Leaps and Bounds: Suffering can make you strong

Sometimes when things go wrong, they go very, very wrong.

Fifteen-year-old Jantina Huls lost her father to cancer and her mother suffered a severe brain injury. Jantina was placed in foster care. She chose to gain strength from her circumstances.

"My life's been interesting. It's been kind of up and down. Whenever I get over something, it seems like another thing happens.

"Dad died of cancer when I was 11. And when I was 9 my Mum got rushed to hospital. We were told she might die and we stayed there overnight because things didn't look good.

"They found out what her disease was just in time and they managed to prevent it doing much damage, but because her temperature got up to 43 point something degrees, her brain actually fried so she's now got a brain injury.

"She had to spend 2 1/2 months in hospital learning how to walk and talk again. When she came back home it was really hard because she was trying to look after Dad, and she couldn't even look after herself. There were times when we'd have fires in the kitchen because she'd forget things, and lots of floods.

"Dad was really sick and here's Mum learning how to cope with her new brain. So it left me to do a lot in the family.

"I can see the effect it's had on me now. When I got put into foster care all of a sudden I was like 'ooh, freedom, awesome!' But it wasn't that hard.

"[Foster care's] been pretty good. I've had amazing social workers from CYFS. I still see my Mum quite a bit, once or twice a week.

"I've been in three foster homes and each one of them has been really, really, really amazing. Each lot of foster families has had some kind of impact on my life.

"There was one day when I was actually quite angry about it, and depressed, and I started thinking - this whole thing, I'm letting it eat away inside me. It's not doing me any good. I'm not coming out on top.

"Something just went click in my head. I started thinking, why am I letting what has happened to me make me all negative. Why don't I use it to help me in some way?

"That's been quite a big aim for me - to use what has happened to actually help me.

"It doesn't matter how bad the start is that we've had in life, we can always grow from that. If we really want to, we can turn our lives round and do something. Don't let what you've been through determine what your future is going to be like."