I didn’t “age out” of foster care—I was thrown out. No transition plan. No suitcase. Not even my clothing.
This personal narrative is part of a body of survivor-informed work exploring system-level failings in the U.S. foster care system. It recounts the author’s experience as a foster care youth, the overlapping trauma of sexual abuse and mother separation, and the larger institutional neglect inherent in religiously affiliated care environments. This story emphasizes a necessary comprehensive policy overhaul—focused not merely on procedural refinement but on the ethical, legal, and moral responsibility of all organizations tasked with caring for children.
Across the United States, more than 20,000 youth age out of the foster care system each year. While policy discussions often focus on transitional supports or service gaps, far less attention is given to those who are not simply underserved—but deeply harmed—by the very institutions charged with their protection.
“My story is one of those. As a former ward of the state, my trajectory was marked not by stability or guidance, but by sexual abuse, systemic neglect, and punitive abandonment. I offer this testimony not merely as a recounting of harm, but as a call to action—a demand for reform that treats the dignity, rights, and futures of foster youth as non-negotiable.” – Tobi M
A Childhood in Custody, Not in Care
I was in and out of foster care from the age of 10 until aging out at 18. This piece details the most life-altering experience while in care.
At the age of 17 I was placed at the Methodist Children’s Home in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a faith-based facility that publicly claimed to be a haven of Christian love and accountability. What I encountered there was not care—but violence, humiliation, and disregard.
“I was molested while in that home. I reported the abuse. No action was taken. No follow-up. No protection. No justice. I was not the only one.”
In that silence, I learned that in many religiously affiliated foster institutions, safeguarding is subservient to image control. Children’s voices are too often dismissed to preserve the institution’s standing—morally, legally, and financially. And because many of these organizations enjoy leniency under religious exemptions and insufficient regulation, their failures remain hidden, unpunished, and tragically repeatable.
Systemic Punishment for Survivorship
At the age of 16, I became a mother after being raped—an experience that compounded existing trauma with the soul-rending weight of grief, confusion, and responsibility. Rather than being supported, I was deemed unfit to parent because I remained a ward of the state. The same system that failed to protect me from sexual violence now stripped me of my daughter—not for lack of love or care, but because of bureaucratic convenience and legal rigidity.
This was not a protective measure—it was a state-sanctioned erasure of motherhood. The psychological damage of such compounded losses remains lifelong.
Aging Out Without Tools, Trust, or a Voice
At the age of 18, I was released into freedom with neither preparation nor shelter nor clothing nor independent life experience nor adult to turn to. No special plan for aftercare—just a bureaucratic shoulder-shrugging of responsibility. My entrance into adulthood was not eased. It was left behind.
As could be expected, I went into survival mode. I made choices based on desperation and trauma. I ran afoul of the criminal legal system. I became homeless. And none of these things was based on lack of character. They were the inevitable result of a system that doesn’t prepare kids for anything and holds them accountable for the consequences.
This is a reality that’s not new. It’s structural. It’s racialized. And ordinary.
From Despair to Degree: Rebuilding Beyond the System
Through the blessings of God, and by a gradual course of recovery and indefatigable self-education, I recreated a life that had been rejected by the system. From a drop-out of the ninth grade to currently pursuing a Doctorates in Public Policy cognate Social policy; including a Masters Degree in Human Services. My sole purpose is to now use my voice and help those most vulnerable and create change so the state sanctioned abuse ends, including holding individuals and institutions accountable. My life was not enabled by the foster system—but despite it.
And yet at the age of 39, I still wonder: What type of mother could I have been? How much earlier could I have thrived if someone—only one adult—had looked out for me? What could I have achieved if I had been listened to, safeguarded, counseled?
- What if I had been given just one stable mentor?
- What if someone had taught me basic life skills?
- What if a caseworker had fought for my education instead of treating me like a file to be closed?
- Where could I really be today if someone had truly cared?
This isn’t bitterness—it’s clarity. Because now, I fight not just for myself but for every foster youth who’s being treated like a problem instead of a promise. We can do better. We must do better.
The Moral and Policy Imperatives of Reform
My experience is not an outlier. It is a documented pattern of harm sustained by thousands of children in care—especially within under-regulated, religiously affiliated group homes. Incremental policy changes are insufficient. What is needed is a comprehensive federal and state reformation of foster care oversight and ethical responsibility. I advocate for:
- Mandatory third-party investigation of all abuse reports within residential facilities, including faith-based homes.
- National performance and transition standards, including enforceable life skills training, post-care housing, mental health supports, and financial literacy.
- Robust regulatory frameworks with no exemptions for religious organizations, ensuring transparency, licensing, and independent oversight.
- Accountability mechanisms for staff, administrators, and institutions responsible for violations or cover-ups.
- Youth-centered policy design, informed by those with lived experience, not solely institutional voices.
Conclusion: A System That Harms Is a System That Must Be Reformed
The American foster care system was designed to safeguard children—but for many, it has been instead the wellspring of their deepest trauma. I know this not only by research or by policy review, but by living experience. I was not protected. I was not prepared. I was not believed. And I was not alone.
Kids in state custody shouldn’t emerge more traumatized than when they entered. They shouldn’t experience abuse under the pretense of prayer, silent treatment imposed by bureaucracy, or penalties for having survived the same violence the system was designed to safeguard against. And still this happens day after day—inside group homes, inside courtrooms, inside case files sealed too soon and opened too rarely.
We must call this what it is: moral and ethical failures.
The Bible speaks with piercing clarity on how society should treat its most vulnerable. “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.” (Psalm 82:3). The prophet Isaiah warned those in power: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees. denying justice to the oppressed and withholding justice from the fatherless.” (Isaiah 10:1–2).
They are not ethically neutral—they either promote justice or enable injustice. When traumatized foster children are silenced, rejected, or disciplined for trauma response, we are not failing to meet some technical standard—we are breaking covenant with those God commands us to protect. And let me be clear: reform is not optional. It is righteous obligation. We need a system that:
- Centers the voices and lived experiences of foster youth, especially survivors of institutional harm.
- Eliminates immunity for faith-based homes that shield abuse behind doctrine or closed doors.
- Enforces mandatory reporting, independent investigations, and public accountability—because what is done in darkness must be brought into light (Luke 8:17).
- Invests in healing, not just management—recognizing that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27).
- Trains every caseworker, judge, and administrator in trauma-informed, culturally competent, spiritually respectful care.
This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of life and death, of dignity and despair, of justice and judgment. For as Scripture explains in Matthew 25, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
We have to construct a foster care system that exhibits not only constitutional legality but biblical compassion—one that doesn’t merely safeguard the legal rights of children but reveres their value, fosters their future, and preserves their innocence.
The stakes are too high to remain silent. Too many have already lost their childhoods. A few have lost their lives. I came close myself a few times and bare the scars as proof.
Now is the time—for reform that is rigorous, righteous, and rooted in love.