child involved in as many physical activities as his parents would allow him to take on, he developed an acute understanding of the importance of medicine in keeping the human body working the way it was intended to. He very deeply believed in the science of medicine, went to college on a sports scholarship, and headed off to medical school, everything aligning with his plan. He was matched with a residency program at Mass General, where he thrived in spite of the long hours. His poor, patient wife -- a social worker who he met while he was in university at Harvard -- had the patience of a saint. When she fell pregnant, her parents helped with the pregnancy, then with their son Owen when he was born. He made chief resident in his final year of residency and accepted a prestigious fellowship for sports medicine the following year.

Vance's life was on track, and he loved every minute of it. It left him without much time to play, but it kept his finger on the pulse of the world of sports and Vance was high on the impact his new career had on him. He encouraged his children -- two of them by the time he finished his fellowship -- to get involved in sports, to play, practice, and do their best while teaching them that their best was all it took to succeed. Even if they weren't winning games, they were winning life by learning how to set goals for themselves and push their bodies to their limits. Between him and their mother, they encouraged their children to focus as much on their minds as on their bodies, maintain a 4.0 GPA and fight for everything they wanted to have in their lives, because the fight was worth the prize in the end. After all, wasn't Vance living proof?

Then a pandemic rocked the world. Physicians quit in the aftermath, burned out and exhausted. Vance worked to fill the gaps where he could, but the pandemic left him scarred and scared. For more than a year, he was paranoid about his health and his children's health, but he was devoted to putting in the man hours to help see the nation through the crisis. When the spread and the devastation finally slowed, the Covid shot taking its effect, Vance crumbled. He was hospitalized for five days for a nervous breakdown, and when he got out of the hospital, he proposed to his wife that they move to an island he'd heard about while researching during the pandemic. It was safe there, he told her. Their children wouldn't get sick. They could get a better education than they'd gotten for the pandemic period. They could stop being afraid all the time. So Vance and his wife moved to Birchwood Isle just as their son was turning 18 -- ready to be a man, but forced into the legal standing of a child again. He refused to practice medicine, denouncing it at first out of paranoia, but then because it no longer felt like him anymore. For four years he did odd jobs until finally Orphan Village opened in 2026 and Vance and his wife applied for the position of head of Birch House and were offered the job. Now they live there with their two children.