Who Will Hear Our Cry?
My name is Joanne and I am a foster care survivor -- the only survivor of three siblings. I can't say that I have always been a survivor, because I stayed drunk for twenty-two years of my adult life. During the time I was drunk, I knew that if I could just stay sober I could do something to try to help change the evil system that destroyed my family. I am sober now most of the time. I am basically cautious about watching the news for many reasons, but the main one is that occasionally, but too often, a story will surface about a child dying in foster care due to abuse and neglect, or children being tortured in various ways while in foster care. I can't handle hearing such stories.
I feel certain that the stories that do surface, and which seem to be swept quickly under the carpet, are only the tip of a very big iceberg. It would be easier for people like me who do survive foster care to move forward and heal, if we didn't believe that things have not changed for the better, and may even be worse, so that children are enduring acute, dehumanization and suffering now, with little or nothing being done about it. These are not other people's children who are being dehumanized by brutal treatment and a basic lack of love or stability, they are all of out children.
As a community, and a nation, we must learn that we all pay, financially and in a variety of other costly ways, for the mistreatment of our young.
I am not saying that all foster parents are bad. There are many good people out there who, although they may need the extra money, basically are compassionate and capable caregivers. Yet child protective services don't have the resources to ensure that children they are responsible for are placed with such people. Nor do they have the manpower to adequately monitor the children's state of being while in the foster homes.
I want to know what's being done about this situation and if there is a way I can help. I need to help ensure that other children have a better chance of survival while growing up in order to continue healing myself.
