My foster father always had a stressed look about him, the look that told me he had to try hard to make ends meet. He gave me a lot of freedom while he was busy working as a lawyer and consultant. But even with that freedom, he’d ensure I’d make the right choices. If my […]

Growing up I did not have what you would call an ideal childhood. My mother was on drugs from the time I was a baby and she was not in her right mind to take care of herself, let alone a child. I felt like my mother did not want me when she left me […]

It started when I was three years old. I was taken away from my biological parents in New York City and put into a foster home in upstate N.Y., along with my brother and sister. Being so young, I had little memory of being with my real mother and father. I thought these people were my family. […]

I remember the day I gave birth to my son, Joshuwah. It was inside my sister’s apartment. I went into labor, but was sent back from the hospital because I wasn’t far enough along. I was angry they told me to go home when I knew I needed to be there. But that was nothing […]

Rosie Perez is best known for her acting chops, cutting-edge choreography and dogged activism. But until now, few people knew that the Oscar-nominated talent spent much of her childhood as a ward of the state of New York. Her mother, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, seized her at age 3 from the aunt who had […]

As early as I can remember I knew what “the belt” meant. It meant my mom was drunk, angry and “Henry was going to get it.” My mother’s anger toward me was always transparent; I was a boy and men had done her wrong. For that I would pay. Verbal, emotional, and physical abuse highlighted […]

I was in foster care for the first four years of my life. Calling it difficult would be an understatement. Even from that young age, I was already watching other children with their parents and trying to figure out my identity: Will I ever have a family? Will I find my biological mother? Who did […]

Being a foster family was both a rewarding and frustrating experience.  My husband and I heard about babies being placed in overcrowded, unsafe shelters and wanted to help. We were ready to love and take care of these infants, and provide them a safe, stable home. But we had no idea about the struggles that […]

I lived in foster care for the majority of my life. A police report in my file indicates that when I was about a year old, my father was driving under the influence with me in the back seat. No family members wanted to take me, so I went into state care. I was adopted […]

When he was six years old, James* entered foster care after the state heard that his brother had been physically abused. Over the next two years, his life became increasingly uncertain as he was shuffled through 12 different foster care placements in four different counties and was assigned a revolving door of caseworkers. James spent […]