(New York, NY) – On May 1, in honor of National Foster Care Month, national advocacy organization Children’s Rights will launch Fostering the Future, a public awareness campaign that will give first-hand accounts of being a child in state care.

More than 650,000 children spend time in U.S. child welfare systems every year. The campaign’s website, www.fosteringthefuture.com, will feature a fresh blog post each day from someone who directly experienced child welfare. The bloggers represent more than a dozen states, covering every region in the U.S.

“Foster care has an indelible impact on the hundreds of thousands of young people who experience it annually, and far too often child welfare systems fail to keep them safe or address their needs,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children’s Rights. “While several Fostering the Future contributors found child welfare to be a saving grace, others were abused, neglected, moved from home to home or institutionalized. Whether good or bad, their experiences will humanize foster care for many.”

Children’s Rights asked former foster youth to touch upon the theme of the campaign: “How did going through foster care affect your life? Based on your experience, do you think foster care should change?”

The responses were compelling. While one young man said, “foster care was good for me,” others felt differently:

• “Being abused wasn’t the worst of it,” writes Children’s Rights engagement media associate Tomas Rios in the inaugural blog post. “The countless nights I went to sleep hungry and hoping to never wake up again are what I recall most vividly.”

• “I was 15 and a virgin and he was 45 and had no remorse,” wrote Steffanie, who said she was raped daily for 8 months by her foster father.

• “A 13-year-old child has no reason to be locked up in a mental hospital where they can hear screaming adults and fights day in and day out. Yet, there I was, lying awake at night too afraid to sleep,” shared AJ, a young woman who said she was abused, institutionalized and medicated during more than 15 years in foster care.

• “A lot of young people come out of the system worse off than when they went in,” wrote Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, a founding member of the iconic rap group Run-DMC and a Children’s Rights board member. DMC was adopted from foster care as an infant, and now advocates on behalf of foster youth nationwide.

The blog posts provide glimpses into the lives of people who have lived within a system that has produced staggering statistics. At least 23 states do not meet the federal standard for keeping kids safe from abuse and neglect when they are in foster care. About 104,000 foster kids are available for adoption throughout the U.S., and more than 16,000 children have been waiting for five or more years to be adopted. And, at any given time, about 23,000 foster kids live in group homes and about 34,000 live in institutions. Some states place children as young as infants in shelters.

The blogs and accompanying photos, submitted by former foster youth, will be featured on the campaign website and promoted through the Children’s Rights Facebook page, Twitter account (@childrensrights) and main website (www.childrensrights.org).

Children’s Rights is the only organization in the U.S. dedicated solely to transforming failing child welfare systems through legal advocacy. Since 1995, the non-profit has secured court orders to demand top-to-bottom reforms of more than a dozen child welfare systems throughout the country, defending the civil rights of foster children, fixing ailing child welfare systems and helping thousands of children reunite with their families of join loving adoptive homes.

(Abbeville, SC) — Unacceptably lax policies, combined with officials turning a blind eye to child-on-child assaults at an institution licensed and supervised by the South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS), paved the way for an 11-year-old Abbeville County boy to be attacked and sexually assaulted at the facility in March of 2011, charged an amended complaint filed in the Abbeville County Court yesterday.

The filing names South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as a defendant, along with SCDSS Director Lillian Koller, as well as other SCDSS officials and staff at the Boys Home of the South (BHOTS), where the incident occurred. The lawsuit has been brought by two South Carolina law firms and national advocacy organization Children’s Rights.

According to the amended complaint, SCDSS and BHOTS not only knew that the plaintiff, John Doe, was at risk, they failed to care for him after the assault. Doe didn’t receive desperately needed mental health treatment for months, even though he attempted to slit his wrist a week after the incident.

“From top to bottom, the circumstances surrounding this case are downright shocking,” said Thomas E. Hite, Jr. of Hite & Stone, Attorneys at Law. “But perhaps the greatest tragedy is that Doe entered foster care simply because his grandparents became too elderly to care for him. An innocent child is now left to grapple with depression and a host of other serious issues.”

South Carolina’s poor track record of recruiting a sufficient number of foster homes could have played into Doe’s fate. According to federal data, in 2010 and 2011 South Carolina was ranked 50th among all states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico for the percentage of children in foster care age 12 and under housed in group homes and institutions. SCDSS failed to find a relative to care for Doe and, because of a lack of family foster homes, placed him in an emergency shelter and then at BHOTS.

“It is unconscionable that this young boy landed in such a facility in the first place,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children’s Rights. “While SCDSS acknowledged that most children fare better in home-like settings, the agency apparently has not prioritized the reduction of congregate care, putting kids in settings that are inappropriate for many and can leave youth vulnerable. Foster care is supposed to improve children’s lives, not destroy them.”

A 2010 SCDSS publication noted that the system “overly relies on congregate care facilities for our children, when research shows that children have better outcomes when placed in families.” As recently as September 2012, the agency reported that, “While the number of children in foster care has been steadily dropping since 2007, the market share of foster care providers has remained the same at 24% for congregate care (group homes).”

According to the complaint, Doe was attacked on March 28, 2011 by “AR,” an older boy also housed in a cottage that was part of BHOTS’ “Low Management Group Care Housing.” At the time of the attack and sexual assault on Doe, SCDSS and BHOTS employees had notice of numerous prior incidents of child-on-child maltreatment at BHOTS, including a history of incidents involving AR. Yet only days before the attack, Doe’s SCDSS caseworker visited Doe and wrote “there are no safety issues or concerns noted in the cottage where [Doe] is currently residing.”

Doe was “to be provided with 24 hour supervision,” only “16 hours of which [was] awake.” SCDSS’s initial investigation into the attack and sexual assault on Doe, completed in May 2011, found no negligent supervision because BHOTS was not required to have awake staff at the time of the incident. A second investigation, completed that July, reversed course and found negligent supervision on the part of the BHOTS “house parent” on duty, but made no findings against BHOTS.

This was not the first time inappropriate sexual activity at BHOTS was brushed aside. Between January 1, 2009 and the night of Doe’s attack, the BHOTS Defendants and SCDSS Licensing and Out of Home Abuse and Neglect (OHAN) staff received at least eight reports of inappropriate sexual activity between BHOTS residents. Two months before Doe’s attack occurred, an OHAN investigation into inappropriate sexual activity at BHOTS was returned “unfounded”–not because the investigator or OHAN supervisor questioned whether inappropriate behavior occurred, but because the “[f]acility policy allows for house parents to sleep at night and [the] incident occurred during bed hours and staff was asleep.”

The BHOTS website currently posts a letter from its new chief executive officer that states, “In 2012, residential care facilities suffered devastating declines in referrals due to a philosophical shift in care by government agencies. Several facilities in South Carolina closed permanently. At the Boys Home our census fell dramatically to a current enrollment of a few boys.”

“It is good news that the Boys Home of the South has few children in its care, giving their new director time to institute policies and practices that will protect children,” said Robert Butcher of The Camden Law Firm. “Unfortunately, it does not mean that our children are safe in South Carolina foster care. Until we see evidence that the state is actively reducing the use of congregate care, thoroughly investigating and addressing all allegations of abuse, and housing boys in a manner that is conducive to keeping them safe, we will remain vigilant.”

The initial complaint in this case was filed on April 1, 2013, in state court in Abbeville County, SC. The newly filed amended complaint adds significant detail and alleges federal civil rights violations on the part of Governor Haley, DSS officials and staff at BHOTS.

As our inaugural Fostering the Future campaign comes to a close, we have had the privilege of sharing 24 first-hand accounts of life in state care, as well as the perspective of several dedicated advocates. Some people describe how foster care provided the foundation to become happy, productive adults. “I now have awesome supporters, a loving environment, and encouragement when I need it,” wrote one. Foster care can be a safe haven; we always are gratified when the system has worked.

But our May initiative also highlighted, time and again, just how much needs to change:

• “By the time I turned 18, the road to college was a distant memory.”
• “I wasn’t getting the right treatment and help.”
• “There are pieces of my life I will never recover.”
• “I never felt accepted.”
• “I was 15 and no longer a virgin and he was 45 and had no remorse.”
• “It didn’t take long for me to lose any hope of being adopted.”

No child should endure these experiences.

When young people enter foster care, they already have been devastated, and often damaged. Some have parents incapable of caring for them. Some are being abused, physically or sexually, or witness abuse in the home. Those who aren’t maltreated certainly experience trauma, such as the loss of a parent or another caregiver.

These kids deserve nothing short of the best treatment. States should do everything in their power to protect them, and help them heal. But far too often they enter foster care only to suffer doubly. It is why I founded Children’s Rights almost 20 years ago, and why we are dedicated to reforming failing child welfare systems across the country.

Our bloggers, many of whom have overcome long odds, also have shown remarkable bravery in sharing their lives with the world. Their voices are critical, because far too often horrifying cases can get swept under the rug.

There are many times when it is necessary to remove children from their families, even if temporarily. They cannot be left in unsafe homes. But we need to hold foster care systems to an even higher standard than their parents. We are depending on them to protect and heal children whose lives have been devastated, and use wisely the 25 billion in taxpayer dollars that are spent annually on child welfare.

As we close out National Foster Care Awareness Month, our writers have demonstrated just how unconscionable it is to stand idly by when children are maltreated in foster care. We are so appreciative to them for sharing deeply personal stories. They serve as the voice for those still in care, whose collective stories are the underpinnings for some shocking statistics and sad realities. We thank them, and you, for following us on this month-long journey.

Marcia Robinson Lowry is the founder and executive director of Children’s Rights

Published on May 31 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.

I had an “identity crisis” during my first year of college. Back home I never had time to reflect. I was always in survival mode. If I wasn’t in school, I was working. If I wasn’t working, I was contacting my caseworkers to make sure they were doing the things I needed them to do. Once I was in college, and not worrying about where I was going to sleep or what I was going to eat, I had a lot of time to reflect on my experiences in foster care.

I entered the system in my early teens and never had a steady home. So when other people at my predominantly white, upper-class, small liberal arts college talked about missing home, I couldn’t ever relate. And no one on campus could relate to my experiences. I was a minority on campus because I’m black, Latina, and poor, but there were communities on campus dedicated to those identities. Where was the space on campus dedicated to making me feel safe? Was being in foster care even an identity?

It sure felt like it. Most of the time I felt completely alienated when talking about my personal life on campus. I was casually talking to a girl one day and I brought up being in foster care. She quickly apologized for my parents passing away. I corrected her and told her they were both alive. She looked at me, with the most confused look on her face, and said, “Didn’t your parents have to die for that to happen?” It was shocking to me she didn’t know what foster care was. She was from a big city, how could she not know about foster care? But as I spoke to more and more people, I realized most people had no idea what being in foster care was really about.

To the people in and close to foster care, it’s no secret the current system is failing. Every year more than 20,000 young people, some as young as 18, “age out” of foster care. Many of these young people are without high school diplomas, are unemployed, and will become homeless. Some young people in care are subject to abuse and negligence at the hands of their foster parents and sometimes even the agencies that should be protecting them. Like many other institutions in the country, foster care disproportionately affects communities that are already at risk for other types of discrimination. Even though people of color are a minority in this country, they are most affected by foster care. LGBTQIA youth are already at a high-risk for becoming homeless, and that number rises when they are in foster care. So what do we do? It seems our struggle is silent. Foster care is only on the agenda when there is a tragedy. That needs to change. And I think I know how.

Youth in care need to be given back their voices. We need to be empowered. We need to understand that their stories are valuable. We need to tell those stories to people in power and tell them the best ways to help US. People in power have to be willing to listen and collaborate with youth on these efforts. If they aren’t willing, they need not be in power. Most importantly, we need to engage people, like the girl in my school, who have no idea what foster care is. I did a film with the Possibility Project called Know How, which is filmed, written and performed by youth like me, based on the life experiences of the cast. Know How tells the story of foster care by youth who were actually in foster care. People on the outside need to see the system for what it really is, and the consequences it has on the youth that come in contact with it. Only then can they step up and help.

Until then, here’s to the little girl packing up her belongings in a black duffle bag, unsure of whether the room she will sleep in tonight is safe. Here’s to the boy attempting to articulate his needs to his caseworker, even though his agency, the people who are supposed to protect him, have never listened to his needs in the past. Every single person who has entered this broken system is a hero. Finding the will to survive each and every day is a testament to their determination. When you enter foster care, whether you were in care for months or years, you carry a piece of it with you every day. So here’s to strength. Happy National Foster Care Month.

Good day to all, my name is Dameon “D.” Pichetrungsi, and I am a former foster youth from Los Angeles, CA. I was eight years old when a friend’s mother noticed some bruises on my face and arms from a recent beating by my father. The next thing I remember is being taken by the police and placed with relatives in Hawthorne. From there I was bounced from one foster care facility to another, going from Long Beach to Compton to Panorama City to Pacoima. I don’t even remember the names of some of the cities; there were more than 20 by the time I was 12. Just as I would acclimate to my surroundings, a new social worker would visit and take me somewhere different, leaving me lost and disconnected once again.

After a short stint of reunification with my biological father, which only resulted in more emotional, mental and physical abuse, I was back to bouncing between placements until I was 14 years old and put in a group home in Granada Hills. After several months I grew tired of the resident staff withholding money, locking up food and constantly inflicting various forms of abuse. I ran away and lived life as a teenage transient.

The best education I ever received was during my time on the streets. Hard lessons, life lessons, all the lessons a misspent youth can endure I learned in the streets of Los Angeles. I connected with a group of gang bangers and drug dealers, who welcomed me into their unique “family” with open arms. I started dealing, stealing cars and beating people up for them. I’d stay at friends’ houses, or in their parents’ cars, or break into homes under construction where there was running water, and sleep in there. I remember going through the aisles of the supermarket, opening up the bread package, then going to the meat aisle and grabbing a few cold cuts. That’s how I would eat, for a long time. At the same time I was still going to class every day and I was on the football team, excelling. Nobody knew.

Except, that is, for one teacher at Kennedy High School, Mr. Blum, who pulled me aside one day and told me that I was in serious jeopardy of going to jail or dying before I was 18. That just happened to be what my father told me the last time I saw him. Not long after that, one of my close friends got shot and killed right in front of me, and I thought, “Yeah, this would be a good time to retire from this life.”

Eventually, I called an old foster brother, just to talk, and he told me that there was an opening at the group home where he lived, Journey House in Pasadena, and how different it was from any other place we’d been to. I spoke with Journey House’s director Tim Mayworm, who asked me one question: “What do you want to do with your life?” I told him I just wanted to go to school like a regular student, and the next day I moved in.

However, after emancipating from the system, there would be plenty of obstacles that I was not prepared for. There was no training on how to feel when you have to face your demons on your own. There was no training on how to integrate yourself into a setting that looks at you differently, mostly with pity, because you were a foster child. Until eventually, all the stereotypes and stigmas get to you, and you shell yourself into your self-loathing, and cut off everything and everybody.

To sit here at 38 years old and tell you that all the pain and scars of a turbulent past have been healed would be a lie. However, I have learned that if you focus all your life on the pain and scars and what other people may think of you, then you can never truly appreciate the blessings that are trying to heal you. For me, my healing came in the form of my writing, my wife and my two beautiful children. Their pure joy and laughter erases any notion of feeling unwanted, voiceless, abused, and especially, boiling rage. My daughter, Deeana, and my son DJ, not only serve as motivation and constant reminders to do more for the greater good, but they also serve as the best therapy money can pay for.

There comes a time when we have to let go of what is holding us back from fully living our lives. Never forget the past, but rather, use it to motivate you to overcome whatever it is that is posing as an obstacle. That’s the message that I want to leave with every foster youth, former and current: no matter how painful your past, you owe it to yourself to make something of your future. Now, go LIVE.

Published on May 29 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.

I’ve been alive for 20 years and most of them have been a real challenge to get through. The biggest reason is that I was placed in New York City’s foster care system when I was just three years old. My father had become abusive and my mother shared his drinking problem, which made it impossible for me to stay with them, but that’s not something I understood until years later.

I don’t remember much about my early years in foster care other than the constant anxiety that comes with the unpredictable moving around from home to home and family to family. Up until I was 10, I was lucky to say that all of the families I had lived with treated me well enough. None of them seemed to love me and only a few went out of their way to show they cared, but I was fed, clothed and sheltered. After losing my family at such a young age it seemed like enough to me, since I had no memories of what it felt like to be with a “real” family.

Around the time of my tenth birthday, I was forced to deal with a new set of problems. First, I was moved into a foster home that was abusive and neglectful. I was forced to wear ratty, hand-me-down clothing and my food was strictly controlled. When I threatened to tell my caseworker about my treatment, my foster father brutally beat me and then kept me out of school for several days so no one would see the bruises he had left all over my body.

The other issue crept up on me so slowly I barely even noticed. I was born Samuel Gomez, a boy, but something inside me made me feel like that was wrong. At first I thought I might be gay, but the more time passed the more I felt like I was not supposed to be a boy. I had no idea what it meant to be transgender at the time and as the abuse became more and more routine, I tried my best to keep what I was feeling hidden from the world.

After two years of constant beatings and mistreatment, I was finally moved into a new home that was more in line with my past foster care experiences. I was mostly left to my own devices and as I hit my teenage years, I set aside whatever dreams I had of being part of a happy family. Even if I did somehow get adopted, what family would want to keep me once they figured out my secret? What family would want a transgender freak like me? Those were the thoughts that I most remember having all through my teens.

It didn’t take long for me to become an emotional wreck, and it showed as I became more and more withdrawn and began to ignore my schoolwork. Nothing seemed worth it anymore so I ran away, figuring that if I was by myself, I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone else’s problems on top of my own. I was 16 and a year later I was all but broken. I’d been taunted, jumped and raped all while trying to find a way to make it through to the next day.

Thankfully, one of the few friends I made living on the street introduced me to The Door–an organization that helps all kinds of young people overcome their problems and move on to better futures. Four years later and I can’t say all my problems are gone, but I can say I’m in a much better place. I’ve made peace with the fact that I am a transgender woman and I’m now working toward getting the education I need to truly make it on my own. Everyone I’m working with says I’m just a year or two away from being able to start the kind of life I never thought I would have.

That’s not a situation I ever thought I would be in, but I now get to wake up every day feeling happy and grateful for everything that I’ve done for myself over these last few years. While I would have loved to have had a family there to support me, it feels good to have created a life for myself by starting from scratch.

Published on May 28 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.

One early afternoon, I was sitting under a small flowering mimosa tree in our yard when our neighbor Brenda walked briskly up the road carrying her infant. As she got closer, I could see that Brenda was covered with blood. She explained that she had stabbed a “friend,” that the police were coming and that she needed me to care for her baby, Michael. I took him in my arms, not sure what would happen next.

As I sat under the mimosa, I realized for the first time the need for a good foster care system. I didn’t actually think “foster care.” It was more like, “This little baby needs some kind of safe place to live.” Brenda once did too. She had grown up in dangerous foster care situations and then juvenile detention.

Now, 25 years later as an attorney at Children’s Rights, I have met countless dedicated foster parents that could have helped Brenda and thousands of others like her. But I also have visited homeless shelters and spoken with young people aging out of foster care. They share Brenda’s experience of never getting a fair chance. These young people talk about being hit with belts and coat hangers, punched, kicked, sexually assaulted, all while in state care. One boy told me that when he was 9, a son of a foster parent tried to rape him. He defended himself with a knife and ended up stabbing the son and the foster father—his innocence gone forever. Far too many are unable to fend off sexual assaults.

So many of these young people recount being moved through a seemingly unending series of homes and institutions, never completing a school year where they started it, never making friends. One young man spoke of being moved four times during the 9th grade, three times in 10th grade, twice in 11th. The number of placements we have heard of for a single child is mind numbing: 10, 15, 24, 47, 60. One young person summed up the emotional damage when she told me, “I felt like no one loved me and nobody wanted me.”

Too many caseworkers are overworked, have few resources, and spend long hours on weekends and evenings to try to accomplish their tasks. It can be an impossible job when caseloads are out of control, which explains why they have little incentive to remain in their low-paying jobs. Some youth have told us about having 10 to 15 different caseworkers. A number have said that caseworkers show up at court hearings, having never met them before that day.

Abuse and neglect in foster care leads to additional trauma, serious emotional and psychological pain and “acting out,” which is when psychotropic medications can come into play. There is no question that some children need medication. But many describe psychotropic overmedication that had them feeling like “zombies,” failing school, unable to carry out normal daily functions. One young woman told me of being placed in care after her mother died, only to be separated from her sister for years. She said she was put on psychotropics to deal with these losses. She wondered why they simply hadn’t let her see her sister instead.

Thankfully, we can do something about all of this at Children’s Rights. We bring legal cases that protect children, so they are not harmed after they are brought into foster care. Our work allows these children to get the help they need in myriad ways, including: making sure child welfare systems recruit and support a sufficient number of high-quality foster homes; ensure reasonable caseload levels so social workers can be effective in their work; and provide careful oversight of foster care institutions, for kids who really need them. Foster care can be safe, and children in foster care can thrive and become happy, healthy adults.

I like to think that Brenda and her baby Michael could have benefited from a stronger foster care system.

Several hours after Brenda left her baby with me, she came back from the police station to retrieve him. In a couple of months, the child was removed by the local child protection agency. Brenda had been feeding the child undiluted formula because, having difficulty reading, she didn’t understand the instructions. The child suffered brain damage and could never speak normally. After coming in and out of state custody several more times, Brenda’s parental rights were finally terminated. Michael, though freed for adoption, was placed in long term foster care–their story seeming to come to a despairing end.

It was an incident that I had in mind when I decided to join Children’s Rights, where it is a privilege to work with strong legal advocates who fight to protect large numbers of children–children who, like Brenda and Michael, deserve a fair chance in good foster care and ultimately, in permanent, loving homes. The strength, compassion and effectiveness of the advocates at Children’s Rights is unmatched, but it is certainly compounded by people like you who are following “Fostering the Future.” Our work is far from done. We thank you for spreading the word about this National Foster Care Awareness Month campaign, and hope you will continue to bolster our mission and help us make sure every kid in state care gets a fair chance.

Published on May 26 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.

I spent the summer I turned 13 homeless because my mother thought I was gay. She kicked me out of the house and told me to never come back because she didn’t want a “child of Satan” in her home. I didn’t really understand what was going at the time, I just knew I had to start looking out for myself.

I spent most of the summer either sleeping over with friends or whatever family members were willing to take me in for a night. When one of my teachers found out I was homeless at the start of the school year and reported it to the school’s social worker, I was placed in foster care . By then I knew for sure I was gay, but didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid of how they’d react. Besides, being moved into foster care meant I had enough stuff to deal with as is.

The first home I was placed in was a disaster. I didn’t have any grand expectations because my mother was abusive to me pretty much my whole life, but that first foster home was run like a military school. My foster parents made me and the other kids they were fostering do chores all day while they sat around. If any of us spoke up or did something they didn’t like, we’d all get whipped with belts and be denied food. I was eventually moved around a few times and while not all of the homes were that bad, I never felt like anyone cared about me.

It didn’t take long for me to lose any hope of being adopted or ending up in a “good” home. It’s hard to feel like you’re worth anything when the people who are supposed to care about you treat you like garbage.

By the time I turned 18, I lost contact with all of my family and knew that I wasn’t welcome in their homes anyway, since they all had the same negative view of gay people my mother did. Despite that, I knew I wanted nothing to do with the foster care system anymore and decided to try to make it on my own. While I did graduate from high school, I couldn’t find a job that I could support myself with and quickly became homeless. Things could have gotten much worse from there, but I was lucky to have been put in contact with The Door, which helped me get my life back on track. Now I’m enrolled in community college, working part-time and feeling a lot better about myself and who I am.

I know that my family probably won’t come back into my life, but going through everything I’ve been through has made me stronger. And now I’m finally on my way to doing things that no one ever thought I would. No matter what, it feels great to be happy with my life and where it’s headed. It’s not something I’d ever felt before, and I look forward to feeling that way for the rest of my life.

Published on May 25 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.

The foster care system is the number one establishment in this nation that was built specifically to protect children. In my case it took more than five years of verbal abuse, neglect and rape for me to finally get my protection–not just food, shelter and clothes, but a real loving family who I knew would never hurt me.

In late 2002 my brother and I moved into our first foster home, where the foster mom’s two grown sons spent all the money she received. We never saw a dime of it. Within six months I was urging my social worker to get me out of there. It took him another six months to make it happen. Half the time we didn’t even live with our foster mother! We lived with her son next door. It was wrong for her to lie, and bizarre that the social worker didn’t find out.

In 2003 my brother and I moved into our second foster home, where he lived for two years until he aged out of care, and I lived for five. I can honestly say that those were and forever will be the worst years of my life. At first everything seemed fine. I was 11 when I moved in and was treated like a princess. I shared a room with their youngest daughter and we ruled that house. Whatever we wanted for dinner we got. Whenever we wanted new clothes we got them. Life couldn’t have gotten any better.

It didn’t. I was about 13 when the verbal abuse came out of nowhere. My foster parents called me big nose, pimple face, no butt, you name it. They would say my mother didn’t love me and that I was so ugly I’d never get a boyfriend. I was in that prime age of building my identity and they built it for me–a negative image of myself that I completely believed.

I literally became their slave. I cooked and cleaned on demand. I was even made to sleep in the garage for a month because I had “an attitude.” I didn’t tell my social worker everything because he was not the best at addressing conflict. Once, my foster mom was mistreating me and I reported it. Instead of speaking to us separately, he sat us down together and said, “So Steffanie tells me you are being mean to her. You can’t do that.” He left it at that, and afterward she yelled at me till I was in tears. I was afraid to report her again.

My foster mother seemingly developed a hatred for me that I could never comprehend. One day her husband saw me crying while I was washing dishes. He said he was sorry that his wife was so mean, and gave me a comforting hug–then demanded a kiss. My heart dropped. I said no and pushed myself out of his arms.

One week later he came early in the morning, scooped me up, and took me to the back room. With a stern voice he told me to get in the bed. As I did he undressed himself, crawled in and undressed me while I cried. He whispered in my ear, “I’ll be gentle.” I was 15 and no longer a virgin and he was 45 and had no remorse. For eight months straight he raped me daily. At one point I asked why he was doing this to me. He said if his wife already thought he was, he might as well do it anyway.

I moved the day that I reported the rape and never saw them again. The new home was decent. My foster mother was a nice lady but she gave us foster kids the bare minimum, and for two more years I was on the hunt for that real love of a family.

In February 2011, my senior year, I was offered the chance to move again. The people had been named Foster Family of the Year, had nine kids and were Christians. I was not into the whole religion thing but I thought I would give this family a try. Within a few months I could feel something different. Bob and Ellen never referred to me as their foster child, I was their daughter. And they were my mom and dad. This love made me cry tears of joy. They told me it was because of the love of Jesus. I gave my life to Christ in August of 2012, and it was the best decision I ever made.

The foster care system ultimately did its job but it took until just after I turned 18 for it to happen. I was subjected to more abuse during my first five years in the system than the whole nine that I lived in my “unstable” and “not safe” home with my biological mother. One I was in care I needed unscheduled visits from my social worker, and visits outside of the home, to help protect me. If he showed up on any day other than the scheduled visit, he would have gotten a very different picture.

Social workers are overloaded–and once they’re overloaded, you become a number. Because I was the “good child” in my second home, which had three other foster kids, I got ignored. Teachers and friends would approach me to ask what was wrong, but not my social worker. The one person who came to the house to check on my well-being wasn’t seeing anything.

I went through a lot of hardship and abuse to get to where I am today, but I’m making it. I’m in university, studying communications, with plans to graduate in 2015. I’m proud that, despite everything I endured, I’m able to maintain excellent relationships with all types of people without fear or nervousness–even with older men. I thank God for everything I went through because it gives me such great strength, and the chance to give hope to other foster youth.

Published on May 24 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.

The sun slowly stretched over the horizon and I was still awake, packing my bags. As the break of day crept nearer, my anticipation, and eagerness, peaked. “What would my life be like over there?” My foster parents called me weird. I just wanted to be prepared. After all I was going to live in yet another foster home, my third in just one year. It was part of my normal routine of hoping for the best, yet preparing for the worst.

My mother was taken from this world when I was very young, and my father spent most of my youth in prison. My paternal aunt took me in under a kinship care program, but I was placed in the system full time when she moved to another city. I was cycled through several group homes, foster homes and, eventually, the juvenile justice system.

Adapting to these homes wasn’t easy. I was once placed in the suburban Philadelphia home of an all white family, where I realized what it meant to be “Black.” But I was always teased more about being a foster child than about my race. As a foster child I was exposed to stigmas and stereotypes around being homeless, unwanted, and given to another family. People didn’t understand that being in foster care had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my circumstances.

I was then placed in with an African American family, who were Seventh-day Adventists. I never heard of any other religious ideology other than Baptist, and the change in religion was another adjustment. But the family had a nice home, and several children of their own. I was there for several years, attended a good elementary school, and later a good junior high school. I played football and basketball and made good friends.

I would have stayed at this home but my grandmother said my father would be released and she wanted us to reunite. I started to act out and hoped my foster family would request that I be removed, so I could live with my biological family. After being in so many foster homes you tend to think that you know how to work the system. I started arguing with the other kids, disregarded the rules and didn’t do my chores. I thought my plan had worked, but it’s funny how things backfire. I didn’t end up with my grandmother; instead I was sent to a group home.

It was there that the term “only the strong survive,” became real to me. The youth that occupied the group home ranged from ages 13-18, with girls on one side, boys on the other. It was like living in a zoo. Anyone could walk into your room and take your belongings. Kids would wear each other’s clothes without permission, so fights would break out. And developing our minds and life skills was never the priority. We just sat in a room after school and watched TV.

So often, people do not see the collateral damage foster care has on a young person. The thought that your family doesn’t want you, or that you will never attend any of your real family’s reunions, causes mental and emotional trauma for a young person trying to find an identity. Compound that with families who only want a check–as several of my families did–rather than to love, teach, groom and protect you, and it’s rough. Not every foster home is bad. But if the system doesn’t surround you every step of the way with the education you need, the mental health support, the life skills, the compassion, then they all might as well be deficient.

So who knew growing up in the foster care system would be the first step in changing my life? I opened my eyes into a world that statistically defined people like me as failures. I found a remedy to beat those statistics. I worked hard and surrounded myself with peers and mentors who understood the gift of a chance and allowed me to grow amongst them. I experienced different religions, different cultures, different races, and different ways of life, which broadened my perspective. I accepted the fact that my past could not be changed and ensured my future was bright by working tirelessly and diligently until a goal of success was in sight. Overall, I realized that my tragedy was really a blessing in disguise.

I consider myself one of the fortunate ones who ended up with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but let’s think about the ones who end up homeless, in jail, on drugs, or just alone in this world. Where is their justice and support? I tell my story because if anyone can comfort the hearts of the thousands of young people who feel hopeless and alone, it’s former foster youth. It is important to encourage the children in foster care and let them know that they are valuable and are worthy of our society’s investment.

Marvin Bing is the Northeast Regional Director for the NAACP. He lives in New York City and is the proud father of two children.

Published on May 23 as part of Children’s Rights 2013 “Fostering the Future” campaign.