San Diego activist Greg Smart… contact him at cpsvictim [@] gmail.com

Perhaps you can help the cause, help other families, and somehow change the world so that children like yours can be reunited with their parents.

Again, I’m so very, very sorry.

Trafficked, raped and alone, one former foster youth stands for thousands.

The story of 19-year-old Suahmirs Rivera is one of extended powerlessness turned diamond-hard inner strength. A strength he is now using to defend 1,400 former foster youth who, like himself, fear being cast into the street because of one of Governor Schwarzenegger’s’ proposed budget cuts. .

When the then 16-year-old Rivera was thrown in a truck and stabbed with an IV in his native Honduras, he was powerless. When the drugs wore off and he realized he had been trafficked to a flophouse in San Diego, he was powerless.

He was kept in a small room, fed one meal a day and forced to sleep with both men and women. His captors told him that if he tried to contact his mother and his younger siblings back home they would be killed. Unable to lash out at his torturers, Rivera bit himself and tore the skin from his arms.

“I was afraid for my family,” he says. “I didn’t want nothing to happen to them, I was raped to keep them alive.”

When the house was raided and he finally saw two police officers, he thought they were angels.

The teenager was soon placed in the foster care system. Despite bouncing through two foster homes, three group homes and a spate of mental institutions during his two years in foster care, Rivera says the system was a salve, a respite from the horror he had lived. But not long after his 18th birthday, he, like most foster youth who reach maturity, was cast out, left to himself to navigate a country that was not his own, without family and carrying the burden of his nightmare.

Unfortunately, Rivera is not the only one. Within 18 months of leaving the system the stats are bleak for the 4,000-5,000 California foster youth who “age out” of care every year: one-fourth will have been incarcerated, one-fifth will have experienced homelessness, one-third will suffer major depression, and only 2 percent will ever graduate from college.

But Rivera was smart, and lucky. He enrolled in California’s THP-Plus program, which provides transitional housing and life skills training for 2,000 former foster youth ages 18-24 up and down the state.

When Rivera heard about the Governor’s recent proposal to eliminate the paltry $38.5 million THP-plus budget to combat the state’s $20-billion deficit, his first reaction was fear.

“I was afraid to become to be homeless,” he says. But then he had a daunting but attainable epiphany, “If I save this program I won’t be homeless.”

After years of keeping the details of his life hidden from everyone but foster care caseworkers and dependency attorneys, Rivera made the hard decision to talk. And at 19, having lived his nightmare, he may be better poised than anyone else to convince the Governor that casting 1,400 former wards of the state into the street will cost much more than the 0.18 percent of the budget shortfall cutting THP-Plus represents.

Rivera launched a website, http://www.savethp.com, to organize foster youth and advocates to save the transitional housing program. But more importantly, Rivera understands the power of his story coupled with media coverage. He first appealed to Channel 10 News in San Diego (http://www.10news.com/news/22384023/detail.html), which ran a story about him and THP-Plus at the end of January. Soon after he was contacted by Good Morning America. The GMA appearance was cut, likely to save airtime for a cooking segment or celebrity gossip.

“I want to scream to the world, hey we do exist,” Rivera says in frustration.

He knows that if he had made national TV, the Governor would have had to rethink the proposed cut. So let’s go a little grassroots and help Rivera save THP-Plus. Write to Good Morning America asking to let Rivera speak: (http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271346&cat=Good%20Morning%20America). Maybe we can actually make it happen.

Then we will see the hidden power of a young man who has the bravery to face being more powerless than most would dare imagine. The power to make the leader of one of the world’s largest economies change his mind.
…
Daniel Heimpel is the director of the Congressional Coalition Adoption Institute’s Fostering Media Connections project. More information can be found at: http://www.fosteringmediaconnections.org.

I just now noticed you’re a new foster parent. With a child like this you’re going to need support. I am also a licensed foster parent. Since you’re new, you need to start networking. I don’t know what area you’re in, but there are likely support groups in your area. I used to go to one and virtually EVERY time I learned about agencies that help and more resources. I can not stress enough how you NEED to get ideas, knowledge, and assistance from others and their organizations!

Also, have you considered she may have attachment disorder? You might consider attachment therapy, but be careful as it can be dangerous in that you may bond with her but CPS still holds all the power to remove her in case they decide they don’t like you or for whatever reason. You will have bonded and all the pleading and crying you do will not stop them from taking her. You might think why would they take her. Trust me, they do what they want for reasons they are not obligated to explain. And the law is on their side. You’ll see after a while you are really a resource for CPS, not a member of a team. If you want to keep her and the CPS worker wants her elsewhere, you don’t have any legal rights under the law at least in CA. What state do you live in?

Good luck, hope this helps. Write back if you want more comments. I parented a kid just like the one you’re describing.

I just now noticed you’re a new foster parent. With a child like this you’re going to need support. Since you’re new, you need to start networking. I don’t know what area you’re in, but there are likely support groups in your area. I used to go to one and virtually EVERY time I learned about agencies that help and more resources. I can not stress enough how you NEED to get ideas, knowledge, and assistance from others and their organizations!

Are you parenting her alone?