Foster Care Fall Out: The State of the State for Adjudicated Youth and Juvenile Justice © 2008-2013

I am deeply disturbed by the recent press coverage regarding what is going on in the foster care system today.

Having worked for a private foster care agency (profit-driven) company contracted by the Department of Children's Services through the State of Tennessee, I would like to share what I've learned through my experience working with older adolescents reaching the age of majority-18-who are being released from state custody with the Department of Children's Services.

One child, now twenty, is pregnant and moves from place to place every few days or so (photos attached). When I first got her case, 5 years or so ago, she had concrete goals, dreams and aspirations. She had hope. She wanted to go to college. Now, today, she is homeless, pregnant, and has been without services since the day (and I do mean day!) she turned 18. (Pictures of her currrent "home" are posted next to this article.)

On her 18^th birthday, Ms. DB was dropped off at a Food Lion parking lot in Gallatin, TN without any money, clothing, food, healthcare, benefits, e.g., food stamps, transportation and no where to go. She was on her own with a 10^th grade education and no GED.

CG is a young man who was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 19, shortly after leaving custody. He was denied TennCare 4 times before I made the decision to get involved at any cost. Like all of my other former DCS clients (at least those who have contacted me over the years) CG is also chronically homeless, unemployable, and has only a 10^th grade education, epilepsy, and a mental illness. He TennCare is ending 3/31/2008-not quite enough time to plan and execute the brain surgery he needs to help him live a relatively normal life...

I'm still involved, but tomorrow I will turn his case file over to two new case managers and hope that they can keep up the pace. I have to let go. I can't pay my internet bill!

I hope and pray that all of the hard work I have put into his case: applying for benefits, social security, Medicaid, Food Stamps, even a library card and a voter registration card (which are a dime a dozen in this town; Nashville, TN; these days) so that he can get the brain surgery and medical treatment he needs and deserves does not get lost when I go back to work next week. I have assured him that I will not abandon him like everyone else in the past-besides, I hold his history-his memory-his voter registration, TennCare and Social Security cards[1].

These children and young adults (DB, CG, CW, and CB) and a few other exceptional children left an imprint on my heart long after I left my position with the Department of Children's Services...

After leaving the private (contract) agency I was working for, it took a very long time for me to decide whether I should continue in the field of social services for children. You see, I was under the impression that foster care was about children. Wrong.

Unfortunately, I came to realize that it was more about money than children. Private agencies pay barely there, barely trained "people" upwards of $40-60/day per child tax-free. One foster parent I worked with kept ten children in a four-bedroom home in Madison. She also kept chains on the refrigerator door so the children wouldn't eat too much food. Another family had multiple complaints of sexual assault filed against them, but those complaints were mysteriously absent from my case file when I left the agency. As was my actual signature on my case reports-they didn't even try to color between the lines when falsified my records with white out. Who can be that lazy? Who can be that reckless? Who can be that person?

I was deeply saddened by this realization because I was unsure what to do with the information I had acquired throughout the years. However, at this point in my life, I do feel that I have some ethical obligation to either speak out or take action to work towards resolving the systemic problems in the privatized foster care environment.

I came to the realization that I may be able to use my own voice to speak for the children who have been repeatedly silenced by our society: our schools, our courts, our social service system, and the adults they relied upon to have their most basic needs met.

Of course, I would have to speak with DB and CG about their willingness to meet with you to discuss their experience while in the custody of the children's services.

However, if you believe (like I do) that sharing these stories (albeit anecdotal) may ultimately lead to profound changes and reform within the foster care system, then I am quite certain my former clients would be more than willing to speak with anyone who has the capacity to make things better for their natural and foster siblings still in the system, I do not see a problem so long as we can create a space where they can speak freely without fear of repercussions.

DB is not alone in her experience, and for whatever reason, these children seem to feel comfortable sharing their stories with me.

There is another young man, Cody G, who is an incredibly gifted writer that deserves to be heard and recognized. Much like DB, he has experienced a great deal of difficulty finding stable living arrangements once discharged from DCS custody. Because he was constantly in motion, moving from place to place to place-- I agreed to hold onto his personal journals documenting his experience in DCS.

His voice deserves to be heard along with a chorus of others! Some of these children develop such fascinating ways to cope with the pain, the isolation and the abandonment issues they grow up with, and I try to do the best I can to steer them in the right direction.

Talent such as C and perseverance like DB's should be revered, celebrated, respected, and validated-- not thrown away or ignored..

Foster care is mess. What happens next is a complete and utter tragedy. I hope you are deeply disturbed by the contents of this letter-if so-my job is done for the day!

Let your voice be heard-- contact your representatives, the press-- shout it from the rooftops!!! This despicable state of affairs and this not so well hidden secret about privatized foster care in the state of Tennessee must come to an end!

This is how C writes:

The Leaveless Plant:by CG © 2006

I am a plant without any rootsI bring no syrup I bear no fruits I am not much to look at without any flowers.

All I do is sit and stare for hours Every so often, I wander off to find a new spot

Feeling no attachment to anything I've got 

Every time I move, I lose a leaf or twoBut no one will notice because here I am new 

After moving a while, I look down to seeHow oblivious I am to my nudity 

All of my moving has shaken me bareEmbarrassed and all I ignore the stares

But the more I think the better I feelBecause the leaves from me provided a meal 

So I am important like all on this earthThink I'll settle down and show this world what I'm worth

And this is how DB lives: pregnant at age 20:

The bathtub. No door. No curtain.

The sink.

The mold.

The baby...

[1] I must give kudos to Judge Dan Eisenstein from the Mental Health Court of Davidson County who has paved the way to make getting CG Transitional Services as he ventures out into the world alone-if only I could get reimbursed for my time! Judge Eisenstein is untraditional, compassionate, and by far the most client-centered Judge I have ever had the honor of working with, no matter how briefly. Judge Eisenstein is paving the road for CG to have a chance-a chance at a future-a chance at a life-- a real one-free from Grand Mal seizures, self-injury, hypomania, rapid cycling, and suicidal ideations.

I also would like to express my gratitude to The Tennessee Justice Center, Tony Garr of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, Lane Simpson, and Dave Aguzzi with the Department of Children's Services who are helping CG get transitional living services so he can get the care and treatment he did not receive while in custody. Kim Crane (from the Vanderbilt Center for Child & Family Policy Center) has also been instrumental in serving as a liaison with Transitional Youth Programs and helped me get connected to the right people and programs efficiently and effectively. Thanks to you all!.

RETRACTION: "Storm on the Horizon"

The last several days, I found myself thinking about a statement I made several years ago. In this modern era of communications, it is difficult for a freelance writer like myself to make retractions- and correct myself given that I only have a small stream of frequent readers. However, I often make mistakes whether it is an ampersand instead of a comma or an opinion statement that could be easily misunderstood. I would like to correct one such statement and set the record straight. Not just for my readers, but also for myself.

This weekend marks the beginning of what I consider one of the greatest travesties in American history: Hurricane Katrina. This is further compounded by the potential devastation that awaits New Orleans residents when they return to the unknown losses that await them as Hurricane Gustav looms of the Gulf Coast and inches its way closer and closer to the Louisiana border.

Several years ago, I made an online statement that Nashvillians in need of benefits should apply "before the Louisiana people utilize whatever resources we have left." In retrospect, that statement seems crass and insensitive. Now that several years have passed, I would certainly blame this disgusting war as the main culprit of domestic waste. Unfortunately, I cannot turn back the hands of time, and that statement exists- floating around for all eternity in the magical world of cyberspace. 

All I can do now is try my best to explain what prompted that statement and hope that those who read my previous piece will also see this retraction.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain what prompted such an apparently callous, insensitive comment and set the record straight.

We live in a country that rallies together when faced with domestic and international crises. We open our hearts, our homes, and our wallets for disaster relief here and overseas. We also live in a world where smaller crises exist everyday albeit poverty, hunger or homelessness. Such domestic problems tend to be chronic in nature and often slip under the radar. The battle lines have been drawn and we lost. We arelosing. With every day that passes the casualties grow to astronomical proportions. We failed.

After Katrina, Tennessee residents took in many refugees. The local papers printed countless ads offering shelter, financial assistance, and job opportunities to "Survivors of Katrina." I called some of these people in response to their apparent act of altruism and learned that these offers were onlyapplicable to survivors of Katrina and not to local residents. I was angry.

I was angry because in the months before that devastating storm hit the Gulf Coast, there was an urgent call for people to open their homes to the 30,000 children and adolescents in desperate need of foster care. Children without a home. Children without a safety net. Our city did not respond. Our residents did not rise to the occasion and countless children continue to live in uncertain conditions without the necessities they need to thrive in this complicated, fragmented society.

After considerable thought, I came to the conclusion that the media and current policies that allow such unfortunate states of existence are partly to blame, but so too are the American people and the residents of this fine city that I like to think of as home. So why is it that we are so generous in times of urgent need by allowing pervasive states of poverty for our local residents and out children? Are they damaged goods? Are persons in poverty to blame for their circumstances? Are they too week? Are they somehow supposed to magically lift themselves out of the dark and somehow find the path into enlightenment of financial security? Is this the ultimate act of Social Darwinism where survival of the fittest means people who are fit to survive against allodds? Is it just a coincidence that the words indigent and indignant sound so similar?

As Hurricane Gustav approaches, I call upon our local residents to do more than just welcome the fleeing victims to open their hearts and their homes. I challenge each and every one of you to continue this charity after the storm has cleared. Even after the storm in the Gulf has moved past the coast and becomes another chapter in history, there is much to be done right here, right now. Do we accept the indignation of indigence and poverty with indifference? Or do we act?

We can do so much on the home front before our indifference creates a storm of domestic disaster. It is unfortunate for us that people have been too blind, too indifferent, and too complacent they do not even see such a storm brewing. But If you look, and if you listen, it is not hard to see how such a storm is brewing just beyond the horizon.