By JACQUELYN SMALLWOOD

In my teens and early 20s, my dream was to help others. I wanted to be a social worker. I just didn’t know exactly what I could do. I never could have imagined the path I ended up taking. Today, I am a parent advocate at a foster care agency. As a parent whose children were once in foster care, I help other parents reunify with their children.

My own two children went into foster care because I fell into a deep depression and became addicted to crack when my first child was young. By the time my daughter was 6, I’d given my mother custody and was living in the streets like a zombie.

I became pregnant with my youngest after I’d gone to treatment but relapsed. At that point, my addiction was so out of control that I felt it was no turning back. I had always judged women who used drugs while pregnant, but guess what? After I became pregnant, I kept using drugs and totally abandoned any idea of reuniting with my daughter or family.

On the delivery table, I told the doctor my whole story. The next morning, a social worker came to tell me that my newborn was going into foster care.

Feeling Judged

At that time, I felt that the agency caseworkers, lawyers and judge saw me as just another drug addicted mother who abandoned her responsibilities and could’ve stopped abusing drugs if she wanted to.

I also felt like I didn’t have any support. Many of my family members, especially my sister, didn’t trust my recovery. I felt my sister judged me and put me down even when I was really trying to stay sober. She would say, “You know you really want to use.”

But my mom and aunt always saw my strength. My mother let me know that my daughters needed me. They both loved me unconditionally and truly made me believe I could recover.

Finally, I accepted the seriousness of my addiction and I humbled myself. The judge saw my efforts and gave me encouragement to keep going. I made it through the parenting classes, drug treatment program and therapy, and reunited with my baby after 26 months.

A Strong Woman

Now 14 years later, I am still drug free. If you met me today, you would never know that I was so strung out that I almost didn’t recognize myself. Today I am a strong African-American woman.

I am blessed to support parents whose children have been placed in care. I am their ally inside the system. I also try to educate foster parents about how to keep communication open with the parents and how to approach the parents without judgment. God, it feels great to share and give back what was given to me.

I put my all into my work. I especially enjoy seeing the parents, who come in so beat down, get back in touch with themselves. No one has the same exact story or crossroads, but I try to stress to the parents they are not alone in their experiences. Like all of us, they have to love themselves so they have the strength to love their children.