Former Foster Boys
From “At-Risk Youth” to “Leaders in Training”
What if aging out of foster care weren’t the beginning of instability, but the road to leadership?
Welcome to Former Foster Boys.
My name is Tim King. I’ve been a trauma counsellor for the past twelve years, and along with the help of some like-minded men including my son Gabriel, I’ve started a nonprofit built on a simple belief:
No young man’s worth is up for debate.
The Moment That Stayed With Me
I once looked into the eyes of a homeless man.
He looked away quickly.
In that split second, I understood what I was seeing.
Shame.
Don’t even look at me.
I remember wanting to help him — and realizing I didn’t have the resources yet.
That’s why we’re here.
Why We’re Doing This
It is easier to build strong boys than to repair broken men, and we have a lot of broken men, so here we are.
My life looked very privileged from the outside, but my parents were the product of generations of unresolved trauma. You would only need to see us in action once at the family dinner table to understand.
I spent well over 20 years searching for healing. Therapy. Workshops. Men’s groups. Personal development programs. I kept hearing, “My life is changing,” while I was learning first hand what “your mileage may vary” really means as I mostly just spun my wheels.
PTSD and trauma are buzzwords these days, and are rightfully getting a lot of press. Complex trauma is even harder to heal, because it’s from repeated traumatic events over and over in one’s early years. That’s what happened to me and I won’t sugar coat it, it made living a normal happy life incredibly impossible. You may know someone who freaks out at the drop of a hat, that was me.
Gradually I found a combination of different healing modalities that worked for me.
- Breathwork
- Trauma Release Exercise (TRE)
- Rapid Trauma Release
- Family Constellation Work
- Hypnosis
- Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Nutrition
Finally something changed. I had rewired my nervous system enough that I stopped having trauma-generated reactions to everyday life. I could relax. I could move forward.
I learned what it means to “repair a broken man,” and I thought if I could do it for myself, maybe I could help others. Other than repairing the relationships with my own father and son, nothing in my life has been as rewarding as seeing other men I’ve helped [turn their lives around].
People sometimes ask if I was ever in foster care myself. I wasn’t, but when it comes to having a traumatic childhood… Let’s just say I’m not just the president — I’m also a member.