foster care

For the next few days we're featuring stories of ordinary listeners who read or heard a story on State of Opportunity and decided to give some of their resources or time as a result. We know many of you have done the same. If you've got a story to share or an idea of how people could help let us know here. If you need ideas of what you could do, check out the resources page. We'll update it with  listener suggestions as they come in.

Amanda Eding can't remember the specific moment when she felt it was time to move beyond getting upset at the State of Opportunity stories she heard on her radio. The stories about kids in the child welfare system touched a nerve. "Some of the stories I would hear, I would think this is such an injustice!" she says, almost laughing at herself. "Sometimes I would get mad, and sometimes, I would cry."

The new Kids Count report is out, and things are not looking good for kids in Michigan. You would think with the recession now a few years behind us that economic trends would be on an upswing, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I'll break down the report into three sections: The Good, The Bad, and the Stagnant. 

 Last week the ACLU sent out a press release about a case I was at first convinced was an urban legend. 

It gets referred to as the "Mike's Hard Lemonade case." If you haven't heard about it, the bare facts go something like this:

Five years ago, a university professor took his young son to a Detroit Tigers game and bought him an Mike's Hard Lemonade, not understanding it was an alcoholic beverage (according to his lawyer the guy doesn't watch TV). Somebody called the police and the kid was immediately removed from his father and placed into foster care.  The ACLU sued almost everyone involved, including the judge. The news last week was that a federal court agreed to hear the case against the judge, Judy Hartsfield. She is accused of pre-signing orders to remove kids from their parents without looking at the facts.

We've already acknowledged the proliferation of different days and weeks, whether by official proclamation or organizational mandate, declared for raising awareness of various social issues. But let's talk about just one more: National Foster Care Month. While it's likely meant to raise awareness about kids who need foster care and people willing to serve as foster parents, kids who age out of the foster care system caught our attention. 

At 30, my husband and I became adoptive parents to a 5-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy. We began the adoption process through the Michigan foster care system in 2008.