Sierra Mountain Times

Story and Photo By Thomas Atkins

Sonora resident Stacey Soares poses with her book, ”State of Sadness: A Mother’s Fearful Fight to Save Her Foster Daughter.”

Imagine yourself not having a place to call home. Imagine longing for that place, and after finally finding it and settling in and becoming comfortable…it is taken from you – forcing you to move to another place, which you hope to call home. Yet again you are there for only a limited time and find yourself on the move. As this process repeats itself, each move wears you down and you begin to lose hope. Welcome to the world of the hundreds of thousands of foster children scattered across the United States who are trapped in the vicious cycle of the child welfare system, as they are moved from house to house, but never to a home.

In 2005 the AFCARS (United States Department of Health and Human Services) reported that there were 513,000 children within this system, and one report states that 65 percent of foster children have nowhere to live once they “graduate” the system, leaving many of these children on the street. In fact 41 percent of people living in California’s homeless shelters are former foster children. With 51 percent of graduated foster children unemployed, the reality is that far more of these children will end up in prison than in college.

However, as bleak as it may seem…there is hope. Wherever there is love, there is hope, and many loving foster parents have opened their doors to these children, often adopting them as their own. It is through this love and support that these children can avoid becoming like one of the statistics mentioned above. Stacey Soares, previously a social worker, marriage and family therapist, mentor and foster parent, is one who has always had her door open to help children in need – hoping to give them a better life than what the foster care system offers. Unfortunately, foster parents don’t have too much control in matters concerning their foster children, and the social service system often has the final say. Sadly, Stacey and her foster daughter, Tinea, found this out the hard way, when after two years of living with Stacey social services removed Tinea from her home.

Vowing to get her daughter back, Stacey quickly found herself in a battle against the powerful social service system that couldn’t be beat. Yet over the frustrating and wearisome years, she discovered that she wasn’t alone – others have been in her shoes before. After meeting and talking with people who had experienced difficulty while working with the social service system she realized that there was a problem that needed to be addressed and there were stories that needed to be told. So after years of futile fighting, she was inspired to write her first book to reveal the corruption of the system and to tell her and her daughter’s heartbreaking story.

“It is very shocking as you read it,” said Stacey of her book, “State of Sadness: A Mother’s Fearful Fight to Save Her Foster Daughter.” “While I was writing it, it was a very scary process, because of the power that the system has that keeps people from speaking. I was basically threatened to keep my mouth shut, so I said, ‘OK, I’ll write a book.’ My reason for writing the book was because I loved my foster daughter and I needed to get the story out so that Tinea would not just be a statistic, but a child who was loved and fought for. Plus after witnessing the inner workings of what was going on, I wanted to help create change within the system. We need a change and the change needs to come from how the social workers and the foster parents and all the other professionals work together to help these children. They aren’t easy kids when they come to you and we need a support system in place that says, ‘Ok, we’ll help you out,’ rather than rip the child out from under you and say, ‘Since you can’t deal with them, we will put them over here. But that person isn’t going to deal with them any better and they will continue drifting through the system.”

Reading through the 127-page book will reveal what is often hidden from the public behind the closed doors of the social service system. It shows that frequently the power is in the wrong hands and in many cases there seems to be no accountability. Although short, it is full of content and you can tell that a lot of hard work and dedication went into it.

“I started writing it just before my foster daughter turned 13 and now she is almost 18… and it just got published,” said Stacey, who has lived in Sonora for ten years. “It took me four years and look how little it is! But I had to make sure everything was factual and correct in there because I did interviews with a lot of other foster parents, professionals and kids that graduated out of the system, as well as newspaper articles and grand jury reports. I also had to change the names of a lot of people and do all that stuff. Then there was the editing process…it was difficult. I never thought it would be that long and hard of a process. It’s a lot of work and I think if I didn’t have such a passion for what was going on I may not have completed it. But I really finished it for my daughter so she knew that she was fought for, and for all the other kids floating through the foster system.”

Documenting her struggles in dealing with the social service system to win her daughter back as well as others who have felt manipulated and abused by the system, the book can often be upsetting – especially when seeing the drawings and reading the letters of Tinea and other foster children.

“I have sold quite a few already and people get really angry and emotional when they read it,” said Stacey. “Yet I am glad, because that is the affect that I wanted the book to have. I just want the information out. I want people to really get angry about it. And that is what I am getting from people. I am starting here and hope to start spreading the word.”

When reading Stacey’s, Tinea’s and the others stories, one can’t help but be moved and hope for a change to take place within the system.

“It is heart wrenching,” said Stacey. “You go into this wanting to really help, but then you don’t get any help from the other side. I always knew early on that I wanted to take a child who was physically discarded, but I never thought in a million years that by taking an older child, that the judge would discard her and basically say that she was unadoptable! Many of these kids are moved so much that they become damaged. My first foster daughter went through 17 homes within three years. I’ve heard some kids going through 30 homes!“

Tinea, who came to Stacey’s house when she was eleven-years-old had already been through six different homes, and Stacey intended on her home to be Tinea’s last.

“I had Tinea for almost two years and my intention was to adopt her, but they didn’t let it happen,” said Stacey. “After she was taken from me, she went through seven other placements including group homes.”

Yet throughout these moves, the two of them still kept in touch and Stacey always let Tinea know that she loves her. In fact, one day Stacey is hoping to write a sequel to “S.O.S” with the help of Tinea.

“We are still in contact, but she’s dropped out of school, has no education, no job training and she is out on the street,” said Stacey. “She is very difficult now; she is a very changed person. It is very sad. As one lady quotes in the book, ‘We take them from sick parents only to put them in a sicker system.’ The parents may be on drugs and doing whatever they are doing and yes, the child needs to be removed and taken care of, but when you put a child in the system and you repeatedly move them, the damage it creates is irreversible. What are these kids going to do? How are they going to take care of themselves? We don’t prepare these kids to be self-sufficient. And part of preparing them is not just getting schooling and job experience, but making sure they have that secure home and that loving, caring home base, because you can’t do all that other stuff until you have that. I just hope and pray that it gets out there and people read it and it can make a difference…because it’s a little book full of a lot of information.”

To purchase this little book ($12.82) visit www.staceysoares.com or call 588-8893. It will also be available at Mountain Bookstore for a limited time.