As a member of the Attachment Trauma Network, I had the opportunity to write the following letter to the US State Department in Washington, D.C.
October 30, 2015
To Whom It May Concern,
I am a member of the Attachment Trauma Network (ATN).
As a foster/adoptive parent for the State of Utah, I adopted three siblings from DCFS who all shared the same birth mother who is an IV drug abuser. All three of my children tested positive for heroin and cocaine at birth. My two sons were born premature at 34 and 36 weeks gestation and my daughter was born term but was addicted to black tar heroin at birth. All three of my children had extended stays in the hospital at birth due to the effects of their intrauterine drug exposure. I adopted my oldest son at 8 months, my daughter at 12 months and my youngest son at 13 months. My famly endured what most families who adopt babies born exposed to drugs experience. My children all had developmental delays, neurological impairments, multiple infections, serious health problems that led to multiple hospitalizations, seizure disorder, speech delays, global encephalopathy, learning disabilities, cognitive disorders and severe behavior problems. Additional, diagnoses included ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Mood Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Pervasive Development Disorder, Bipolar, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Complex Trauma and Reactive Attachment Disorder.
At the age of 5, my daughter was placed in residential treatment after attempting to kill her older brother. When my daughter was 6 years old, I found her purposefully setting the playhouse on fire because she was mad. My daughter had daily temper tantrums and rages that would last for hours. I was constantly dealing with lying, stealing, and the hiding and hoarding of family member's personal possessions and money, as well as food. I had to clean up fecal smears from the walls. My sons were constantly being victimized by my daughter who vocalized that they had ruined her life and she wanted them dead. My daughter would punch, hit, kick, slap, pinch her brothers until their skin would bleed from her nail. My sons sustained black eyes, as well as cuts and bruises. The boys had been intentionally pushed into furniture, thrown across the room, jumped on by my daughter with the intent to break a bone, chased with knives, choked and intentionally run over by her bike. My youngest son killed a family pet and severely injured another pet. My daughter's behavior was so disruptive when she started school that I had to take her out of Kindergarten and she repeated Kindergarten the following year. For 7 1/2 years, I spent countless hours on early childhood developmental interventions, physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, doctors visits, mental health therapy and hospital visits. What I found was that as my children got older the safety in my home was becoming a bigger issue. It seemed that no matter how much therapy we did or how much medication they were placed on, nothing helped. It wasn't until August 2010, when my daughter had another psychiatric hospitalization after attempting to kill my youngest son that I was told she had Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). My daughter was 11 years old when she was finally diagnosed with RAD.
I was advised that my
daughter needed residential treatment but Utah Medicaid did not cover
residential treatment. My insurance with
my employer did not cover residential treatment. As a single parent, I did not have the
financial resources to pay for residential treatment. I was told by DCFS that my only resource was
foster care. Since I had two sons to protect, I knew I
could not take my daughter back home. I
was told that if I did not take my daughter back home I would be charged with “Abandonment”
and if I did take her home and she injured or killed one of her brothers, I
would be charged with “Failure to Protect.”
My daughter entered back into foster care on 8/24/2010 at the age of 11.
I was initially charged with “Abandonment.” My
youngest son was also diagnosed with RAD. Again, I found myself with a child who needed
residential treatment and again I was advised by Utah DCFS that my only resource was foster care. My youngest son was placed back in foster
care on 12/28/11 at the age of 8.
Since
I had two children with RAD that had to be placed back in foster care, the
Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) told me it was obvious to her and to DCFS that I was
the problem. I could only have DCFS supervised visits. DCFS and the GAL did not support phone
contact as there was no way to monitor phone conversations. In addition, I was not informed of or invited
to school IEP meetings or health and dental appointments for my daughter and
youngest son. When questioned, I was
told that I was not invited because the GAL was requiring DCFS supervised
visits. I was kept from my children and
told I could not know where my son’s foster home was and that I could not
contact his foster mom. I found DCFS,
GAL, AG and the Juvenile Justice System to be hostile and adversarial. The
system treated me like I was a drug addicted, abusing neglectful parent. I
placed my children 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.
The sad reality was DCFS and
I were not working together as a team to do what was best for my children. After being beaten down emotionally,
physically, and financially, I voluntarily relinquished my parental rights to
my daughter and my youngest son on April 5, 2012. I still love
my children and miss them everyday. I
have had no contact or updates since I relinquished. My home was the only home that my children
had known since they were infants. I
fostered and adopted so they could have that permanency. I did not cause my children’s attachment
issues or pre-birth trauma. 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, which makes
them at a higher risk for attachment disorders and mental health issues. A parent should never be placed in a position
to have to relinquish a child to the State to get mental health treatment. Also, a federal ban on Unregulated Custody
Transfer would further limit our options to keep our other children safe. For
the State and Child Welfare System to not provide the families adopting these
children with the necessary resources, only sets these children and families up
for failure. If the goal for children in
the foster care system is permanency, then the families adopting these children
need to be empowered and given the necessary tools and resources to parent
these children. If DCFS, the Juvenile
Justice and the Child Welfare systems continue to be adversarial, punitive and
to blame adoptive parents for attachment disorders then we will only continue
to see more adoptions being dissolved.
This only results in more trauma for the child, the family, and society
as a whole.
Thank you for your time and consideration to this very important issue.
Sincerely,
