Orlando and Kimberly Valdez describe their son Austin's transformation after Betsy Guerra's teen leadership boot camp. Within 2-3 weeks, Austin went from unable to speak in groups to sharing in small groups. By graduation 10 weeks later, he gave a testimony in front of family, a shift his parents credit to Betsy's environment of love and respect.
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Hi, we're Orlando and Kimberly Valdez. Our son Austin was invited to come to Betsy's teen leadership group after an incident that he found himself in making an inappropriate video on TikTok. And I can say that Betsy's boot camp has definitely done an amazing impact on Austin through all the skills that he was given. The one thing that I've noticed is his confidence level to be able to express himself about his issues and how he's able to see the more positive and light of life instead of looking at all the negatives and what ifs could happen to me.
Absolutely. It was a very traumatic situation that happened to him for any team. However, especially for a team that doesn't like to speak, it doesn't like to talk or. Or discuss his feelings. And this is a kid that came the Tuesday after his arrest, and it literally changed his life. Within two weeks, he was able to share and to talk about a situation that was the most traumatic thing that he had ever experienced. He barely talked to us about it and was able to share in small group settings within the first three weeks. That, to us, was amazing. Betsy, what she does is she creates an environment of love, respect, and shelter and gives them the freedom to be able to share without being judged and be able to use those life lessons that she's trying to teach to allow him to reflect, reframe his story, make it a positive, and being able to share. So today in the graduation, we're surrounded by 20, 30 different family members, village, and different people that love Austin, know him unconditionally, and are there to support him. And he, you know, he gave an amazing talk and testimony today about what he's learned and the. The things that he's applied in his life. And Betsy's the reason why that happened. She was able to create that environment and she made a loving kid blossom that was scared and was dealing with life on life's lessons and. And different environments that he was going through. So it was amazing to watch the transformation over 10 weeks. So thank you, Betsy. We really appreciate it.
We highly recommend this for anybody going through a situation or whoever's not going through a situation. I wish I had this growing up.
