Field notes from fifty years of work.
Longform reporting on the people, programs, and practice of VisionQuest. Written by our team, illustrated and composed with care.
Breaking Down Silos: Building a Unified Front for Youth Success
On a Tuesday evening in Pima County, a mother sits at her kitchen table looking at a scattered deck of business cards. One belongs to a local probation officer. Another bears the logo of a high school counseling center…
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When You Are the Tool: Self-Care as Operational Necessity
A youth care worker in a Maryland residential program once described the end of a hard shift this way: she could feel her patience thinning by the hour, like a blade losing its edge. A teen in crisis needed her to be s…
May 29, 2026
Trauma Informed Care: What Happens When We Stop Asking What's Wrong
A 14-year-old slams a door so hard the frame shakes. He has been at the residential program for three days. A staff member asked him to put away his phone before group, and he responded by overturning a chair and retre…
May 29, 2026