and find their way in the world.
A little context. Almost two years ago, I became a foster parent to an 11-yo girl, one whose parents' rights had been terminated, and who had two older siblings, a brother and a sister. It's the brother this diary is about.
About eight months after she was with me, this boy (then 15 at the time) broke into a neighbor's house and stole some jewelry. There was a camera next door, and they were pretty certain it was him. I got to know him over the summer, while he was being detained in a minimum security juvenile facility on the edge of town. The facility reached out to me as "family", and we became the ones to do the visits, take him on home passes, etc. The judge showed him some mercy at his sentencing and he was sentenced to a residential treatment facility.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned there (he smoked marijuana in his room, and was sent to jail right before Christmas, a Christmas we had been planning on spending together). It was a real blow to everyone to see him locked up again, but I went all out at his next sentencing hearing, and over the objections of the probation officer, DAs office, and Human Services, the judge released him to my custody. That was about 10 weeks ago.
This kid had a horrific past. At about the age of 7 his mom remarried a man who would lock him in his room, and then horrifically beat the daylights out of him. Other things happened in the home, that he was both a witness to, and attempted protector of his siblings. The family was constantly on the move, either staying once step ahead of a landlord looking for a check, or the police. The kids were finally removed from the home when he was about 11. Rights were terminated maybe 2 years later.
Since he was removed from the home, this kid has been in and out of treatment facilities, jails, and foster homes. Despite all this, he has a wonderful, exuberant personality. He could sell anything (and was, indeed, the top grossing drug dealer in his former high school).
He fit into my house though, and for the most part was respectful of my rules. it was great watching he and his sister re-bond after not having lived together for 3 years. Where things began to fall apart was when I would catch him lying. This happened about 2 weeks ago, when I caught him in a lie about work. He had missed work, and I was contacted by them. When I asked him about it, he said he had been there, they just hadn't seen him in the back. In retrospect, pretty naïve on my part.
And then, two days ago, all hell broke loose. I'm a light sleeper, but he managed to slip out in the middle of the night. He went to a park he likes to hang out in, and saw some buddies (1:00 in the am). One of the buddies he saw, was pretty drunk, and asked him to drive his car to get gasoline (he has no driver's license so that would be a probation violation). He does it anyway, 1/2 block away the kid tells him the car is a stolen vehicle. My foster kid doesn't leave the vehicle, keeps driving it. Unbeknowst to all, there have been a rash of car thefts in my neighborhood, and there's a task force tracking this vehicle. Fast forward 12 hours, and the cops show up at my house, my foster kid is arrested.
He's now in the local juvenile facility, and I can't get in to see him until Monday. Foster parents don't have the visitation rights of legal parents, and it has to be approved by the guardian ad lidem and caseworker. He's devastated. He knows he'll be doing his deferred sentence of 1-2 years. He also knows he threw a great chance away, and let a lot of people down, most of all himself. What's irritating to me is: because of his prior record, he'll probably go down for this theft, even though I believe him when he says he didn't do it. He also will have to spend 4-5 months in jail until his sentencing hearing, just because he's in foster care - the system won't bail him out, whereas a legal parent could. And he still has to confront his demons from his past - is jail really the place for a kid like this to do that?
I know he screwed up, he knows he screwed up. It just seems like the deck was stacked against him from the get-go. This is a kid with the intelligence and drive to be a valedictorian of his class, or head of the debate squad. I know he's still young, and I hope and pray this may be the wake up call he needs. I just wish, though, that we intervened in these types of families before the situation became so hopeless, and the kids so lost. I've made a commitment to this kid though, and I'm prepared for a bumpy ride.
If you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me. Stories of these kids need to be told, they're so often the forgotten ones. Thank you in advance for your support!