Birchwood Isle Family Roleplay

Basic Information

Where do you live? Northern Isle
Are you married? If yes, to whom? No
Do you have any children? If yes, list them. An Infant daughter named Daisy
Is your family open to adopting children or adolescents? Possibly if the right kid comes along

Appearance
Height: 6'2"
Build: slender
Hair Color: dark blonde/light brown
Eye Color: hazel
Distinguishing Features: serious, intense gaze; a mouth that's almost always smiling; laugh lines
Brief Description: Torrin is tall with exceptionally long legs. They wear their hair shoulder-length (so it just brushes their shoulders). Their face is angular, with high cheekbones and a well-defined jaw, eyes seemingly always ready to smile, and a thin mouth that curves up at the corners. Their style of dress varies from day to day, some days a pair of jeans and a tank top, other days a pair of jeans, Oxford shirt, and a sports jacket. They rarely wear makeup, and alternate days on which they wear a binder beneath their clothes, so some days they present more feminine and other days more masculine. Some days they wear loose clothing and other days they prefer tight clothing. Their hairstyle changes frequently but the length generally remains the same. The one true constant is their smile.

Personality
Strengths: straightforward; soft-spoken; considerate; great listener; tolerant; accepting; creative; curious; authoritative
Flaws: fickle; stubborn; stuck-up; heavy-handed; distractible; shy with strangers; tires easily
Likes: watching the sun rise; long naps in the afternoon; sipping tea by the fire; summer afternoons; snow storms; roller skating; skateboarding; listening to music; playing guitar; breakthroughs
Dislikes: people as stubborn as they are; people who drive too fast; balloons; the color red; dress shoes; dressing up; opera; cats; ice skating; coffee; being woken up
Vices: sleep
Fears: spiders; being forced to do things they don't want to do; gender-affirming surgery
Personality: Torrin is the type of quiet observer who feels "off" to the wrong sort of person. They see everything, including the things people don't want them to see, and a lot of people feel observed when in their presence. Their soft-spoken way of speaking makes people listen up when they speak because it forces them to quiet down, and Torrin uses this to their advantage. While they are incredibly tolerant of a lot of things, Torrin absolutely will not abide bigotry, and this creates conflicts with people who don't understand Torrin's approach to things because they will not back down when they believe in something and may become defensive if they feel confronted. Torrin also tires easily and therefore walks away from arguments that they know they can't win, which some people find offensive.

Relationships & Discipline

How do you normally get along with other adults? Other adults can be a struggle for Torrin because many adults are set in their ways and they see Torrin's gender identity as a "fad." The fact of the matter is that, in general, Torrin agrees with them. A lot of American kids are adopting nonbinary identities as a way to stand out among their peers and don't have gender dysphoria or other qualities common to trans people. Torrin views this as a degree of appropriation, but they will not tolerate adults who refuse to affirm their child's gender identity. Because of this phenomenon, many adults also have a hard time accepting Torrin, which means Torrin walks away from a lot of arguments with adults who invalidate them.

How do you normally get along with teenagers? It really depends. Torrin focuses on validation, especially in teens, but they struggle with how changeable teenagers can be, switching from one thing to another when the next thing is more popular than the first. They struggle with trusting teens a lot of the time and it can take a while to earn their trust sufficiently that they are willing to open with you. On the other hand, Torrin is an excellent listener who validates as much as they can. Teens often appreciate this, but should not take validation for acceptance. Acceptance, for Torrin, comes with accountability and long-term sustainability.

How do you normally get along with children?Torrin loves the freshness of children. They generally get along great with kids over 6 years old. Younger kids can be a challenge.

Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village

What is your role at the Orphan Village? Dedicated Therapist
Which house or building do you work for? Cedar House
Do you live in the Village or commute? Torrin lives in the community, in the Northern Isle
Do you have any special training, certification, or skills relevant to your role? Medical Doctorate in Psychiatry, now working as a therapist and prescriber
Do you prefer to work with a particular age group? Which one? Mostly with school-aged children
Do you struggle with a particular age group? Which one? Pre-school-aged children and teenagers.

Briefly describe your caregiving or mentoring style. Torrin is a careful listener. They spend a lot of time listening, asking probing questions, and getting all of the answers before they decide how to handle something -- most of the time. Because at the same time, they are quick to act when action needs to happen quickly. There is also an ironic middle ground, where they will let a fight start to play out before they pull the more successful child off of the less successful child. They are incredibly hands on with kids, which is one of the reasons they chose Cedar House. One-on-one time is essential to their occupation, but they also spend extra time at the house mentoring the kids when their energy levels allow for it.

Describe how you see your role in the village. As far as Torrin is concerned, their role is to get to know 12 kids as deeply as they possibly can, and to serve those 12 kids to the best of their ability. They are not about dealing with the village on the whole, even though they are also among the first to say that it takes a village to raise a child. They're willing to be part of the village, but not to be part of the village for the whole village, if that makes sense.

Is there anything else we should know about your role in the Village? Torrin tires easily because of chronic illness (Lupus). They have good days and bad days.

Background

Education: MD in Psychiatry
Work History: Worked as a therapist for 10 years before moving to Birchwood Isle
Current Goals or Challenges: Torrin is dealing with Lupus
Reason for Living on Birchwood Isle: They had to get away. The schools in the US were filling up with people claiming trans identity without processing their identity and it felt confining and tight for Torrin, rather than inclusive. They were confused and looking for somewhere else.
Brief History: Torrin has always been a serious person, all the way from childhood. They are analytical and need to understand the way things work. It started out as asking why about everything (starting with "why do I have to wear skirts?"), then expanded into taking things apart and putting them back together. One of the earliest questions Torrin asked about the world around them was why some people had to be boys and other people had to be girls. Their parents couldn't answer that for them, but they did support them in exploring their identity on their own, which led to Torrin's confidence and firm convictions on the way children should be treated in relationship to their gender identity. Their own parents were good, so they approached the world expecting more of the same and... didn't find it.

What they did find, albeit many years later, was that while trans people were dying for their right to exist, young adolescents were declaring themselves "transgender" in record numbers. At first, Torrin quietly celebrated, but over time, they began to feel that this behavior was an appropriation of something that was, to Torrin, very real. In every generation, they realized, there is a popular way to stand out among your peers. Where once the halls of a school might be filled with Goths or Scene kids, now they were filled with young people declaring themselves trans and nonbinary. While counseling adolescents, they discovered that many of these people didn't experience gender dysphoria and a large number made no effort to publicly present as the gender with which they claimed to identify. Teenagers claiming "nonbinary" identity while wearing dresses that showed their cleavage or "trans girls" who proudly wore long beards. It was hard enough for Torrin to accept that they enlisted the help of a therapist themselves.

In the end, it was their therapist who encouraged them to get away from it all. Take a break, work on their own identity. Torrin reached the conclusion that they were personally hurt -- no, harmed -- by the casual adoption of trans and nonbinary identity by those who made no effort to live with the effects that identity had on those who came before them.

Additional Information

Torrin takes testosterone injections and therefore their voice is deeper than many people expect. While their appearance is quite androgynous, those who aren't conscious of nonbinary identities often assume they are female, so the deeper voice can be startling. One might also want to note that while Torrin will correct people who refer to them as "she" or "her," they do not introduce themselves with their pronouns and can be somewhat awkward when someone asks them what their pronouns are.

What do you hope to get out of being a member of Birchwood Isle? I'm looking to rekindle what I feel like has been lost. You don't see places like this around anymore and I'd like for that to change. I know that Storm and I aren't the only ones who enjoy this sort of roleplay, and I'd love to see things take off. Birchwood Isle has always been a place I've felt I was coming home to, and I'm happy to have that back.

Did you come here looking for someone to care for your inner kid(s)? No. I've already got someone. I expect that Storm will keep up with her commitment to me.

What will you do if you post a thread for your inner kid and nobody replies to it? I'd talk to Storm about it since she's my primary play partner.

What will you do if an adoption falls through for your inner kid? I would return them to Orphan's Village or St. Jude's then try again.

If you are playing an adult character, what will you do if you find an unanswered thread in which a child or adolescent is acting out? It depends on a few factors. The first of course, is whether or not it's open. If it is I will consider picking it up, but I make no promises. Generally, I choose to pick up what I believe to be suited toward my characters and what is interesting to me.

If the site needs it, are you willing to play an adult? I plan to play plenty of adults.

Is there anything you want us to know about you? My people tend to be complex and have emotional reactions outside of my own. That can be a little tricky sometimes, especially when scenarios get heated. I do experience some of what they do, but I am capable of separating myself when I need to. Just because two characters aren't hitting it off doesn't mean that I am upset.

Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

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.

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. The Willow House children are my children
Is your family open to adopting children or adolescents? We'd love to

Appearance
Height: 5'7"
Build: slender
Hair Color: dark brown
Eye Color: brown
Distinguishing Features: slight dimples in both cheeks
Brief Description: If a person's appearance could be calm, Amber has a calm appearance. Her skin is very fair with a smattering of freckles across her nose, her mouth curves gently upward even at rest, and her skin is mostly unlined even in her late thirties. Soft dimples appear in her cheeks when she smiles, but her eyes almost always hold a hint of seriousness that some people find confusing or even off-putting. Amber usually wears her dark brown hair loose and waving to her shoulders, but sometimes she twists it into a thick braid.

Personality
Strengths: slow to anger; aware of her surroundings; deeply loving; very affectionate; responsive; patient; astute; understanding; kind
Flaws: stubborn; closed-minded; rational; slow to act; critical; high expectations; pushes too hard; doesn't handle discomfort well; disconcertingly quiet; judgmental
Likes: horseback riding; thunderstorms; journaling; fireplaces; camping; one-on-one time; long paperback novels; peppermint candies; holidays; snow
Dislikes: loud noises; fluorescent lighting; rushing; recklessness; carelessness; tardiness; mouth breathing; loud chewing; excuses
Vices: hard candies
Fears: deep water; ice;  high bridges; loud noises; miscarriage; blood
Personality: Amber is the sort of person you wouldn't expect to have great reflexes, but who constantly watches what happens around her and therefore is able to catch everything before you even realize it's happening. She's highly observant and very aware of everything that happens in Willow House. It's almost impossible to lie to her because she is so conscious of other people. She treats the people around her with incredible love and affection and she is generous with her time, affection, and her resources. At the same time, she is very slow with her praise and does not offer it lightly; you know that when she does offer you praise, she is sincere. Instead, she focuses her energy on helping the children and adolescents for whom she cares to discover things about themselves to be proud of. Many say she'd make a great therapist. She just smiles and accepts the compliment. Once upon a time, she was one!

Relationships & Discipline

How do you normally get along with other adults? Amber is... not everybody's cup of tea. Most people of all ages have conflicting feelings about her when they first meet her, and for a lot of adults that doesn't go away over time. She's warm and kind, but there's something aloof about the way she interacts with other adults that some people find disconcerting. She can work with other adults without having problems with them and she communicates well, but a lot of adults feel judged by Amber (even when she's not judging them).
How do you normally get along with teenagers? Depending on your perspective, Amber either gets along very well with teenagers or not at all with teenagers. She isn't strict, but when you cross her boundaries, she is an incredibly harsh disciplinarian, and those who have recently met her find it hard to get a good read on her. It can be especially hard for them to understand when she quickly returns to being incredibly loving, kind, and soothing when the punishment is over. This takes a lot of getting used to, and while teenagers are getting a read on her, they often don't feel like they get along with her at all. Once they come to an understanding, however, most adore her and advise others to give it time before judging her.
How do you normally get along with children? Relationships with children are reasonably good for Amber, mostly because they aren't looking to catch her behaving out of character and most see the good in her. She responds well to this, which is why her best relationships are with children or teenagers who have come to know and understand her. Amber gets along fine with children.
Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village

What is your role at the Orphan Village? Co-Head of Willow House
Which house or building do you work for? Willow House
Do you live in the Village or commute? Amber and her husband live in the village.
Do you have any special training, certification, or skills relevant to your role? Before coming to Birchwood Isle, Amber was a therapist (for adolescents and adults)
Do you prefer to work with a particular age group? Which one? No preference
Do you struggle with a particular age group? Which one? No

Briefly describe your caregiving or mentoring style. Simply put, Amber is watchful. She sees basically everything. Not much gets by her. She's not particularly strict, but she is incredibly harsh. This means that she goes out of her way to stop kids from doing something that will require punishment before they can get to that point. It's the "it would be a bad idea to walk out that door right now" spoken as a child is about to leave the house after being told not to; it's realizing that a teenager is considering sneaking out of the house because of peer pressure and nipping the source of the problem in the bud before the teenager sneaks out their window; it's steering a little child back in the right direction just as they begin to wander; it's knowing when a young adult is most likely to blow off their responsibility and reassigning the responsibility before they can.

Describe how you see your role in the village. Amber is a mother in the village. It's that simple, as far as she's concerned. She lives in this house with her children and she takes care of them. Outside of Willow House, she doesn't see any responsibility at all -- which is not to say that she won't act if she sees children behaving poorly, regardless of where she is or to whom they belong.

Is there anything else we should know about your role in the Village? Amber takes her role seriously and she has serious disdain for any adult in the village who does not take their role as seriously as she does hers. While she doesn't see herself as responsible for children and adolescents from other houses, she will speak up if she feels that another adult is not demonstrating responsibility for their own.

Background

Education: MSW
Work History: Amber worked as a therapist for adolescents and adults until three years ago, when she stopped due to her first marriage ending
Current Goals or Challenges: Amber's first husband has been stalking her, which is one of the reasons she came to the island
Reason for Living on Birchwood Isle: To protect herself and her family from her first husband.
Brief History: Amber had a difficult home life as a child. She was always quiet but also naturally inquisitive. Although she rarely behaved in ways that most adults would have considered bad, her mother had little patience with developmentally-appropriate curiosity, and she yelled frequently. Amber's father drank too much, and some nights they yelled at one another, other nights they both yelled at her. Sometimes her father struck her in the face and he often left bruises on her or her mother.

She ran away when she was 14 and met Brad. The two of them married as soon as they were legally able. Amber became pregnant, and Brad became violent. She lost three pregnancies before she gained the courage to press charges against him, then file for divorce. Her current husband helped her through the process, and while they worked together, they fell in love, marrying almost as soon as the divorce was finalized. Since then, Amber's first husband has been released from jail and has been stalking Amber through her therapy practice. She had to quit her job to protect her clients. When she and her current husband discovered Birchwood Isle, it seemed like the perfect place to escape because of its vetting process. Now that they are on the island and have stable jobs working for the Orphan Village, she is finally starting to relax.

Basic Information

Where do you live? Orphan Village
Are you married? If yes, to whom? Yes. I am married to Hermione Morrow
Do you have any children? If yes, list them. No children yet!
Is your family open to adopting children or adolescents? We would love to adopt a child or adolescent. Probably no more than 2, but you never know!

Appearance

Height: 5'6"
Build: slight
Hair Color: medium brown
Eye Color: brown
Distinguishing Features: a slightly crooked right upper incisor
Brief Description: Grace is of average height and very slender, almost to the point of being skinny. She has medium-brown hair that hangs to just past her shoulders and warm brown eyes that smile even before the smile reaches her mouth. Her frame suggests that she isn't particularly strong, and this is an accurate assessment of her physical ability. What she lacks in strength, however, she makes up for in speed and agility! Her face is slender and angular, and some people have accused her of having an RBF, but most of the time those are the people she genuinely doesn't like! She doesn't wear a lot of makeup most of the time because she feels that it's silly to wear makeup when women are, in her opinion, naturally beautiful. Similarly, she prefers to wear blue jeans and t-shirts and she doesn't dress up except for on special occasions. There are a lot of those in Oak House, but she tries to reserve her dresses for the same occasions they have the children dress up -- like Christmas or Easter.

Personality

Strengths: steadfast; patient listener; skilled at building routines; practical; emotionally resilient; inclusive; reliable under pressure; skilled mediator; remembers details

Flaws: slow to trust outsiders; stubborn; overburdened; over protective; dislikes sudden changes; finds it hard to admit to vulnerability; holds grudges over breaches in trust; overly nostalgic; holds impossibly high standards for herself; avoids asking for help

Likes: family-style dinners where everybody gathers at the table; baking with the children; seasonal traditions; board games on rainy days; big family celebrations; handmade crafts she can keep; refrigerators plastered with childhood pride; early mornings before the rest of the house wakes up

Dislikes: wasting perfectly good food; phones at the dinner table; distracted children and adolescents; broken promises and the people who break them; senseless conflict between roommates or siblings; littering or disrespecting nature; perfectly tidy living spaces that don't look lived in

Vices: Grace hoards old seed catalogs
Fears: house fires, getting snowed in and not being able to leave the island if necessary
Personality: Grace is not a naturally friendly person. She's standoffish to the point of being rude, she doesn't trust people easily, and she is slow to accept people into her personal sphere. What she does have going for her is a genuine warmth for struggling adolescents, and she opens up almost immediately when she encounters young people who truly need her. Nothing means more to her than being needed and the moment she feels certain that she can help someone, Grace transforms from "ice queen" to "warm mother hen." It's important, then, to recognize that while she is not friendly, she is certainly kind, and if she discovers that someone is in need or in distress, she will bend over backward to do whatever they need to make them feel safe, comfortable, and confident. You absolutely cannot take her at face value, and while first impressions die hard, they are not the most valuable impression you will form of someone like Grace Morrow.

Relationships & Discipline

How do you normally get along with other adults? Honestly, Grace is distrustful of most adults and it takes a while for her to warm up to people. She's seen the way modern adults treat their children, all while claiming that their way is "better" because they don't "hit their children." What she sees is parents who are highly neglectful and who want to pass their troubled kids off to somebody else instead of dealing with the mess they made themselves. Until you have won her over, she can be quite aloof.

How do you normally get along with teenagers? Grace gets along well with teenagers because she spent the majority of her career picking up the pieces of their broken hearts. She's good at earning their trust, explaining consequences to them, and helping to lead them toward making better choices. She didn't think much about becoming a mother until recently, and now that she's over 35 her preference is to adopt an older child or teenager. That says a lot about how she generally gets along with them.

How do you normally get along with children? In contrast to her relationship with teenagers, Grace is a little bit aloof with children at first because she has a lot less experience with them. She's working on improving the way she handles them, and she is quickly warming up the more children she has the opportunity to get to know at Oak House.

Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village

What is your role at the Orphan Village? Co-Head
Which house or building do you work for? Oak House
Do you live in the Village or commute? Lives at Oak House
Do you have any special training, certification, or skills relevant to your role? Grace has a Masters of Social Work and spent years working with troubled teenagers at risk of being placed in residential treatment centers.
Do you prefer to work with a particular age group? Which one? Teenagers in particular, but also older adolescents
Do you struggle with a particular age group? Which one? Yes. Younger children.

Briefly describe your caregiving or mentoring style. Grace looks for situations in which she can bring together groups of people, and she especially enjoys opportunities to praise one of the children or adolescents she mentors in front of a group of people -- whether their peers or other adults. If someone does especially well on a test, or if they go out of their way to draw her a picture, she makes sure that page has front-and-center attention on the refrigerator where everybody can see it. In this way she is incredibly encouraging, but she can also be somewhat self-centered in her mentoring style; Instead of giving youngsters the opportunity to express the ways in which they are proud of their own work, she tells them how she's proud of what they've done. It works, but she's leaving wide-open an area of opportunity that many of the children at the Orphan Village would benefit from.

Describe how you see your role in the village. Grace sees herself first and foremost as an interim parent to children and adolescents who don't have one. It's actually hard for her because, when she does become attached, she becomes very attached, and the idea of letting any child or adolescent go with adoptive parents is painful for her. Because of the way she views her role, she doesn't often venture outside the sphere of her home (though she does move beyond the walls of Oak House and its grounds, of course!). Specifically, she doesn't try to take on any parenting or "adulting" duties with children or adolescents who aren't assigned to her.

Is there anything else we should know about your role in the Village? If Grace could, she would adopt every single one of the Oak House kids. (Writer note: This assumes that the children and adolescents who choose to join Oak House are suited to Grace. Peep her discipline sheet to see what conflicts might look like.) At the same time, she has significantly less interest in children and adolescents outside of Oak House, and is most likely to send them back to their "interim parents" if she spots them misbehaving or out of bounds. Unless she has a very specific type of relationship with children or adolescents from other houses, she won't interact much with them.

Background

Education: MSW
Work History: Prior to coming to Birchwood Isle to work for the new Orphan Village, Grace worked as a therapist with troubled youth
Current Goals or Challenges: Establish a strong sense of family within the Oak House and help the youth living there feel that they belong.
Reason for Living on Birchwood Isle: Burnout. She was tired of watching disinterested parents discard their teens to programs or refuse to engage with them emotionally or intellectually. Somewhere along the line she decided she believed that corporal punishment was better than ignoring the youth and the island's mission won her over.
Brief History: Grace was born to cold parents who wanted to do what was right for their daughter, but didn't have the warmth of personality for genuine caring. She spent most of her youth doing whatever she had to so that she could get their attention, and in time it led her to serious mistakes that would have cost her in the long run if it wasn't for her grandparents stepping up to give her the support she'd always needed. They were stricter than her parents, and she had to answer to them at the cost of a stern hiding if she broke their rules. For a long time, Grace hated it. Her career in social work taught her that corporal punishment damaged kids, but in the back of her mind she could never quite rectify that with her own experience. Corporal punishment from her grandparents felt more caring than the emotional neglect from her parents.

In the end, she decided on social work because she wanted to help teenagers who were like she had been when she was in her teens. She left school with big hopes that she could make a genuine difference in the lives of young people growing up with "modern parents" like the ones who raised her in the era of Dr. Spock. And she did make a difference! She was able to help increase the confidence in the teenagers she worked with and instill in them a belief in themselves. It was good enough until they went home and their parents disregarded their accomplishments, spoke down to them, and started the cycle all over again. About a third of her clients wound up in residential treatment programs and some of those died or were lost in the system.

Thanks to her grandparents, Grace decided to try something different. Hoping for real change, she moved to Birchwood Isle and accepted the position at Oak House, with her wife, as soon as it was opened to her.