From an Article in the Star- Telegram
Kai Adams was removed from her home by Child Protective Services when she was in elementary school.
"I'm the oldest of five kids and my mother had five different fathers for all of us," Adams said. "As her oldest child, I've always been the person who got the brunt of her anger and frustration."
Adams said her first stop was at a children's home in Lubbock -- the beginning of dozens of placements within the foster-care system.
Over the next seven or eight years, Adams said, she was placed in foster homes, group homes, hospitals and residential treatment centers and was kicked out of nearly all of them. She overdosed on pills, cut herself, ran away -- anything to get moved.
"I was treated like, 'This is who is available to take you and you need to go,'" Adams said. "When you are in the system so long, you think, 'I'm just somebody's problem.'"
Adams was a teenager when she arrived at Nelson Children's Center, which treats severely emotionally disturbed children ages 5 to 15.
"The first day I was there, I tried to do what I always do -- pick a fight," she said. "I would lash out at the staff verbally and would make fun of them or taunt them. But they were like, in my face, loving me no matter what."
Adams spent the next year at the center, attending intensive therapy sessions and classes at the on-site school. At 16, Adams "graduated" from the center and stayed in at least two more foster homes until a judge emancipated her from the foster system at age 17.
Adams, now 26, believes that if a program like Child's Choice had been offered when she was in the foster system, she wouldn't have had so many placements.
"I think the best thing about the Nelson center is that they are taking time out to figure out the children and what their needs are," she said. "It's important to take the kids into consideration. Isn't getting asked, 'What kind of home do you want?' better than not fitting in? If I had had that opportunity, I probably would have been a lot better off. I would have been able to bond with people."
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/04/24/2140250/texas-program-gives-kids-a-say.html#ixzz1I988ngcc
Kai Adams was removed from her home by Child Protective Services when she was in elementary school.
"I'm the oldest of five kids and my mother had five different fathers for all of us," Adams said. "As her oldest child, I've always been the person who got the brunt of her anger and frustration."
Adams said her first stop was at a children's home in Lubbock -- the beginning of dozens of placements within the foster-care system.
Over the next seven or eight years, Adams said, she was placed in foster homes, group homes, hospitals and residential treatment centers and was kicked out of nearly all of them. She overdosed on pills, cut herself, ran away -- anything to get moved.
"I was treated like, 'This is who is available to take you and you need to go,'" Adams said. "When you are in the system so long, you think, 'I'm just somebody's problem.'"
Adams was a teenager when she arrived at Nelson Children's Center, which treats severely emotionally disturbed children ages 5 to 15.
"The first day I was there, I tried to do what I always do -- pick a fight," she said. "I would lash out at the staff verbally and would make fun of them or taunt them. But they were like, in my face, loving me no matter what."
Adams spent the next year at the center, attending intensive therapy sessions and classes at the on-site school. At 16, Adams "graduated" from the center and stayed in at least two more foster homes until a judge emancipated her from the foster system at age 17.
Adams, now 26, believes that if a program like Child's Choice had been offered when she was in the foster system, she wouldn't have had so many placements.
"I think the best thing about the Nelson center is that they are taking time out to figure out the children and what their needs are," she said. "It's important to take the kids into consideration. Isn't getting asked, 'What kind of home do you want?' better than not fitting in? If I had had that opportunity, I probably would have been a lot better off. I would have been able to bond with people."
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/04/24/2140250/texas-program-gives-kids-a-say.html#ixzz1I988ngcc
