A path to a better life

Jamie was pretty and blonde, a happy young mother in her early twenties, patting the back of the baby lying across her knees. The baby was happy, too. He was clean and well fed and obviously loved and cared for.

"I'm glad it's worked out this way," said Jamie of her experience with the system of child protective services in the Mat-Su.

"You open your eyes and you realize what you really have."

Jamie's path to a better life began about 18 months ago when she returned to a friend's home to find it surrounded by police cars and flashing lights. Jamie's younger son, then still a baby, was in the house and Jamie was there to pick him up. The baby now on her lap was not yet born.

According to Jamie, the police were there because of a neighbor's complaint and a domestic-violence situation concerning the friend. But when Jamie tried to

retrieve her son, she herself was arrested on an outstanding warrant for driving without a license.

Jamie had drug problems, no stable home, and had left her child with an inadequate caregiver. She lost legal custody of her little boy and he was placed into a foster home. She subsequently surrendered an older son voluntarily because she realized it was the best thing to do.

Jamie was lucky because her own loving mother, Debbie, was willing and qualified to take care of both Jamie's sons. Jamie was assigned a Department of Family and Youth Services caseworker whom she spoke of warmly.

"He was really helpful," she said, going on to explain the wide variety of services that her caseworker had secured for her.

More than that, Jamie herself had the desire and will to work to put her family and her life back together.

Except for regaining legal custody of her middle son, Jamie's legal issues are behind her now. Although she is still in counseling and still reporting to her caseworker, she has a stable home life and all three of her sons live with her. She hopes soon to clear up the custody of her middle son.

She has been through counseling, parenting classes and monitoring to assure that substance abuse does not recur. It has not been easy.

Asked what she would say to parents whose children have been placed in the custody of the state, Jamie answered "If you work with DFYS, they will work with you."

"Children are taken away for a reason. You have to earn your kids back, and when you get them back, you take better care of them."

Jamie added that people take their kids for granted until something like this happens.

"It's hard work to go through all you have to do to get them back, but it's worth it. Kids need their parents."