I can remember my first thought when I found out what CPS was and what it was capable of doing. I was around 8-years-old, and I thought I'd never see my parents, my brothers and sisters again. I thought I was going to be forced to live with someone else, most likely a stranger. I believed those things because of all of the negative gossip that I'd heard about Child Protective Services.

Now that I'm older, I still hear and read negative things about CPS and its caseworkers. Most recently, there was an article in the Chronicle concerning the case of 12-month-old A'Anya Cantley's death in November. The system was criticized for not looking out for children. A'Anya's death is seen as an example of our system's failure to protect abused children.

I have empathy regarding A'Anya's death, sure enough, and I understand the criticisms against CPS. But luckily for me, I never suffered under CPS, and none of the negative thoughts I had about CPS ever came true. At least not the way I imagined they would.



When I was in the second- and third grades, I remember all of the times CPS came to my family's house. Around this time I wasn't living with both my parents the way I was used to. They had recently split up, and my mother moved me and my other siblings, my two brothers three sisters, from place to place. My mother wasn't stable mentally, spiritually, emotionally or financially without our father.

My oldest brother and sister had to live with an aunt due to custody rights given to her before I was born. Sometimes my other older sister would spend nights at my aunt's house. Most nights, there would be just the three youngest (my little brother and sister and I) tagging along and spending nights wherever our mother went. Sure enough, this couldn't and wasn't going to go on for long. CPS intervened in our lives.

In a short amount of time, with CPS' help, our mother was living in a two-bedroom house next door to her sister. CPS provided us with food and a really cute bunk bed. For once, everything seemed stable, and I was happy. The fears I once had about CPS went away. The caseworkers provided us with whatever we needed to make our living suitable in their eyes. I always figured that they could have easily taken us away from our mother, but instead they gave us a chance. With their assistance and our desire to have a suitable living, they helped us remain together. If I could have looked into the future then, I would've not been surprised that all of that was not going to last.



By the time I was in the fourth grade, our caseworkers would occasionally come and observe our living arrangements just to see if we were progressing. Around this time, we moved into an apartment. The major difference with this situation was not the fact that we were living in an apartment, but that we now had an extra male living with us - my mother's boyfriend.

I can remember the close to perfect Christmas we had because of CPS. Our caseworkers asked us to write a list of the things we wanted for Christmas. I was sure that we were not going to get the majority of the things that we wanted, because of the prices and what they were, but not only did they purchase the gifts that we desired to have, they also bought us clothes, which we really needed at the time. Even though our lives were interrupted by our mother's boyfriend at that time, I still found a reason to smile because of what CPS did for us that Christmas.



As the years went on, I found myself staying with my father more and more because I couldn't take living with my mother and our so-called stepfather anymore. In 1999, when my mother gave birth to my baby sister, the stepfather title became official (although I still called him by his name). By that time, my three youngest siblings were living with our mother and her boyfriend directly down the street from my father's apartment. My two older sisters and I were living with our father. Things seemed promising..



Not too long afterward my mother called the cops on herself and told them that she had physically abused my brother. (My mother had abused us in the passed, but she considered it discipline, even though it seemed to me out of the norm. It was something my siblings and I had kept from caseworkers because we knew they wouldn't approve.) In a blink of an eye, CPS came right back into our lives. This time, I had no idea what was going to happen.

As years went on, my mother was in and out of jail, for physically abusing her son, and so was my stepfather, for possession of drugs. All of us, including my stepfather's little girl, started living with my father, who did his part in making sure that we had everything we needed. Everything seemed to be going well, and I was happy to be living with my father. My happiness, however, did not last.



In 2002, my father passed away. Our oldest sister, who was 22 at the time, was left to take care of us. I kept telling myself that CPS was going to come back into our lives and take us away and split us apart. Luckily for me, or so it seemed, that didn't happen.



After years of constantly switching guardians within the family, we wanted a change. With our mother's refusal to care for us and our uncompromising relationship with our stepfather, we were helpless. Our family began to scatter. Our youngest sister went to live with an aunt, and my little brother and sister started living with an aunt on our father's side of the family.

Our oldest sister moved to Mississippi. My big brother, my big sister and I were still living unhappily and in an extremely unsuitable environment with our mother and stepfather. The three of us dreamed of living better and wanted to move away, so we did. I was 16, my sister was 18 and my brother was 20, when the three of us moved to an apartment of our own.

I was overjoyed because for once I didn't dread going home. To me, although we were no more than 10 miles away from the neighborhood we grew up in, it felt as if we were hundreds of miles away from the lives we had before. It was a struggle in the beginning, because we were all young and money was extremely tight. We were very determined, though (especially my brother, who works full-time and pays the rent), and we always, by the grace of God, found a way out of hard times. Until this day we're still doing just that

The only people who made me feel like we had done something right were CPS caseworkers. When I was in the 10th grade, a caseworker visited me at school. I can remember the expression on her face and how she applauded us for the decision we made to move on our own. To this day, I think back to that day and I tell myself that we did the right thing no matter what other people thought.



Child Protective Services has created many miracles in our lives. I've always admired what they do. I even remember thinking when I was younger that I wanted to be a social worker. True enough, CPS receives some negative press. But it is also true that there are caseworkers who are unselfish, dedicated and sympathetic. I know because my siblings and I were blessed with some.