As a child, Gaelin Elmore spent time in and out of the foster care system, starting when he was five months old. From first to sixth grade, he spent time in an abusive household, unsure of where he and his sister could receive help.
Elmore also dropped out of high school when he was 16 years old after his father was arrested, before his school football coach was given full guardianship by his father.
Now, Elmore — a former collegiate and Cincinnati Bengals professional football player — uses that experience to inspire others to create better futures for children in similar situations.
“There is no finish line,” Elmore said. “We all know this from traumas, the gift that keeps on giving. We might stop the initial harm, but without the necessary support, the horror will continue.”
Elmore, on Friday, was the keynote speaker at the 36th Indiana University Northwest Forum on Child Abuse and Neglect: Advocates for Children and Families. He shared a message about the power of belonging and how it can improve connections between children, families and careworkers who serve them.
Everything can be connected to belonging, Elmore said, and people have a biological yearning for community and connection with others. Children in the welfare system need community and connection to thrive, and welfare workers have a responsibility to provide that, he added.
Children aren’t always going to ask for help when they need it, Elmore said.
“How you choose to support people who need their support, but who you feel like don’t want your support, to me, is the greatest indicator of your true character,” Elmore said. “Sometimes when you have to help a child who doesn’t want your help, that’s rejecting your help, or that’s making it hard for you to help them — how you choose to respond is the greatest indicator of your care.”
Elmore told forum participants that it’s important to recognize the difference between potential and circumstances. No matter someone’s potential, negative circumstances can get in their way, including the environment they live and grew up in, Elmore said.
“Circumstance knocks on your door every single day,” he said. “It knocks on the doors of families and shows an impact of the worst of the worst in our communities every single day. Circumstance will not disappear.”
Because of that, Elmore said it’s important for those in the social work industry to continually show up for families and children who need them. He encouraged them to continue pushing and to meet clients where they’re needed rather than waiting for them to ask for help.
At the end of his message, Elmore presented attendees with the “C.A.R.E. Method,” which stands for compassion, authenticity, resilience and empowerment. Elmore believes that working those into everyday work with children, specialists will be successful.
“Instead of seeing them for how they’re showing up in that moment, how about you see them for who they could be if they get what they need,” Elmore said.
Before Elmore’s talk, IUN Chancellor Arrick Jackson welcomed social work professionals to the university, thanking them for the work they do.
“You navigate systems that are all complex, understaffed and under-resourced,” Jackson said. “But I also know you change lives. You create safety where there is uncertainty, you create hope where there was fear, and … you rewrite someone’s future.”
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton also attended the keynote address Friday, and he also thanked social work professionals for their work with at-risk children.
Elmore’s experience is a story of resilience, Melton said, and he encouraged attendees to learn from Elmore’s talk and apply those lessons to everyday work.
“It is our fundamental moral obligation,” Melton said. “Child abuse does not recognize city borders or county lines. It demands the exact kind of unified force that’s been formed here today for the past 36 years.”
