With many of our families we see the effects that a traumatic childhood can have on adults. Without help these adults lack the skills needed to effectively parent. Ms. Jones is one such parent. She did not get the help she needed when she was growing up and bad choices and poor coping skills followed her into her adult life. Ms. Jones struggled with drugs, abusive boyfriends and criminal activity. These choices led her to jail for a period of time.
During the time when Ms. Jones was in jail, her two children, Harper(5) and Shauna(3), were brought to Holston Home and placed with one of our foster families. They were scared and not sure of what to expect while being away from their mother. Despite her poor choices, Ms. Jones loved her children very much. The foster mom quickly showed Ms. Jones that she wanted to love her children and build a relationship with her as well. The love and compassion that the foster family was able to show them built a trusting relationship and displayed a type of caring support that Ms. Jones had not experienced with her own family.
Once Ms. Jones was released from jail, she made the difficult decision to separate herself from family and friends who had not been a positive influence in her life and took the awkward step of reaching out to a new support system of people. As a result of all of the hard work and changes that Ms. Jones made in her life, Harper and Shauna are now at home with their mother and doing well.
Caring for children involves caring for the people that they care about. Short of a relationship with Christ, we will never give a child a better gift than giving them a healthier parent, if at all possible. Our prayer is that with this approach, we can change generations of dysfunction, pain and dependence on governmental systems to meet their needs.
