Introduction (Invisible Children)
Over 5 years ago I had the great opportunity to work as a child advocate in Philadelphia, PA. I enjoyed my job because I felt that I was actually making a difference in the lives of children who were abused and neglected. I did home visits, went to meetings on their behalf, and worked with Attorneys to fight for what was in the best interest of the children. I w
as responsible for visiting children in biological family homes, kinship care homes, foster care homes, children’s shelters, and Residential treatment facilities. One of the things that I noticed going into some of the foster care homes is that some of them appeared as dysfunctional as the biological homes the children were removed from. I was also concerned with the some of the children were placed as far away as 3-5 hours away from the agency. I believe this changed to every 6 months at the time I was leaving the agency. Some of the horror stories I heard from the children were enough to make a grown man cry. I had one client who was placed in several foster care homes before he ended up with a an older foster care mother by the name of Ms. Blossom said when she got the young man who was 14 years old he had several wounds on him from a beating sustained while in his previous foster care home. He was previously placed in a foster care home with a man who only kept boys. He was one of the smallest and when he would not do what he was told the foster care parent would have the older boys “jump” him. Tyrone also had a bed wetting problem which they diagnosed as eneurisis. Tyrone suffered with eunerusis for several years and it caused a lot of problems for him in his foster care homes. Cherry was very diligent in taking him to the doctor and he was later diagnosed with a rare kidney disease. This disease is more prevalent in African American males. He would eventually need a kidney transplant. The thing that stood out for me the most is that his urine had blood in it and it wasn’t until Ms. Cherry got him in the home that he was properly diagnosed. Cherry took Tyrone to doctor after doctor until they ran all of the necessary tests to diagnose him properly. Cherry did what the average parent would do for their child. It was a time consuming job which did not pay much however the reward was seeing a child safe.
