‘This is not a child safety crisis. It’s a poverty crisis, a racism crisis.’ – A social worker and former foster youth featured in HBO’s ‘Foster’ shares her vision of societal and system change (www.risemagazine.org)

Excerpts from article by Sarah Harris from Rise Magazine. 

Q: What led you to work in the foster care system?

A: I am a former foster youth and I’ve been a social worker at the L.A. Department of Child and Family Services for 5 years. I entered foster care through probation, and I got into probation through survival. I was breaking the law for clothes and food. In foster care, I bounced around a lot. For the most part I was AWOL. I was in group homes but I stayed with family or friends. Anywhere but the system.

I had very few positive experiences or interactions with people in the system. Most of the negative things I internalized about myself I had heard from group home staff and professionals in the system. People don’t have very high hopes for you. They assume there is something about you that is probably bad. The system instills fear and pain.

When I got my master’s in social work, I came to the department to infiltrate. There’s a lot of criticisms of caseworkers—that they’re bad people, and they’re here for the money. I thought they kidnapped kids, so I wanted to find out.

To read more of this article in Rise Magazine by Sarah Harris, go here.