I travel for a living and my job keeps me on the road most of the time, but this gives me time off in between to engage with other stuff I am passionate about, I have been an active preacher along the way and I have been talking about family preservation and making awareness about CPS for more than six years now, that has been one of the activities I have been so passionate about. Through this time I have seen a lot horrible things, broken lives, shattered families, confused mothers, sad teenagers, imprisoned innocent fathers and a lot more, but I am proud to have met and known an Angel along these years.
One of the rarest and loving person I did meet in the world of CPS was and still a jewel, Madam Becca (name changed), surprisingly a foster parent, you read that right, a foster parent. I met Becca four years back, I have known her that long on the personal level, I know all the kids that presently lives in her spacious house, a few that had lived with her. Two weeks ago, I said to her: I'd love to write about you in a post for a Family protection group, I think you would be a source of inspiration, I know you don't want to be public about this, but I insist, even in anonymity. She was silent for a while and said, "I will have to ponder on that", the next day she said, "Alright". (The interview is a cleaned version, and I have personally made some injections from what I know and have shared with each other for the last 4 to 3 years)
1. What Are Your Experiences With CPS?
I lost my husband early 2003 to a chronic ailment and later that year lost the only thing I had left in my whole existence. My 8 yr old daughter was taken from me by CPS, I had no one to turn to and I was without her, I was in a financial ruin and hardly survived, with my broken heart I labored day and night to fight for my daughter. Being poor at the time was my major setback, until I was no longer poor, until I became loud enough to get back my daughter. For 5 yrs I was without her.
I got my daughter back, but not in whole, she was not the young little brave princess I used to know, she returned to me a scared little girl, broken beyond her mother's hearts, though she kept growing stronger after the whole incident and abuse she passed through, but she was never the same. Even in the comfort of her home, she kept crying in the night about the friends she had left behind who are still suffering, especially her best friend in those five years, at times she screams at night, scared from sleep, her trauma was so much than I thought I knew. My daughter was not complete, all I could do was remind her of my love and help heal her every way I could. A broken mother helping a broken daughter, I needed to be strong.
2. Why Did You Get Into Fostering Then
I knew what I passed through at the hands of the court and CPS, but that only simply made me stronger and more resolved. I as a parent whose child had been inflicted badly by the foster care system, and oppressed by CPS in court knew how wrong and evil the game these people where playing. Whenever I heard parents talk about the system, we were on the same page, we were resonating the same pain and anguish. Whenever they said we were perjured against, I knew their hearts.
So, my daughter's foster friend in the foster home she grew up in was my first. At first I must confess, my daughter's talk about her friend was a catalyst, aside my experience with the system. I got my name very clean after getting my daughter, I adopted my daughter's friend from the system!, that was where it all started, I refused to use any of the financial privileges the state offered back then, I took care of her from my personal income, yes I was that stable now. I was hooked up on another child who was as broken as mine, we all worked it through, healing each others down the road.
As time went on, and as God blessed me more, I became a foster parent, yeah, it sounds ironic, but that was one of the only solution I saw at the time. While I anonymously support groups and parents oppressed by CPS, I took the path of becoming a foster parent just because I never wanted any child to experience what my daughter and her friend passed through. I and my two daughters now aged twenty-ish-plus have welcomed a handful number of children into our home within these many years. That was the short term change I saw for the system, to get these young ones from the hands of the abusers they would be placed. That is it, I wanted to help as much children as I could from falling into the hands of wicked fosters and end up broken. That was why I decided to foster.
3. What Out Of The Ordinary Have You Done For The Children
As a mother the greatest pain I felt in those 5 years was worrying where my daughter was!, not being able to see her or talk with her was my doom. For my daughter, every moment she spent in the foster care system was hell for her, her greatest weight was not seeing her mother nor talking to me.
When a child comes into my home, the social worker provide as little information as possible, most times they don't give any information about the child at all. I have personally worked hard most of the time to search for the parents of the children secretly. I am so very careful with this because a friend of mine who did the same and was found out to be doing so by the county got all the kids under her care removed. I have resolved into using some smart services to get the details of the children that come in. I even had to sort of "lobby" my way to get these sometimes.
In my home we have a simple rule that all have kept for a long time now, no one talks to the social worker about the visitors we get when she comes visiting. I never have more than 7 to 8 children under my care at a time, it help keep things simple when I get parents secretly into my home. Yes!, I spend time also travelling with one or two kids when their parents are far off, so they can meet on a leveled ground, and also get CPS off our backs. Phone calls and all, everything to get the parents to communicate with their children again. I know all their stories, because every child I ever fostered had opened up to me plainly and I know when CPS played "foul". Almost all of the cases!. What I am most grateful for is the opportunity God has endowed me with, financially, character wise and godly wise.
That is who Mrs. Becca is, an angel I have known for four years now, she is the most selfless woman I ever met, sacrificing so much to rescue children the best way she can, while helping many parents along the way. I have met three young adults aside her two daughters who aged out under her care, and I am just in happy shock. This interview is not yet done, for there is still so much left to tell, how she has reconciled a handful of the children under her care back to their families and so much more. She is a true example and a mother to many, but to me, She is an Angel!.(She sat down to read this post before I posted it here, and tears filled her eyes)
Keep loving your Kids and fight for their right to be loved by you!
Peace to you all,
Eugene
( @kryptocoin )
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