The beginning

My parents have been foster parents for over 20 years. They got their first child when I was almost two years old, and we had foster children in our home almost full time until I was 21 years old.

Over the years, with more and more training and experience, we started getting tougher cases and more kids with severe abusive backgrounds and/or behavior problems.

In 2004, we got an infant boy *Sam. We were told at first that he had a young mother and an older brother *Charlie who was living with a friend of the family. After Sam lived in our home for two months, they removed him and also placed him in the same home as his brother. They were somewhat friends with the boys' mother and grandmother, and the agency was going to give the friend permanent custody of the boys-let her raise them and let the mother maintain contact. They call it kinship placement.

One week after Sam left, the agency called my mother and asked if we wanted not only Sam back into our home, but also Charlie. My mom agreed and they brought them over that day

It was not until months later that we learned why they removed them from the kinship placement-the husband's background check had come back and he had molested a child many years back. So they removed the boys right away.

They did the right thing in taking the boy's out of that home immediately. But why had they even placed the boys in that home in the first place, if they didn't have background checks on the people living in it? Not only that, but it was a tiny house already stuffed with people, and these people were not that close with the boys' mother in the first place. They should have made sure that home was a safe place before putting a toddler and a baby into it, even for a short time. Looking back, it was the first indication we had that Children Services was not doing what they should have been.