March 4, 2011
By Jacqueline Rabe
Connecticut Mirror
When Sabra Mayo heard a knock on her door last summer, the last person she was expecting to be there was the grandson she'd seen just a handful of times since the state Department of Children and Families took him from his mother seven years before.
"They just dropped him off on my doorstep," she said. "I have been asking for my grandbaby back for years. I guess they decided they were finally done with him."
In fact, her grandson Keewann had turned 18, "aged out" of DCF custody, and decided to go where he had always wanted to live: with family.
"I am his family. I am who he belongs with," Sabra Mayo said.
Connecticut's record of placing children with family members when DCF determines they can't remain at home is among the worst in the nation. "That has to change immediately," new DCF Commissioner Joette Katz says.
Merva Jackson, who advocates for disabled children in DCF custody, says family members come to her daily seeking her help to get their relatives back.
"If you don't know how to advocate your way through their maze then that's the nail in your coffin to getting your relative back," said Jackson, executive director of the African-Caribbean American Parents of Children with Disabilities. FULL STORY
No comments:
Post a Comment