Foster....but Beware

I named this blog, My Life with Her Three Kids and A Dog because as my bio says, I’m a 50 something (actually 53-year-old), happily married, African American lesbian who at the time was fostering three multiracial children while taking care of our fuzzy family member Sasha, who was our original rescued loved one. Who wouldn’t think that living in a household like this wouldn’t produce some awesome content? On the contrary, nothing about what I’m about to say is humorous. What you are about to read is a serious, life changing documentation about our fostering experience and the controversy that occurred when no good deed goes unpunished.

I rewatched how Sandra Bullock gave her testimony about being the mother of adopted Black children as my wife and I sat in our bed grieving the loss of our foster child. I was pissed that we were rendered helpless and couldn’t control what was going on in our house. As we cried, we asked, "if Camden was Black would be be going through this?" We both looked with an affirming side-eye knowing the answer to our question.

One conversation. One recording. One call. And then there was one.

For the sake of anonymity for our children and strict DCF licensing requirements, I will have to use pseudonyms for the children and their workers. Since the beginning of November 2021, my family has been trying to cope with the rippling effects of lies, deceit and a DCPP coverup that has altered our lives forever—Camden’s removal from our home on Wednesday, November 10, 2021.

During the first week of January, we sent a 221-page dossier to the New Jersey DCF Office of Adoption Operations, our County’s Family Case Management Office, DCFs Area Director, Office of Law Guardian and our resource worker chronicling our history as good foster parents and adding our narrative to the very disparaging web spun to justify “replacement” of our foster son, Camden. We prayed that someone would have the professional acumen to act. Instead, now I’m posting what happened on my blog as a last-ditch effort to get some sort of response from New Jersey Department Children and Families.

We know there are good, hard working DCPP and DCF workers who genuinely care about the integrity of their jobs and their purpose dealing with New Jersey’s displaced youth. However, the DCF/DCPP wall of silence doesn’t allow those decent individuals to stand up against the bad apples. In our situation, those voices were snuffed out and our narrative went with them. It’s our hope that someone reading this will get through to DCF/DCPP superiors. We want them to investigate what happened to us. With any luck, another good foster home won’t have to experience what we’ve had to endure.

My wife and I chose to be foster parents early on in our marriage. We wanted to open our home to LGBTQ African American teens who are disproportionately displaced and are a very high percentage of children aging out of the foster care system. Living in a urban neighborhood, the children we received didn’t fit that description at all.

Our very first placement was a Caucasian transgender teen named Edward. He stayed with us for approximately forty-five days but left on his own accord. So often, these teens have experienced unspeakable trauma and have lived on their own merely surviving. When confronted with boundaries and rules, they often rebel or run. You will see the repeated scenario later in this commentary.

As a foster parent, you are assigned a resource worker who is the conduit between the resource home and the division. During foster parent class, DCF asks the resource home which types of kids they’d want and what path to having children would the resource home like to take -adoption or fostering. A few weeks after Jason left, against my wife’s better judgement, I spoke with our resource worker to broaden the demographics of the types of children we would help. I requested an infant. Before I could get off the phone with my resource worker, she informed me that there was an infant who was being removed as we spoke and asked would we be willing to take him in. Of course, we agreed, and my wife and I welcomed baby, Camden in May 2020.

Baby Camden was three months old, severely malnourished, and sickly. His White skin looked almost grey from the dirt film that covered his skin. We cleaned him up, fed him and loved on him through chronic ear infections for the remaining 18 months of his stay at our home until he was abruptly removed in November 2021. By removing Camden, DCPP showed us who was in control, silenced our agency and marked our home as problematic.

You’re probably asking yourself “What happened to the other two kids? It is called My Life with Her, Three Kids and A Dog, right?”

A month after we accepted Camden in our home, we welcomed a pregnant teenager named Maria. Maria was seven months pregnant when she came to us. She was also malnourished, had no prenatal care, and had a life full of pain to process before bringing a child into the world. She went into false labor a week after she arrived. Thankfully, baby Whitney waited a few more weeks to grace the world with her presence.

Just imagine knowing someone for a couple of weeks and then having to go into a delivery room to usher in a baby with that person, coaxing them through pain, peeking under the bloody sheet to see a crowning head of hair and hugging them through exhaustion. Despite the circumstances, I was there for Maria. I believe we bonded in the delivery room. She almost got through the labor without an epidural, but one stiff contraction forced her into submission. It wasn’t long after her request and then Whitney was born at a healthy weight with a good APGAR score. Maria almost bled out after giving birth, but her epidural was so good, she had no idea that she went through twenty plus lap pads as she lovingly held her newborn baby girl.

After we brought Whitney home, Maria and I knew there was an unbreakable bond. My wife and I made plans to provide a forever home to our three children ----- Camden, Maria, and Whitney. We let our resource worker and case workers know of our intentions to adopt. Camden would be available for adoption once he turned two years old, if a biological relative could not be located or the bioparent didn’t meet reunification requirements. Maria was aging out and requested emancipation from her bioparent so she could be adopted. DCF calls this process dual planning. But honestly, DCF asked the adoption question repeatedly. We loved our kids and wanted nothing more than for our multiracial family to thrive, but the pressure to commit to adoption is intense.

If a family fosters one child, depending on his/her needs, the resource parent(s) manage monthly visits by care team members --- i.e. case worker, nurse, doctor, resource worker, any education worker, and mental health worker---- in addition to any appointments the child may have. Fostering three children, I had to manage a minimum of twenty-four (24) monthly visits and that’s not including weekly correspondence via email and or telephone when crisis occurred. It’s a full-time job! As a nurse, my wife worked long hours and I was the stay-at-home working mom and primary caregiver for our children. Many people don’t know how much work goes into fostering children. The foster parenting classes cover disciplinary scenarios, licensing requirements, paths to adoption but fail to mention the time-consuming demands from workers, emotional strain, and possible distress resource parents experience when things go wrong.

“What could possibly go wrong”, you ask? Wait for it.

I forgot to mention that we gained another addition to the family in early August 2021. Her name was Marilyn. She was quiet 17-year-old African American who also had her baggage to carry. She, too, was aging out of a system where the young are adopted, and the older siblings are discarded. We thought when adding Marilyn to the household, Maria would be elated since they were the same age. Instead, Maria turned into a negative, angry, noncompliant, antisocial person. As a licensed social worker, I noticed that Maria already suffered from serious Axis I mental issues, that weren’t diagnosed prior to her coming to our home. Nonetheless, we worked with Maria and her team to get her on medication.

After a year and a half residing in our home, Maria, at the encouragement of her overzealous case worker, recorded a family meeting geared toward two young adult females discussing lying by omission, responsible sexual activity and being culpable for actions. The family meeting included some expletives and a very real conversation about life--- one thing I feel that is severely missing at DCF when dealing with today’s teens. If I can’t say use a F-bomb or graphically describe male and female genitalia with two ethnic, 18 year old, sexually active urban young women, I’m trying to figure out what reality DCF is living in, because it’s not a REAL ONE! I used the term niggershit in the meeting. And before you jump on the WOKE bandwagon, the term niggershit according to the Urban Dictionary means something dumb. What was occurring in our household with young women lying and sneaking around with grown ass men was extremely dumb! So don’t judge me for being crass and candid.

Maria recorded the family meeting from the previous week and gave the audio to her case worker on Monday, November 8th. The case worker turned in the audio to the DCF Child Abuse Hotline who transcribed the audio and sent it to the DCF Office in our county. The poorly transcribed audio moved through the DCF local office like wildfire. Our foster daughter, Marilyn was pulled out of her class and interviewed about the audio on Tuesday, November 9th. When Marilyn came home, she informed me that DCPP interviewed her, and the conversation was solely about Maria.

Confused and wondering what was going on, after I notified my wife, I began calling Maria’s care team members to inquire if our home was under investigation. At this time, I didn’t know about the audio recording being solicited and turned into the DCF hotline. All care members, including the one who solicited the recording from Maria, stated that they had no idea what was going on. I contacted Maria’s therapist who said that Maria canceled their session. Normally when Maria is off her medication or is having an episode, she cancels appointments. I spoke to the therapist about the latest inquisition into our home and asked if she knew anything. She also said that she heard nothing.

It wasn’t until our resource worker contacted me at the end of the day and said that my wife and I needed to have an emergency meeting on the next day --- on Wednesday. She advised that I stay in one part of the home and that Maria remain in the other. Our resource worker is usually very personable, but I knew this was serious as her tone was extremely professional offering no insight as to what could happen on Wednesday.

Preparing to leave to pick up the toddlers from daycare, I went upstairs to get my keys out of my office. Maria’s room is on the same floor across from my office. At the time, Maria was on the phone with her therapist. The therapist retold the story about Marilyn being interviewed at school and asked Maria to discuss what was happening. Maria became enraged and, in a panic, as she approached me with the phone in her hand. While on the Zoom meeting, Maria toppled over a chair and reached for me. I backed up and explained to her that I didn’t know what she started but the wheels were already in motion, and I couldn’t stop it.

Maria normally goes with me to pick up the toddlers, but I went alone as advised. On the way to the day care, I called my wife crying while explaining the latest details. I told her what happened and expressed my extreme concern and confusion. I picked up the kids and headed back home.

I pulled into our driveway, started unloading the children and called Maria downstairs to grab Whitney out of the car. Before I could unbuckle Camden, the DCPP moving caravan pulled up behind me. Maria’s caseworker Karen walked up to me and stated, “Maria is being removed because she’s in crisis.”

I literally had an out of body experience. I saw myself yelling at the top of my lungs cursing out the case worker, Karen and Maria. But in reality, I turned my head towards the case worker and responded sarcastically, “Crisis? What crisis? Oh, you are talking about the crisis she created when she lied about taking an Uber to Burlington Coat Factory to buy Whitney a dress and then on her return she got caught in a lie. She lied about taking an Uber but instead was in a car with a older man no one has met and can’t handle the negative consequences that happened because of her poor judgement. Oooooooooh, that crisis.” I felt my blood boiling so I shut up.

The worker had a dumb look on her face and continued to say that Maria requested a removal. I saw 18 months’ worth of loving, nurturing, struggling and encouraging Maria go down the drain. The ironic thing about this situation is Maria wanted nothing to do with anyone that had to do with Marilyn. Maria hated Marilyn. Maria let it be known that she was pissed off that Marilyn was in our home and Maria was also threatened by Marilyn because Maria thought Marilyn would replace her. We always reassured Maria that we were committed to adopting her and Marilyn was just passing through.

Karen worked in the adoption unit and was Marilyn’s case worker prior to getting assigned Maria. It wasn’t until Maria’s CMO Angie told her that Karen was her cousin, so she would be in good hands. How does a case worker who is two weeks old to a case become the Maria whisperer? How does she assess crisis without speaking to the resource parents? How does she not mention the family meeting and ask the resource parents what’s occurring prior to submitting the audio to the hotline? What lengths would Karen go to get a removal and be the hero? Marilyn and her therapist stated that Karen’s intentions borderline unprofessional conduct. Marilyn said that Karen would encourage her to highlight certain occurrences in order to get Marilyn out of her former placement’s home.

In my heart, I truly believe Maria and I had a bond. Unfortunately, I believe that she was off her medication while being coaxed into betraying the only family that cared for her unconditionally. Delusions are symptoms of the Axis I illness Maria had. It’s sad that the worker didn’t notice past her own maligned intentions to realize what was happening with Maria.

In explaining this situation, I’m not trying to portray our family as perfect. We did have our issues, but we had plans for Maria’s future and the futures of our other children. But let’s get to rest of the story.

Within time it took for me to pick up the kids from daycare and return home, Maria called for the removal, packed all her belongings, and left.

When a youth calls for a removal, usually, the youth has to give reasons for the removal i.e. something related to their safety or unhealthy metal state. To this day, I still don’t know what Maria said to Karen, but we discovered on Wednesday the full weight and verbiage about the events that unfolded the day before.

Our resource worker Nicole and another DCPP supervisor Eden came to our home on Wednesday, November 10th to discuss Maria’s removal and told us that the reason we had to meet is because an audio was sent to DCPP Child Abuse Hotline, transcribed, and given to the DCPP teams for our foster kids. They further explained that the transcription of the audio seemed very unlike our household, and they needed clarity. They offered to let us hear the audio, but my wife and I declined to listen because we knew what was said and had no issues with what we said. I also interjected that I sent an email telling all team members for Maria and Marilyn that we had a family meeting. In my head, I’m thinking if we did something so terrible, why send an email about it? But I guess no one used that type of rational thinking.

We initially had an attorney present but was told by DCPP supervisor, Eden, that there was no formal investigation against our home. Our attorney left but also advised us that everything was being recorded. We took our attorney’s advise and met with DCPP staff without her.

The DCPP supervisor asked specific questions relating to us being racist and calling the two young adults racial expletives. They also stated that Maria said we wouldn’t allow her to speak Spanish in our home. The other questions we had to answer asked about our coping skills with the kids and who did what in our home. In addition, during the family meeting, both toddlers were on separate floors asleep. The reason I’m telling you what DCPP asked us is for you to see how a badly transcribed audio, an angered lying young adult, an obsessive case worker, prejudicial DCPP staff working within a racialized system can have a domino effect on the demise of a good foster home.

My wife and I answered all questions asked without hesitation. Our resource worker, Nicole, and the supervisor, Eden, after feeling comfortable with our explanations, stated that they were satisfied and said that Marilyn would remain in the home. None of the allegations made against us in the transcription were true. What does a resource parent do when they are the victims of lies? I don’t recall the instructor mentioning anything about that scenario in class!

As Eden and Nicole were leaving, they followed up their response with an additional statement that left my wife and I completely speechless. They said that Camden’s care team had already placed an order for him to be removed from our home, but they would go back and advocate for him to stay. Still in disbelief, we questioned why was Camden collateral damage when he was no where near the family meeting?

After the meeting, my wife and I returned to work. While at work, I received the call from someone at DCPP that Camden was going to be removed. When I stated that Camden was no where near the situation and that the meeting with the DCPP supervisor Eden found nothing egregiously wrong with how we handled a conversation with two eighteen-year-olds, the person on the phone reprimanded me like I was a child. She sternly said, “Your behavior was unacceptable. New Jersey kids deserve better. Camden has a mother, law advocate, judge and …..” Still in disbelief, the person on the phone began to sound like the teacher on Charlie Brown. “Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, … Blah.” I recalled her asking if I wanted to see Camden before he was removed and I abruptly replied, “No.”

I responded this way because I felt she had a lot of damn nerve asking for a comforting transition making DCPP’s job easier, after the child we’ve raised since he was three months old was now being ripped from our arms without cause. I told her to pick him up from day care and call to get his belongings. I was confused, angry hurt, still in shock and honestly traumatized from the disruptive events that occurred over the past twenty-four hours. I felt like I wanted to throw up and the cycle of grief began rushing in. This was just too much.

That night, while waiting for my wife to get home, I noticed an eerie echo in our three story mini mansion. Before we fostered kids, I didn’t recall hearing that sound. Our home was empty. I was numb from the pain. Sasha, our pet, seemed baffled wondering where were the daily annoyances that pulled on her tail and took her toys? There was no more singing “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston with baby Whitney. She’s going to have a set of pipes on her when she gets older, but we won’t be around to see that either. There was no more watching a young mother learn what it took my wife and I a lifetime to remain only works in progress. Yes, Maria was an eighteen-year-old mother but she was still emotionally a child thirsty for that permanency of unconditional love which could only be satisfied in a one way direction when she looked at Whitney.

My wife came home after a twelve-hour shift and walked through the door where a ball of energy with open arms would no longer greet with her with hugs, slobber and the words, “Ma” coming out of his mouth. She dropped to her knees and sobbed, “Camden is gone.”

You always see and hear about what happens when Department of Children and Family gets it wrong. The headlines remain in the news cycle for days retelling the horrible tales when children are hurt or killed in awful foster homes that betrayed the state of New Jersey’s trust. You never hear what happens to those good foster homes where DCPP used their power as an untouchable agency condoning the spiteful removal of children from homes based on employee bruised egos.

My wife and I took a couple of days to sort out the crazy details of what happened to our family. After plenty of tears and obscenities followed by lots of prayer, we knew that we had to fight. We had to tell our side of the story. We acknowledged that Maria’s removal was on her own volition and that was out of our control. We researched DCF cases and found the top legal firm in New Jersey who has dealt with DCF. We hired the Williams Law Group in an advisory capacity, to assist with navigating the DCF posse.

It took almost a week for DCPP workers to come and get Camden’s belongings. I sent emails to all care team members stating that we hired legal counsel and all correspondences should go through him. The same case worker who handled Maria came to pick up Camden’s belongings. Our resource worker Nicole contacted us to inquire why Camden’s things weren’t given to Karen.

Truthfully, my wife and I thought that Camden would be returned to us within a few days after we answered DCPP’s questions about the audio. Our resource worker let us know that Karen reported that we refused to give her Camden’s thing which made us look very uncooperative. Again, we had no desire to be uncooperative, but we were still expecting Camden to come home. We asked our resource worker to come by and get his things the next day.

We advocated on our own behalf to inquire about what happened to Camden, in addition to having the attorney on retainer working the legal powers that be. After our attorney ran into the DCF wall of silence, we contacted the DCF Office of Constituent Services and Advocacy. I wrote an email explaining what occurred with the audio and asked for their assistance to get answers why Camden was removed. The advocate agreed during our initial discovery conversation that Camden was not in harm’s way during the audio and should not have been removed. A few days later, he called me back and said that Camden’s removal had nothing to do with the audio. I said, “Wait. What?!?”

He read word for word the reasons why Camden was removed as documented on his paperwork. It read as follows: 1) Concerns about communication with these resource parents 2) Issues arose when attempts were made to resolve issues regarding parent child visitation and doctor’s appointments for Camden and 3) A team meeting was suggested to resolve the visitation issues and the concerns of the Child Health Unit and Reunification Program (another pseudonym), the resource parents declined to meet to discuss these concerns. After hearing what he had to say, my wife and I concluded that Camden’s removal had more to do with DCPP worker issues with our advocacy and calling out some serious communication contradictions than it had to do with Camden’s actual care.

If you managed t get through the first half of this story, you will witness that I have no problems communicating.

The state advocate advised that we request a meeting with our county’s local area manager, which we did. The meeting was scheduled and abruptly cancelled without reason. We thought our meeting was canceled because of Covid-19 but later found out our meeting was canceled because we still had an attorney on retainer. Thirty days passed us by waiting for Camden’s return.

After more waiting, we decided to add our voice to this horrible narrative of lies and conflations spun by DCPP employees. As mentioned earlier, we created a 221-page dossier comprised of emails and letters of support that substantiates why Camden’s removal shows DCPP retaliation and abuse of power.

My wife and I have consistently communicated about all our foster kids’ whether the situations were good or bad. We have shown our flexibility with Camden’s biomom visits, medical appointments, and behavioral issues.

When DCPP sited how we canceled a meeting, they forgot to mention that we also asked for additional literature about head injuries and scheduled the meeting for a more convenient time for our family. Ironically, the only person who attended that reschedule meeting that we convened was our resource worker, Nicole.

None of the invited members from Camden’s team attended. Agatha (uh huh another pseudonym), Camden’s caseworker, was also summoned to a meeting about her lack of communication issues, unwillingness to work after 5pm and inappropriate tone prior to going on sick leave. Camden’s team was already not favorable of our educated informed correspondence about their shortcomings. In its conclusion, the dossier showed a timeline that highlights why Camden’s removal was nothing more than DCPP retaliation and abuse of power.

On August 25, 2021, Camden’s case worker was notified via email that he bumped his head at daycare. There was no escalation and no series of emails to nurses nor doctors to get Camden to the emergency room. None of Camden’s medical issues were of immediate concern until after we refused the impromptu meeting invitation to discuss medical protocol after Reunification Project injury incident on September 9, 2021.

If Camden’s medical issues were such a problem, why didn’t anyone call the hotline then? Why remove Camden on November 10th almost a forty-five (45) days later after questions about medical issues were answered on September 21, 2021. How does Camden’s removal make logical sense?

All visits or lack thereof were clarified via emails. My wife and I accommodated with visits unless those visits posed a Covid-19 health threat or our home possibly getting a bedbug infestation.

In addition, Camden’s removal directly affected the possibility of our adoption eligibility. I’d also like to mention that there was no relative (that we were notified about) available to adopt Camden until late September. My wife and I knew that Camden could go to a relative and had no issues with the familial possibility. Camden’s law advocate at the time was going to request that the termination of parental rights be escalated since the bond had started to form and the biomom wasn’t compliant with DCPP requests. And again, after the audio dropped, the law advocate sided with Camden’s team members.

The Reunification Program had sole control over the visits without DCPP representative present. Two incidents occurred on their watch and yet DCPP held us responsible for the Reunification Program’s negligence and didn’t acknowledge our need to protect Camden from future injury and protect our home from a bed bug infestation. Yet Camden’s care team members labeled our efforts as problematic, argumentative, and confrontational.

The utter dislike for our ability as foster parents to decide what was best for our family by not scheduling a meeting resulted in Supervisor Greentree (yup another pseudonym) accusing us of not being “team players” when her attitude in a previous email correspondence was thanking us for our “open communication.”

DCPP had a barrage of questions about Camden’s “medical issues” that came to the forefront only after we declined the meeting suggested by Supervisor Greentree and the interaction with Nurse YoYo was mentioned.

A Rutgers nurse who was new to Camden’s case did a drive by visit. Her name was Nurse YoYo (yes another pseudonym). All hired DCPP contracted workers and personnel are supposed to come into the home when doing visits (after COVID protocol were relaxed). Nurse YoYo lied on us and said that she did a visit and I refused to let her into our home. Since I’m a work at home mom, I’ve always welcomed whoever came to see any of our foster children and have never refused any visit. My neighbor was a witness to Nurse YoYos drive by and spoke to our resource worker about it. When I found out that Nurse YoYo lied, I asked when did she come to our home? To this date, Nurse YoYo has not given the date that I supposedly refused her visit. Yup, this is what’s going on---CYA at all costs.

Camden’s case worker Agatha (yes another pseudonym) did an unannounced visit. Condescendingly, she reminded me that she could show up whenever she wanted. I accepted the power play and agreed.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m a licensed social worker and my wife is a nurse. We understand the need for investigation after Maria made her crisis call and the audio being submitted to the DCPP Hotline. However, we expected that DCPP would exercise due process once the allegations from the audio and Maria were proven to be false. Again, no formal investigation was launched against our home and yet Camden was removed.

DCPP painted my wife and I as uncooperative, problematic and argumentative, which are racialized tropes used to describe African American women. When Karen simply reported that we wouldn’t return Camden’s items doesn’t tell the entire story and purposefully paints us in a negative light. Conversely, Marilyn was allowed to stay in our home.

Camden’s care team expected us to do as we were told, collect a check (which ain’t much) and say nothing. We weren’t supposed to say anything about the lies, exaggerations, partial truths and communicative contradictions perpetrated by DCPP staff.

The “communication issues” cited for Camden’s removal were between us and DCPP staff and did not directly impact Camden until his removal. Camden was a happy, thriving toddler. His removal was nothing more than a power play. His team can’t be thankful for communication on one hand and then use communication issues as a reason to remove him on the other.

DCPP intentionally traumatized Camden because they had issues with us declining a meeting and exposing some shortcuts followed by DCPP staff, Nurse YoYo, kneejerk reactions by all members of DCCP teams prior to listening to the audio (if they did) and passive aggressive tactics like drivebys and citing two sole Reunification Program issues as grounds for removal when ownness fell on DCPP to hold the Reunification Program accountable as per Nurse YoYo’s protocol explained in her email correspondence.

When discussing Camden’s situation with DCPP higher up, I was instructed not to call what happened a “removal” but a “replacement.” We know why language is important here. There was no formal investigation into our home and by using the word placement gives DCPP the informal ability to move kids around like furniture when it suites their purpose. I frankly don’t care what term was used “removal” or “replacement,” Camden is not in our home.

DCPP has sent mixed messages about who could stay in our home and why. The Black young adult who was almost displaced when the audio dropped could stay. Yet the White toddler who was nowhere near the incident coincidentally gets removed forty-five (45) later for “communication problems and medical issues?” Camden’s team thought they could use the audio as grounds for removal but when that wouldn’t stick, they concocted the reasons for his “replacement.” This whole situation stinks like hot garbage!

Unfortunately, bruised egos and employee coverups took precedence over Camden’s best interest. Nothing about this situation was fair to Camden and wasn’t he supposed to be DCPP’s main concern?

When the person on the phone told me that Camden would be removed---yes, she said “removed.” She went on a litany explaining what New Jersey foster kids deserve. My wife and I agree that New Jersey foster kids deserve the following:

· They deserve an unbiased, culturally aware system that nonjudgmentally supports resource parents who house multiple children from varied racial backgrounds.

· They deserve a system that does not deem resource parent advocacy and agency as problematic, uncooperative and/or argumentative.

· They deserve DCPP employees that do a thorough investigation by reading and listening before reacting, retaliating and removing children from good foster homes.

· They deserve accountability from senior DCPP staff who shouldn’t allow wrongdoings of subordinate workers to keep moving up the chain and make right what’s clearly wrong!

· They deserve immediate corrective action for staff and medical personnel who use unsubstantiated and falsified claims to justify removal of a child who was not in imminent danger nor showed any signs of neglect nor abuse.

· Camden, as a New Jersey foster kid, deserves to be at the only home he’s known since he was three months old until his adoption process is completed.

· As good foster parents, we deserve to be treated fairly, allowed to advocate to our family without judgement nor stigma and to remain the parental (although it may be temporary) figures in Camden’s life.

My wife and I don’t believe that all DCPP workers negatively label resource parents, purposely set out to settle scores and power trip when resource parents advocate for themselves and their foster kids. Again, we don't believe all worker are bad apples. We need those who are in the position to make change to apologize for the harm the caused like those good workers who offered their condolences when our family imploded.

One incident that led to a bad call will forever be a permanent loss for this one foster home.

In closing, some of our friends want to know why we continue to foster after such a heartache? We answered because we know our purpose. It still hurts like hell but we pray Camden, Maria and Whitney are well and continue to receive tons of love, hugs and kisses. They are and will forever be in our thoughts.

Foster …. But beware….