To tell the story of one of our children is to tell a piece of the story of all of our children. They all have one thing in common; they aren’t “home”. Two of the girls I have now are sisters who have been in at least 7 homes in the last 3 years, only 1 of which was this home. They were moved from their home after their mother abandoned the family and their father suffered a breakdown. He is an alcoholic and Vietnam Vet with PTSD.

They were placed in one home as long as a year and a half. The TPR process was started but was later dropped when the girls’ foster parents were struggling with their behaviors and asked to have them removed. The decision then became to send the girls home since they were so attached to their father and he was doing fairly well. The case manager thought he needed more time, but, given the circumstances, they went ahead and sent them home in spite of her concerns.

The girls stayed home for about 2 years and were put back into care when their father was cited for DWI and put in jail. They had been placed into a temporary home, then to a foster home that proved ill-equipped to meet their special needs and finally to me.

I don’t know the end of this story, but know this has been a hard road for these girls, repeated abandonment first by their mother, then essentially by their father, and several other foster families. I will try my best to keep that from happening again. These kids deserve that!