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It is not easy to get up and speak in front of a hundred people, but recently a teenager did so and she shared a very personal story. At age 12, she was taken away from a mother who became addicted to crack cocaine and was put into foster care and separated from her siblings.

"Crack crushed my world. It made my mother not only forget about me, but my little brother and my baby sister too," read the teenager.

The teen is one of 15 New York Foundling children who are learning about memoir writing from author Liz Welch. This past week, the students read what they had written in class, in front of friends and loved ones.

"I realized that that happens every single day and that the New York Foundling, which is the child welfare organization here in New York, works with foster kids, and one of their big issues is trying to keep siblings together," says Welch.

In Welch's memoir, "The Kids Are All right," she talks about the death of her parents when she was 13 and the separation from her three siblings.

"I think what I can do for these kids is just remind them that yes, things might be difficult, but they do have siblings who are probably going through a difficult experience themselves, so they are not alone," says Welch.

"Parts of the things that were in the book, I actually could compare myself with her and actually say, 'Oh, I went through that too," says another student of Welch.

Once a week, the students, who are all currently in foster care, meet to write about losing a sibling in the foster care system. Twenty percent of siblings in foster care get split up.

"Normally with the sensitive stories, foster kids are a little more reserved and not so open with sharing experiences that they have gone through," says New York Foundling youth development specialist Lashawn Butler. "We did not have this issue with this group."

"It helped me to explain how I actually feel and it helped me open up more in writing," says one of Welch's students.

The first teenager who bravely shared her story ended with a happy ending.

"[My mother] is finally clean and my brothers and sister are living with her once again, and once again I can say she is my hero," she says.

Welch also reconnected with her siblings, who then co-authored her memoir.

"It gives them hope that their family even though it been kind of blown apart, that there is hope that they are going to be able to find one another again and be a family unit," says Welch.

So, for helping students turn their memories into memoirs, Liz Welch is the latest New Yorker of the Week. For more information, visit nyfoundling.org or call 1-212-886-4036.