Watch "Removed": An Award Winning Short Film About a Foster Child

A friend posted to my Facebook page earlier this week a link to the award-winning movie "Removed"; the story of what it's like to be a foster child in America. It's only 12 minutes long so I do recommend if you have some time to watch this. The end literally made me cry. Tears and everything.

The story was very realistic. It showed the abuse that this little girl and her brother endured, which caused them to be removed from the mother's custody and placed into separate foster homes. You could see the sadness and confusion on this little girl's face and she was moved from home to home, carrying all her belongings in a garbage bag.  I'll never forget that Christopher's clothes were handed to me in three drawstring garbage bags so this is very true and accurate to real life.

The movie also shows the little girl's anger and the behavioral issues that emerge because she feels she has no control over her life. And it shows the lack of trust these children learn to have. Oh how I can relate to that! For the first year and a half I had him, Christopher didn't trust me and didn't trust his pre-school teachers. He had been taken away before so why get close to these people if they were only going to hurt him? He used to act out in defiance, just willing us to give up on him. The screaming tantrums, the "you're not my favorite mommy" comments, and just acting out, that happened all the time. It was exhausting. Truly exhausting.

The little girl had flashbacks from her old life which shows she probably should have a diagnosis of PTSD. She started screaming when she got a new dress from her foster mom that reminded her of the domestic violence she witnessed at her mom's home. This of course confused the foster mom as she had no idea what caused the outburst.

Christopher has a diagnosis of PTSD and would freak out over thunderstorms, smoke alarms and swimming over the drain at the YMCA pool. I was of course confused as well and his therapists would tell me that there are a lot of experiences this little boy had that I just don't know about. So when he would scream and cry like that over what seems silly to me, I would just comfort him and let him know he was safe.

The movie also showed the conflicted emotions that these children have over visits with their birth mom. In the movie you see the little girl refusing to interact with the mom during a visit. She's angry at her and for good reason. Mom failed to keep her safe.

Christopher's last visit with his birth mom resulted in a screaming tantrum when we got home and a punch in my eye. For a three year old, he has a remarkable strong right hook, let me tell you. He was angry though because his mother had told him out of spite that he was going to be given away again and that this wasn't his forever home. She was angry that she couldn't have her child so she wanted to hurt him, which of course is a big reason why she couldn't have her child. I mean seriously, who does that? That one comment messed with his head for months, by the way. It was probably the single worst thing she could have said to him at the time.

Like the little girl in this movie though, Christopher eventually began to heal and to trust. We still have our struggles and I still often have to remind Christopher that this is his forever home but at least now he believes me when I tell him.

I don't want to give away the end of the movie but I do want to say...it made me tear up. You need to see it for yourself.

To watch "ReMoved", please click here.

Massachusetts DCF Endangers Children

In 2012, an independent assessment of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families determined that our state was doing a terrible job of caring for at risk children: Here are some scary statistics:

• 2011, 40 children died while in state care
• 1 in 5 children experienced abuse or neglect while in state care
• More than 50 percent of children in care have been prescribed psychotropic drugs
• DCF workers fail to make 25% of their required monthly visits to families in care
• More than 18% of children reunited with parents were removed again due to new claims of abuse and neglect
• The number of foster placements for one child is extremely high, going as high as 20 placements for one child

Ultimately, Massachusetts is doing a worse job of caring for its at risk children than departments in 40 out of the 50 US states. 

This is not all. In 2010 the state was sued (Connor B. v. Patrick), alleging that children suffer four times higher abuse here in MA than they do in the rest of the country. In 2013 a federal judge found that MA DCF "failed not only to comport with national standards...but also to comply with its own internal policies." Judge Judy Brown actually asked of DCF, "Do you care?" 

So, armed with recommendations from the assessment and under pressure to comply with federal laws, what did the state do? Nothing. The result: Jeremiah Oliver is missing and presumed dead and who knows how many more children have been hurt.

Now of course,  the media is adding more pressure and it's an election year, so suddenly the solutions are coming in. Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is running for governor, wants to enact a Child Protection Agency within DCF to serve the children deemed most at risk. She has finally stated that children's needs have to come ahead of the needs of the abusive parents. This is from the Boston Herald:

“Right now, a child who is the victim of abuse or neglect may not have someone involved in his or her case who looks out only for the child’s safety,” Coakley said. “During my career, I have seen, day in and day out, how the current structure of DCF puts children at risk and overburdens social workers; the creation of an independent Child Protection Division will go a long way towards addressing these issues.”

Of course this is true but I now ask this of Martha Coakley: Why did you wait until Jeremiah Oliver was dead to come up with an actual solution? If you've known this was an issue throughout your career, why didn't you do something sooner? You're the state's Attorney General. You should have done something. Instead you did nothing and now a little boy is (probably) dead. Shame on you.

Meanwhile, as Martha Coakley devises solutions, the current governor pretends that our current problems are one-off experiences. Governor Deval Patrick, says the issue is not systemic however he's now willing to spend taxpayer money on an outside study to assess the current state of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. The cost for this assessment: $40,000. Did I mention that this study was already thoroughly accomplished by Children's Rights in 2012? Why do we need another one and why do we need to spend taxpayer dollars on it? Let's instead put that $40K someplace it will do some good. If money needs to come out of someone's pocket, let it come out of millionaire Deval Patrick's pockets.

All I can do is hope that the pressure that the media is putting on this case actually makes some positive change in Massachusetts because if left to our elected officials, clearly nothing happens. The only silver lining to any of this is that we might be able to make things better for kids in the future.

A Heartbreaking Story: Jeremiah Oliver

5 year old Jeremiah Oliver

Here in Massachusetts a heartbreaking story has dominated the headlines the last few weeks: the story of little Jeremiah Oliver, who has been missing since September and is feared dead.

The story is horrible all around. The mother lived with a boyfriend who was beating her and beating the children. The family was under the supervision of the Department of Children and Families but the social worker ignored her responsibilities and hadn't seen the children since last spring. The supervisors knew this and not only allowed this but...gave the social worker a promotion and a raise!

The social worker was so, so very negligent. She hadn't visited the children in the better part of a year. The little boy's teacher had also called the social worker to say that the mom told her that the boy had moved to Florida to live with the grandparents. But the social worker never followed up. The little boy was probably already dead by then but there were siblings and they kept getting abused for the rest of the year.

It wasn't until the sister told a counselor at her school in December that she was being beaten and that her brother was missing. Then finally the police got involved. The boyfriend and mom were arrested, the children put into foster care and a search went underway to locate the little boy. He is feared dead. And at this point his body will probably never be found.

It is so heartbreaking to think of what this little boy went through in the last few months of his life. No one even tried to keep this handsome little boy safe. Not the mother who stood by and watched while the children she loved were savagely beaten. Not DCF who really should have known better. Not the extended family who cried on camera to the media after the fact but did nothing when it could have actually made a difference. No one.

When Christopher was still a foster child, I had to have monthly visits with his social worker and she would not allow me to stop, no matter how difficult they were. She told me she had to see Christopher every single month, even if it was just for five minutes, to ensure he was being kept safe. In our case, it was tough because every time Christopher saw her, he thought she was coming to take him away so I'd have to suffer through terrible outbursts for days afterwards as he dealt with all the emotions. I understood though and thought well, if this helped to keep other kids safe then we'll just have to suck it up for now.

Christopher last week on vacation

Christopher looks so much like Jeremiah and all I could think while this was all happening was how this could have been him, if not for the grace of God. Christopher saw a picture of Jeremiah on the news when we were in a restaurant a few weeks ago and he even asked me if that was a picture of himself. I almost cried at the thought.

There are 40,000 children under the care of the Department of Children and Families here in Massachusetts. 30,000 are children receiving services, meaning that social workers are supposed to visit all those children on a monthly basis. We simply do not have enough social workers to manage those levels of responsible care and I wonder how many more children are falling through the cracks because the social worker caseloads are so overwhelming.

My friend who has a pre-adoptive child in the same Fitchburg DCF officed, asked her little guy's social worker about this case. He told her that the caseloads are truly overwhelming but that this didn't surprise him about this particular social worker. Lovely. So just how many social workers are out there like this particular social worker? That's the million dollar question.

I hope Governor Patrick decides to hire more social workers and make sure they are held accountable for their responsibilities. That's the only way cases like Jeremiah Oliver will never happen again. This system is broken and so poorly funded and it's the kids who end up suffering in the worst possible way. Rest in peace little Jeremiah. My heart breaks for you and all the other kids out there like you.

My Effort at Foster Child Advocacy

For the Love of Children

I've been reading a lot of blog posts as well as comments from foster parents (some who have adopted their foster kids) and birth parents who have lost their kids but funny enough, I don't see anything being written by people like myself; people who specifically sought to adopt (not foster) a child who needed a home.

I have the utmost respect for foster parents because that is a really hard, often thankless job. You're caring for someone else's broken children and you're the one left to pick up the pieces and put them back together again. These kids are often angry at their situation and suffering either physically or emotionally (or both) from the abuse that they suffered at way too young an age. In addition, you're dealing with over-worked social workers and a system that is horribly broken and in my humble opinion, heavily weighted in favor of the birth parents who have caused all this pain in the first place. I tip my hat to you foster parents. You are true angels walking on this earth.

I have read the birth parents' perspectives and I try to feel sorry for them...but I just can't. I can't be anything but angry at what they have done to their children; at the utter selfishness they exhibit on a near constant basis. They hurt their children in horribly inexplicable ways and then blame everyone else but themselves for the outcome.

Case in point, Christopher's mother called DCF "Baby Snatchers" and would scream at and even assault social workers because they took her child away. Christopher's mom's social worker had a protective order in place because the bio mom had indeed attacked her. We also had to have our court-mandated visits with a security guard in the room in case she attacked the workers during a visit. Yeah, it was that bad.

However the bio mom failed to recognize the extreme danger she put her son in when she robbed a chain store with him in tow. Nor does she acknowledge the fact that she put his life at risk when she took police on a high speed car chase through crowded city streets in an effort to escape capture. She literally could have killed them both. But yeah, let's blame DCF.

In my early adoption journey, I got to hear about and meet so many children who have been through hell and back, all at the hands of the people who are supposed to love them and protect them. My heart breaks for these children and I am so angry at the people who hurt them. I just can't have sympathy for them.

One day I met a beautiful 15-year-old girl who had a little toddler sister, to be adopted together. I inquired with my social worker about them and was told how the older girl had been raped and impregnated by her own father and that the toddler was the offspring. The girls were still a legal risk, meaning the birth parents continued to fight to maintain their parental rights. Yep that's right..you can rape your daughter and still get to keep your kid until the state jumps through years' worth of expensive hoops to terminate rights. Meanwhile, the kids get victimized over and over again and all you can do is sit by and watch. It's horrible and it's just not right.

My own social worker used to work in the foster side of care and she told us stories about having to bring kids to visit parents in jail for molesting them. Often times, the parents are in jail for a year or two and then they get their kids back and start the abuse all over again. The social workers see what's going on but their hands are tied by laws that heavily favor birth parents and all they can do is watch it unfold. The well-trained social workers see the signs of abuse but these kids are too young to verbalize what's going on so a credible claim can't be made against the parents. So the courts side with the birth parents and the abuser gets to continue victimizing their kids without consequence. I asked my social worker how she handled watching that and she said that's the reason she switched over to foster adoption. At least these kids have a chance at a happily ever after. The kids in foster care have years of physical and emotional pain to look forward to and she just couldn't stomach it anymore.

I have a friend who was a foster parent initially but then switched over to adoption track for the same reason. She and her husband cared for a little girl and totally fell in love with the adorable toddler. The mother eventually got the little girl back and my friends cried over the loss, as any normal parent would. She cried even harder after the little girl died in her mother's care and she wasn't even allowed to attend the funeral. According to the mom, the child had a high fever and then had a seizure and died. The mother claims she called 911 but that an ambulance never came. (Um yeah right.) These are poor people so no autopsy was ever performed so who knows what really happened. My guess is the baby got a hold of some of mom's drugs, OD'd and died. That's just speculation but considering the scenario, not an unlikely one. The sad thing is, this child had been in a safe, loving home but the state wanted her reunited with her bio mom because that was supposedly in the best interests of the child. How dying on your living room floor is in anyone's best interest is really beyond me. But that's the mindset right now.

The same friend now has a toddler boy in her care. Wow he is a cutie! They are trying to adopt him but are fighting his birth mom, who wants to retain parental rights. Birth mom is a drug-addicted, homeless prostitute but all she has to do is show up to monthly visits (that her social worker escorts her to) and occasionally look presentable in court and her rights are maintained; for now at least. Meanwhile it's my friend and her husband giving this child a safe and loving home. The happy, safe, loving little guy could end up losing everything he has to go live in a homeless shelter with a woman he barely knows, if the bio mom chooses to make that effort. My friend and her husband live in fear every day that the child they adore could be taken away from them by a system that heavily favors birth parents, no matter how horribly unstable they may be. Unfortunately, their experiences have some historical merit so I certainly can't tell them their fears are unfounded. All I can do is support them best I can.

In theory, I feel sorry for the parents because they're so obviously damaged themselves. Maybe they're mentally ill, drug addicted or have been horribly abused as children themselves. But that sympathy ends when I see what they are doing to their kids because of their own personal demons. God has entrusted these people with beautiful, trusting, adoring gifts and they are abusing that trust over and over again. At some point the cycle needs to stop! And we as a compassionate Christian society need to find a way to stop it. I wish I knew how to enact change but I'm just an over-worked single career mom doing what I can to get by. Besides blogging about it during my one free hour a week, what can I do?

The only comfort I'm able to derive in all of this is that my own little boy is safe and loved and wants for nothing. Right now he is playing in his room with his new Angry Birds Jenga game, without a care in the world. Yesterday he played soccer in the town's youth league and then had swim class at the YMCA and after that we met some friends at the Science Museum for an afternoon of fun learning. He is a happy little boy! This is a far cry from the scared and lonely two year old, who in intensive foster care, banged his head against walls so badly that his caregivers were afraid he was giving himself a concussion. Thankfully he has very few memories of his past life and that's exactly how I want it to be.

And now I need to go play Angry Birds Jenga with this happy little boy who has been begging me for the last hour to get off of my computer and go play with him. So I am off to enjoy a rainy Sunday with my little family.

Advocacy and Social Media

I have quite a few friends on Facebook who actively promote the rescue of dogs and cats from shelters. God bless these people for what they do. I adopted a dog just a few months ago from a rescue organization so I do what I can to help as well.

But it kind of surprises me that there isn’t a single person on Facebook advocating for children. Dogs, yes. Cats, check. But kids…nope.

Why is that? Is it just easier to save dogs from a shelter? Do people figure that Social Services is going to take care of kids so they don’t have to? Is it because the dogs and cats are at risk of being put to sleep and kids are not? I have no idea.

There are of course organizations with pages on Facebook that you can "like" that advocate for foster kids. For example there's the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) and the Foster Adoptive Mission. I "like" them both and they share some great information, both at times inspiring at at other times heartbreaking. But these are sponsored organizations and I am talking about friends who have passions for non-profit work. 

As many posts as I see a day on dog and cat rescue, I wish I saw just one on kid rescue. I post photos all the time and my friends do love them so maybe it’s just left to me to be that person now. Hence the blog I guess. Here I am getting our message out on love and the forever family.