The Birthday Weekend that Almost Didn't Happen, BUT Community.
Yesterday, we went to a birthday party at trampoline park for a girl's 13th birthday. Sounds totally normal, right? A fun day celebrating a new teenager....this was anything but. Here is the reality of life for children in foster care...
(Seneca Foster Mom Shares the rest of the story)…
This Birthday Girl came into foster care a few months ago. Her 13th birthday was coming up, so her foster mom planned so many fun things for the big milestone birthday. Shortly beforehand, she was removed from her foster home suddenly (to no fault of her own or her foster mom's). Trauma compounded. After a while, she moved to night-to-night emergency placements. This is when a child has no long-term, consistent home/place, so they sleep in a home for a night, often dropped off at night before bed, sleep, and are picked up early the next morning to spend the day at the DSS office, before going back to the same house again for the night, or to another house to sleep. Repeat over and over until some placement is found.
Soon-to-be birthday girl found herself back in emergency care, right before the Big Day. Everything in life is night-to-night. No contact with the foster mom, no contact with anyone she knows save maybe a caseworker. All the birthday plans gone, she has to be certain that nobody even knows about them. But...here is where the Lord and this foster care community step in. She so happened to end up at the queen of emergency placements for this area, seriously. After one night there, with already a house of kids to serve, she decided she could take one more for the whole weekend, Birthday Girl. This foster community is tight and led to connections....The previous foster mom and emergency placement mom, plus a few others, made all the connections, got the right people in place who have known Birthday Girl all along. She got to have a last night of being 12 to remember (seriously, seats so close to Clemson Gymnastics) and a precious 13th birthday party that she said was "the best thing I have ever done in my life".
A kid with no placement, some scary labels, compounded trauma, who looked like every ounce of life had been sucked out of her on Thursday, came alive on Saturday...because of a foster mom who couldn't even participate didn't cancel the plans, and this community got to give her a really fun birthday. Come tomorrow? She still doesn't know where she will end up. Can you even imagine?
This is life for SO many in care. Get involved. Help however you can. They aren't just numbers. They are real children, with big birthdays, and are bouncing home to home, bed to bed. They deserve to be known and celebrated. Happy birthday, Girl. We adore you!
-Submitted by Seneca Foster Mom
The emergency foster mom enjoying the party with her long term foster daughter. We need more women like these to step into the stories of teens in foster care and change the narrative.