A Letter to Utah State Legislators

I haven't been able to write in a few months.  Every time I would sit down to write, I would feel an overwhelming sense of sadness, grief or depression.  I struggle to make sense out of this journey I find myself on.  Why would I be placed in a position where I could not get the help that my children needed?  What is the purpose of my having to relinquish my parental rights?  What must my children I no longer have think of me?  Do they hate me?  Do they miss me?  Do they even think of me?  My heart feels an overwhelming emptiness.  A parent should never be placed in a position to have to relinquish a child to foster care to get mental health services.  How can I insure that this does not happen to other children and families?  I don't know that I have the answers but I do know that I am not going to be quiet.  I will tell my story to all who will listen.  I will work to change laws so that children can get the mental health services they need.   I want to see a day where adoptive parents are not blamed for the trauma and abuse their children endured prior to being placed in their homes.  I have sent the following letter to Utah state legislators:   

The Honorable __________,

As a single Foster/Adopt parent for the State of Utah, I am writing in regards to the lack of resources and mental health services for families who adopt children from DCFS that have mental illness and attachment disorders.  I adopted three siblings (Bubba Doo, YaYa & Bugga Boo) from DCFS, who all had intrauterine drug exposure to heroin and cocaine.  I got my first two adopted children as newborns and my youngest son when he was 3 months old.  I eventually found myself parenting two children who were diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, ADHD, Bipolar, PTSD, Cognitive disorder, as well as other mental illness.  My family experienced a lack of mental health services, appropriate community based resources and services that were needed to be able to successfully help my children and keep my home safe.  Due to the lack of mental health resources, I was forced to relinquish two of my children back into State custody to get the needed services and this led to ultimately disrupting their adoptions.

As a legal risk foster parent, I fostered my children and then adopted so that my children could have permanency and to prevent them from incurring more childhood trauma by being moved from a foster home to an adoptive home.  I placed my children back in foster care not because I didn't love or want them or because I abused them or neglected them.  I placed them in foster care because I was told they could only get the help they needed as wards of the state. I had been advised by my DCFS post adopt worker and the DCFS post adopt committee that my resource was foster care.  I found DCFS, the Child Welfare System, the Guardian Ad Litem, Attorney General and the Juvenile Justice System to be hostile and adversarial.  I did not feel my family was supported emotionally or physically by DCFS.  After being beaten down emotionally, physically and financially, I voluntarily relinquished my parental rights to YaYa and Bugga Boo on April 5, 2012.  At that time, YaYa was 12 years old and Bugga Boo was 8 years old.  My home was the only home YaYa and Bugga Boo had known since there were infants.  I did not cause Autumn and Anthony's attachment issues or pre-birth trauma.  I did everything I could to advocate and help my children.  If my children had cancer, I would never have been placed in a position to have to place them in foster care to get appropriate treatment.   

Children adopted from the foster care system all have some kind of early childhood trauma.  We now know that it is this early childhood trauma that places children at a higher risk for attachment disorders and mental illness.  I am writing to make you aware of how the lack of resources is affecting families in Utah.  Using foster care as a post-adopt resource for children with mental illness and attachment disorders, is not helpful for the child or the family and does not promote healthy attachment.  Having a child welfare system that is adversarial and hostile is not the correct way to help families and children struggling with mental health issues and especially children with attachment disorders.  Children are best served when they can remain in the home and to do that we must provide appropriate community based resources and in-home mental health services.  A parent should never be placed in a position to have to relinquish a child to the State to get mental health treatment.  For the State of Utah and DCFS to not provide the families adopting these children with the necessary resources only sets these children and families up for failure.  I am asking that you help to insure that the necessary funding, community based and in-home mental health resources are available to all children adopted from DCFS so that these children can have the permanency they deserve.

Sincerely,

 

I don't know if my letter will help or not.  I sent the letters the first of August and I have not heard back from any of the State legislators.  I know that it is the right thing to do.  I must continue to fight a broken system to help educate and insure that children and families get the help they need so that they are not torn apart.