From the first day that the child welfare system came into my life, I felt confused, afraid to ask for help and alone, with no one to guide or support me. My case began five years ago. I got a call from Child Protective Services (CPS) in Detroit, asking me to come to a Team Decision Making meeting and to bring my five kids with me.
At the meeting, the CPS workers … Read More
When New York City’s Children’s Services (ACS) took my children three years ago, I was refusing to comply with mental healthtreatment and was getting into violent fights with my husband. I needed a lot of help. But I was assigned a lawyer who said he had never represented anyone in a child welfare case before.
My husband, on the other hand, was lucky enough to get a lawyer from Bronx Defenders, an … Read More
My mother grew up in South Carolina with about 11 siblings, maybe more. When I was a child, she’d tell me about her mother’s heartache; she had to bury four of her sons. But the stories that really rattled me were the ones about the abuse her mother took from her dad.
“He used to beat her,” she’d say as a matter of fact. No emotion, no sorrow. No anger or judgment. … Read More
In February, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a positive drug test alone, with no other evidence of harm to a child, is not enough toprove that a child was abused or neglected. The court said that, before a mother can be charged with abuse or neglect in the state of New Jersey, the state has to show in some concrete way that the baby was harmed by the mother’s drug use … Read More
It was July 1997, on a hot, humid day. All the neighborhood children were outside. Teenagers were playing in the fire hydrant spray to cool off. Younger girls were jumping rope and boys were playing handball. A few young men were playing stickball in the street.
My birthday was approaching and I had gone out the day before and bought bikes for my two children, Raven and Shai. I always liked … Read More
