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  Posted By:
  jseymour at 05/15/2008 8:00:27 PM
  Comment:
  Joshua, thanks for taking the time share part of your story. I was so glad to get to spend time with you in Washington DC. I look forward to working together in the future. Jim Seymour
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  Posted By:
  cancan at 05/15/2008 4:45:20 PM
  Comment:
  Thank you for sharing your experience as a foster children and as an adult who's decided to assemble his own family. We need stories of how people develop resiliency and not only stories of woe (althought he woe is often so deep it's hard to get beyond). I will share this with friends who are foster parents. I think it will be useful to them.
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  Posted By:
  cancan at 05/15/2008 4:43:47 PM
  Comment:
  Thanks for sharing your experience and your story on creating the family you want. We need stories of resiliency and not just woe (although the woe is definitely there). I will share this with a couple of friends who are foster parents.
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  Posted By:
  woodsprite at 05/15/2008 12:18:01 PM
  Comment:
  Thank you, courageous Joshua. Your story and ones like Mongoo1021's (below) are what make me want to adopt an older child or children out of foster care. I pray to God to persuade my fiance as well!
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  Posted By:
  blessinggirl at 05/15/2008 9:23:36 AM
  Comment:
  Thank you, Joshua, and congratulations for your outstanding achievement of making yourself whole. The foster care system in America illustrates the sad fact that this country does not care about children at all. I urge you to continue your work, but please remember that until America provides safety and nurture for all children, your nightmare will be repeated. And these broken people then go on to live broken lives. God bless you!
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  Posted By:
  kaybee at 05/14/2008 4:57:07 PM
  Comment:
  excellent article. I am the Director of a CASA program. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates- citizen volunteers who advocate for children in the child welfare system. 92% of children and youth who have CASA volunteers find a"forever" home. Disproportionality is a huge issue, that is more children of color in the system,and they stay in the system longer. I urge readers of this website to look into volunteering for CASA. We especially need male volunteers and people of color. We are the change we are looking for!
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  Posted By:
  DB at 05/14/2008 3:33:50 PM
  Comment:
  You are *absolutely* right. I am thirteen years on from you, and I spent the six years from the time I got out of the system to the time I graduated college drifting, making money via the occasional check for a magazine article and whatever odd jobs I could find. It took me a long, LONG time to understand that if folks like us don't do for ourselves, nobody else will. Whether that means "being your own advocate" or just plain old independence and autonomy via looking out for your own interests (which I do NOT mean in a "low" sense--a big part of independence is knowing what is right for you in your life and doing it, and living your life that way, as opposed to simply doing what other people think is right for you). The hardest thing I ever had to learn is that the foster care/kinship care/Youth and Family Services/social services system is NOT our friend. It does NOT have our interests at heart. We have to do for ourselves if we are going to do at all. It's a hard pill for some folks to swallow, but it's just the facts. I'm a little older and probably far more cynical about "the system" than you are. If I know one thing it is that everything I have, my college degree, my friends, my apartment, everything, I fought for tooth and nail, and I got it myself. If I could teach foster kids one thing it would be to abide by the rules as much as they can (and believe me, I know perfectly well that the "rules" that the system imposes on them are usually capricious, often draconian, typically wildly unfair, silly and senseless and not at all geared towards producing healthy adults able to live in the ordinary world) and prepare themselves well for their eighteenth birthday when the "system", the only thing they've ever known, gives them the boot. Translation: Foster kids and kids in state care have certain legal rights. There are certain rights that allow a degree of self determination. Don't assume that a course of action is best because your caseworker thinks it is or tells you it is. Find out and seek information for yourself. Goes back to what I said--figure out what is right for you and then do it.
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  Posted By:
  Mongoo1021 at 05/14/2008 3:10:02 PM
  Comment:
  Thank you for the great article. We adopted a 10-year-old boy who was placed in foster care when he was five. In those five years, he was in six foster homes. He's a great kid and we hope that we are giving him the permanancy and foundation he needs. Thanks for the article.
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  Posted By:
  rebel1234 at 05/14/2008 1:26:07 PM
  Comment:
  1. Newborn babies are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. There is always the possibility of autism, Down's syndrome, mental retardation. Unplanned pregnancy is more than a surprise, it is a bomb in life and relationships. And the more people we make, the bigger a footprint we make in the world.... and we forget that we already have people that are forgotten. God makes treasure, not trash, we are too stupid to know treasure when it is there.
  2. Why not adopt instead, deliberately, instead of procreate? Be a rebel. Make a difference in one life.
  
  A lot of the answers to what we are looking for are already here. Don't look for employees in Guatemala or Mexico, or babies from the womb. Solve two problems at once.
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  Posted By:
  mawonajj at 05/14/2008 11:53:55 AM
  Comment:
  Greetings and Sak Pase?
  
  I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart for this wonderful piece about your personal experiences in the foster care system. I wish you much success in your chosen career and I pray that you are able to help all of those with so much need that are caught up or locked up in the system. Please keep penning and speaking the truth about this situation. It has got to get better.
  I am crying for my children and for myself and so many others who I grew up with who too were in some way affected by the systems that you describe. Children are precious and we should value them.
  Best
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  Posted By:
  nweldon at 05/14/2008 9:14:03 AM
  Comment:
  Dear Joshua Griggs,
  
  You story is inspiring. Unfortunately, it is hard to ignore the fact Foster Care System is wasting generation after generation of youth. You took control over your life, and if more than 50% of your brethren in Foster programs turned out the same way it would be judged to be failing. Do you believe that 65% of the children are coming out of Foster Care a success story?
  
  My question to you is, is it better to have one isolated child under the domination of an adult (some foster parents are great, some are nightmares- so basically the system plays Russian Roulette with kids), or would the "dreaded" orphanage maybe be a solution to this nightmare of the Foster Care system? Orphanages have a mixed history both bad and good- more recently academics have shown ways that orphanages can act as a family for children when run properly. So, is it better to be suffering as a group where someone (say a reporter or a whistleblower) can find out and expose the problems, or to suffer invisibly alone where maybe a teacher or social worker will notice a problem before it is too late? One might even argue that the only reason that orphanages were disbanded was because reporters could expose any problems with orphanages. Unfortunately, instead of fixing orphanages, the Foster Care System was created. So now, the reporting is only done after unspeakable degradations. These days, the answer to the Foster Care system is well??? more Foster Care. How do you monitor tens of thousands of care givers effectively? Wouldn???t tracking smaller numbers of orphanages be more successful?
  
  I am only asking you to step away from the issue and ask yourself, is the Foster Care system the only way? Is trying to fix the Foster Care system the only answer? Sometimes we are so immersed in our surroundings that we take them as a given. We shouldn???t.
  
  Congratulations on your victory over the Foster Care Program. You are inspirational.