Thank you for taking time to get to know us and, perhaps, walk a few miles of this journey alongside us. The path of raising a child with special needs isn’t for the faint of heart and it is especially difficult when that child’s special needs are ignored and discounted as though she is invisible. That is our reality.

Adoption was never meant to be a savior to some unknowing child. We chose foster care as a means of serving the community we live in who has one of the highest rates of children in foster care in the nation. As a mental health worker/educator and educator, we took the opportunity to foster to our 3 biological children before making any decisions. At the time, they were 10, 7, and 3.

What we learned soon after entering the fostering arena is that not only were children experiencing horrendous situations, the systems put in place don’t always have the best interest of those children at heart. More on that at a later time…

We were lied to, ignored, and placated over and again both before and after the adoption of our daughter, who came to us at 2 and a half years old.

We are fiercely fighting for our daughter’s right to treatment for disorders that directly stem from trauma imposed upon her before she could ever even be potty trained. Foster care and adoption are still very near and dear to our hearts. As are the hundreds of families who silently suffer from a system that refuses to acknowledge the reality of what these atrocities are doing to our families.