My foster daughter died at the hands of her mother. After following a re-unification plan which included supervised visitation, scheduled and random UAs, parenting, anger management, and illegal substance classes, and more, she worked hard to re-unify and succeeded. they passed the six month probation period. Within a year of passing probation, new legal charges and arrests began to pile up. Six months after her first arrest, Courtney Coughlin ran from law enforcement with Kaylee in the front seat of the car, unbuckled, ran a red light, and crashed into another car. It was the day after Kaylee Rice's 12th birthday. She died three days later after harvesting her viable organs.
Kaylee had been a part of our family for 4 yrs up to her death. She'd cried in my arms, laughed at my poor jokes, cuddled to watch movies, eaten my food with gusto, worked on homework with difficulty, celebrated Christmas, Mardis Gras, Easter, Birthday, participated in school activities, gone to the doctors and dentist, visited her family members...she wasn't just some kid. She was my kid. Our kid. Our daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, niece...
This is hardly isolated. How many children dbe at their parents hands every year? How many more need to before we change the system to work for the child? We need money allocated toward DCF, pay to decrease employee turn over and reduce case loads. We also need a converging computer program that will alert DCF when their cases, whether active or closed, have a new legal action against them greater than a misdemeanor. This is possible! When you break the law, you lose your typical rights. To keep your rights, you must keep within the boundaries of the law! Help me save children from their parents. Help my family heal from our heart ache and loss.
