Growing up, I was told that the child welfare system was created to help protect children and to get them out of bad situations. But that was not my experience. I feel like the child welfare system did the opposite for me. My first experience with ACS was when I was 6 years old. At the time of my removal, I was at my grandmother‘s house where I spent a lot of my time. For me, it was normal for kids in my neighborhood to be with their grandparents as frequently as me and my siblings were. Someone had called ACS on my grandmother. I guess they believed that my grandmother was the primary guardian of me and my three other siblings because we were at her residence a lot. That same day, ACS removed me and my siblings from my grandmother’s house and took us to a hospital.
After a few hours in the hospital, we were sent to a center. Despite being a child, I initially wasn’t scared. I was just confused and lost. But as the days went by, I began to get scared about not being allowed to see my mom. Then, my siblings and I got separated. It was that moment when I knew something was wrong. I went from being a middle child with my two siblings as my protectors to being 6 years old and being the protector of my 3-year-old sister.
My experiences in several of the homes that me and my siblings were in were terrible. I personally dealt with mistreatment from foster parents, foster parents’ kids, and even from other foster kids. My 3-year-old sister was biracial and, for some reason, that bothered a lot of the kids in several of the homes that we were in. She endured a lot of physical mistreatment and bullying that she doesn’t remember because she was a baby. But I remember, and it was traumatic. Before being in these homes, I don’t think I had an idea of what bullying looked like, but I sure did learn.
From such a young age, I started to develop a shell due to all the bullying I endured. About six months in, my older sister and older brother — who have the same father — went into their father’s house. After a week there, their father offered to take me and my baby sister in. I’m not 100% sure why, but after a few weeks, their father ended up putting us back in the system. This time, my sisters and I weren’t separated. We were placed in a home in Queens while my 16-year-old brother was AWOL.
At this home, me and my sisters endured unusual treatment. Some days, the lady was nice to us and other days, it was very weird. There were even a few times that she tried to give us unknown medication until one day, me and my siblings didn’t take it. After that confusing and terrible year, my mom finally got custody of me and my siblings, but nothing was the same. We were all different and not in a good way. My siblings and I went to about eight to 10 homes. We didn’t feel safe or protected in every single home. We experienced some type of neglect or abuse that I never experienced being with my mother. If the goal for the system was to protect children, they failed.
They took several kids from a good home and put them through multiple traumatic situations. A word of advice to people looking to take kids in: make sure that’s really what you want to do and that it’s not just about money. Make sure your kids are OK with what you’re doing. Make sure that you’re treating these children with love and respect. Even though you may not be these children’s parents, treat these children like they’re the child birthed. Do not create a bad situation for them.
