At this store, DSS youths learn a living

The comfortable red sofa and chair at the rear of the bookstore More Than Words have hosted bookworms, budding performers, and aspiring poets. Last week's big event, however, was not literary; it was right out of real life.

Harry Spence, the head of the state Department of Social Services, was the guest of honor. His hosts were a dozen young people whose lives were entrusted to his agency's care.

More Than Words is run by wards and former wards of the state. It's an experiment of sorts, a way for teens who have been in foster care to learn the skills to make it on their own.

Jonathan Banks, the manager of the Moody Street bookstore, has been under DSS care -- in foster homes, juvenile homes, and the like -- for half of his 20 years. Banks offered Spence a sample of what he might hear at a More Than Words poetry slam. It was also a slice of Banks's own life:

My mom was doing different types of drugs all the time

But that . . . made her abusive, how could she be so blind

I guess she needed that stuff to ease some of her stress

but then around '96, we got involved with DSS . . .

The lyrics go on to describe how he was put in a foster home and eventually got on the right path, in part with help from DSS and in part despite it.

More Than Words -- the flagship venture of the nonprofit Teen LEEP (Leadership, Employment and Enrichment Program) -- is staffed mostly by youths who have never known what it's like to have a permanent home.

The odds are against these teens, according to a study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Compared with other teens, they are more likely to wind up unemployed, homeless, in jail, or victim of a serious crime. About 600 of them leave the system each year.

More Than Words, which opened a year ago, employs 10 to 12 youths at any given time. Another 10 to 15 work with South Boston-based nonprofit Artists for Humanity to create art, housewares, and accessories to sell at the store.

The shop seems to be thriving, and on open-mike and poetry workshop nights, it's a hive of activity. The program meets about half of its budget through sales, said bookstore founder and Teen LEEP director Jodi Rosenbaum Tillinger . The rest comes from grants and donations.

The model of a store/training program is working so well that other agencies are considering adopting it.

``If you sit young people down in a classroom and you just talk to them about being professional and dressing professional and being on time for all their shifts, that's important, but it's only going to get them so far," said Rosenbaum Tillinger. ``What it feels like to do that on a consistent basis for eight hours a day is a different ballgame. It's the real world -- doing what you need to do even when you don't feel like it ."

Some of the store's employees live in Waltham and surrounding towns; others commute from as far away as New Bedford. They are paid and expected to commit to at least a half-year of work.

Spence toured the bookstore, then listened intently to a Power Point presentation explaining the business and its mission. Then it was his turn to be on the spot.

It could have been an opportunity for the teens to vent their frustrations about DSS, but Rosenbaum Tillinger had counseled them against that. They might find it personally therapeutic to tell their stories, but they wouldn't get the answers they were seeking.

But that didn't mean that Spence got off lightly. The one question the teens kept returning to was the one he acknowledged he couldn't satisfactorily answer: What is DSS doing to help kids like them?

After talking about the importance of offering individualized attention, more educational opportunities, and better job training, Spence said: ``I admit that much of what I've been telling you are things we're going to do -- not things we're doing."

His candor seemed to win the respect of many of the teens, and Spence in turn was impressed by their commitment to the bookstore.

``I certainly came away with an appreciation of how important these kinds of programs could be for young people," he said in an interview this week. ``It gives them the opportunity to do more than just get a valuable work experience and job training -- the opportunity to create little communities that become important."

At the close of the meeting, Banks handed Spence a ceiling tile, one of the few that had yet to be personalized by a staff member with a slogan or inspirational saying.

``This is probably the first time you get to tag anything," Banks said, offering the commissioner a gold marker.

The commissioner thought for a minute. ``I have a favorite quote, but I don't know if you'll like it."

In bold letters he wrote, ``Hew to the difficult."

``It means, `Stick to what's hard,' " he explained.

``I like it," said 18-year-old Nicole McRee.

Stephanie V. Siek can be reached via e-mail at ssiek@globe.com.