Posts By: Rise

As a parent who has had children in foster care, the word “testifying”usually brings to my mind fearful situations where one’s future is in the hands of some powerful person, usually a judge. But when I was asked to testify in front of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families about my experiences getting help through Parents Anonymous, I was quick to respond with a resounding “Yes!” I wanted to tell … Read More

About 10 years ago, I was going through a bad time in my marriage and it came to the point that I just couldn’t take it anymore. One night when my husband abused me I called the police and they took my children and me to the hospital for an exami- nation.

Because of everything going on with my husband, I’d been drinking, and when the Department of Social Services did a quick assessment, they decided … Read More

When I was little I would sit in my room and wonder why my life was not like other children’s. I would see kids with their parents, doing things that my mother would not do with me, like going to the park and shop- ping, and I would feel sad.

My mother and I did those things together when I was very young. But once I got a little older she would just come and go.
My … Read More

My mother and I used to fight so much that she put me in a group home. My mom would come and visit once every two weeks. During the visits, sometimes we would fight. We’d fuss about my behavior at home and about when I could come home again.

I would get extremely mad and start yelling and she would yell at me, too.
Eventually they moved me farther away from my mom because we were fighting … Read More

• Your visits should be unsupervised unless the agency has a reason to supervise the visits. Visits should only be supervised if necessary to protect your child, to prevent your child’s court testimony
from being influenced, or if a court orders the supervision. The agency can supervise some visits to assess your fam- ily interactions, but it does not have to supervise them all.

• If visits are supervised, the least amount of supervision necessary should be … Read More