The effects that foster care leaves on our children are absolutely infuriating. I am speaking on this topic not as a professional, but as a mother of three children who were kidnapped by the system. I, however, was lucky enough to be able to have my children returned to my home, but not before the damage was done. They were in foster care for 16 long, grueling, painful months. Months that were not just painful for the children, but for my husband and me as well. Most people can not even imagine the torture that we endured by being forced to watch our children endure abuse in the homes that were supposed to protect them. Not to mention the torture that the children endured, as they were being held hostage in these so called "safe havens".
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2009
I think that the first home that they were in was probably the worst. The foster mother was a Kern County Sheriff who worked in the Pedophile Division of the Sheriff's Department. She supposedly was the sole parent in the home. For the first three visits that we had with the children, little things were being mentioned by our daughter, but nothing was severe enough to cause very much alarm...until the third visit. On this particular visit, I walked into the visiting room where the children were waiting for us. The first thing that I saw upon entering the room was that my 2 year old son had 2 black eyes. I was absolutely infuriated. I walked right back out of that door and told the worker that this is b.s. and that I wanted a police report immediately. The social worker, Linda Lackey, told me that I should just go and enjoy my visit with my children. About an hour into the visit, my son had soiled his diaper, but the foster parents had not provided diapers. So, I sent my husband across the street to purchase some diapers. When he returned, he proceeded to change the diaper. When he removed the diaper, what we saw was horrendous. There were kick marks on his back, side, up and down his spine, and there was a huge purple bruise that went from his butt cheek to his knee. It was painful to look at. I must admit, at this point I lost my cool (which almost never happens). At this point, my husband banged on the window of the observation room where the social worker was supervising our visit from. A different worker, Christy Harris, came into the room and seemed genuinely disturbed by what she saw. She demanded a police report, photos, and ER (which in social worker language means Emergency Response). She then asked me if I mind, and of course I told her to bring them on.
Emergency Response showed up within a few minutes and took pictures of all of the children, especially my 2 year old son. Then the police finally showed up. They wanted to talk to my daughter, but she refused to talk to them without me there (understandably considering the last time she spoke with law enforcement by herself they tricked her into saying things that were not true). I joined her in the room with the officer, and the things that she told him twisted my stomach. She told him that the 10 year old son of the foster mother was picking up both of the boys (our youngest son was only 14 months at this time) and throwing them across the room. When they would land on the floor, he would go to them and stomp on their faces! I could not believe that this woman, would allow such things to happen to an infant and a toddler. It also came out that the foster mother had an unknown male staying in the home who was prohibited from being there. By the time the police officer was through gathering information, he and the social worker decided to do a welfare check on the foster parents children. To this day, that woman is still a licensed foster parent. She never faced any legal consequences. At least I was able to get my children out of that home!
MARCH-SEPTEMBER 2009
After being removed from the Sheriff's home, my two sons spent a couple of weeks in Respite Care, which is a temporary foster home, usually no longer than two weeks. During this time my daughter was returned to Jamison Center. By the first week of March, they were all placed together in the foster home of a lady named Maria. At first Maria seemed to be a God send. Over the first few months of the children being with her, there were only very small concerns. Nothing to really cause great concern. While Maria had custody of the kids, we were living in a town that was about 100 miles from the town that the case originated in, and that the children were living in. We were riding a bus from our town to that one, which required sitting 7 hours on a bus. It was a pretty miserable commute, but we were doing what we had to do to see our kids. One of the first signs that something was not right in this placement was an incident in which our baby, who was then 21 months old, had somehow acquired a cut straw and lodged it in his nose. When the social worker, Ruth Tafoya, told us about this, we asked her what drug addicts have our children been around. I understand that not all readers will understand this line of questioning. So, for those of you who are unaware, speed and cocaine are snorted through the nose using a cut straw. Ms. Tafoya actually stated to us that he must have found it on the playground of the visitation center. I was appalled that a social worker would say such a thing to cover the foster parent. By her admitting that, she was admitting that the liability was on the department.
One other small incident that caused concern was the occasion on which we realized that our baby was not being taught English. I speak a little Spanish, so I was able to follow along. Ms. Tafoya was talking to our baby in English, and getting no response. Then she spoke to him in Spanish, and he obviously understood every word that she said! I could not believe that this woman who spoke perfect English did not even bother to teach it to my son!
By August our social worker made arrangements for us to get all 3 hours with our kids in one day, instead of splitting the hours into to visits per week. The new arrangement required Maria to drive to our home on a Saturday, and supervise the visits. This was much more convenient to us. On one of the occasions that she brought the children to us, our daughter, who was by now 7 years old, had forgotten to bring the diaper bag for the baby. This woman was actually mean to her about it. She made our daughter take responsibility over the boys, even though she was only 7, and certainly not the parent. Things were obviously going downhill in this placement. We just kept our mouths shut, because this home was still better than the first one that they had.
In a matter of two more visits, everything about this placement seemed to have gone to hell in a hand basket. On the first of these two visits, my daughter was telling me about something that had happened to her. We were alone, although we were being monitored from the observation room, we still felt alone. My daughter proceeded to tell me that Maria was allowing her nephews, who were 9 years old and 10 years old, to beat her up. Then she told me that there was an incident that had occurred in her bedroom. She told me that they "did something to her." When I asked her what that "something" was, Ms. Tafoya came rushing into the visiting room, with the intentions of intimidating her into shutting up. It worked. To this day I have never found out the rest of that story. At the end of this visit, my husband and I informed the worker that we are formally requesting a new placement. Ms. Tafoya said that first we would have to have a meeting. I told her to set it up because we were dead serious.
The following week, our daughter told us and Ms. Tafoya that she was having problems with Maria. Apparently every time that she told Maria that she wanted to call her social worker or her lawyer to get out of her home, Maria was slapping my child in the face. When this information came to light, I demanded that my children be removed from the home. Ms. Tafoya, who know seemed to be good friends with the foster mother, refused to move the children. I got loud. I got rude. I got mad. I called her supervisor. They were moved as of the end of that visit.
OCTOBER 2009-MAY 2010
In October 2009, the children were placed in the town where we were residing. CPS was unable to locate a foster home that was able to accommodate all three children, so we were forced to agree to have them split up. By now our daughter was having severe tantrums and behavioral problems, due to all of the abuse that she had endured in her first few placements. She was placed with a really good family. The foster father was a police officer in our town. He was well known and all for good reasons. He spent a lot of his personal time working with children and schools. The boys, however, were placed with a couple that from the first day I did not like. Within two days of being in this home, our older son was calling the woman "Mom". I was angry about it. I felt like my babies were starting to slip away and forget me. I felt like this was the beginning of the end. After a few months this foster mother, Candy, had a foster child removed from her because she refused to take the child to the hospital when it was sick. They called it medical neglect and my sons were moved to another placement.
Along with the new placements that my children received in our town, came a new worker. Veronica Ruiz-Cox was the answer to our prayers. She made sure that our children were actually safe in their placements. She really helped us to get inline with meeting our case plan requirements. Once she came into the situation, there were no more complaints from the children about abuse in their placements. There were no more unexplained marks or bruises on our children. Ms. Ruiz-Cox assured me that my children would be home. She was right. On May 14, 2010, we beat the crooked system and our children were returned to our custody. This may sound like a happy ending, but happy it is not. The effects of foster care on our children had left lifelong damage, and our daughter suffered the worst of it.
