Annie's Story

My husband and I were committed to our faith and committed to caring for children without families. We had two biological children and then adopted four children from foster care. Our children who had been in the foster care system came with unimaginable experiences of trauma and abuse. From the moment they entered our home, we immediately sought every possible form of support for them—trauma therapy, school supports, and where appropriate, psych evals and possible medication supports.

For some of our kids, these supports allowed them to thrive. However, we were absolutely devastated to learn after a couple years that one of our children was abusing his siblings in the exact way he had been abused. The terror I felt as a parent was so overwhelming. We felt like (and were told) we were doing everything correctly. We had spared no expense and had built in every form of support structure. We were/are highly attentive parents. And yet, abuse was happening in our home. We sought even more intensive therapy and multiple hospitalizations, but our child’s trauma was surfacing in ever more increasingly dangerous ways. We appealed to the state for help, but their support ended when we finalized the adoption from the foster care system. We were supervising our son 24/7 to ensure others were not harmed. And then, he tried to murder me. When we hospitalized him again, we let the hospital know that we could not bring him back home until he had undergone intensive treatment. As parents, we were now trying to balance our immense love and concern for our son, with our immense love and concern for our other children and for our own lives. Our state’s child protective system threatened to charge us with abandonment if we didn’t bring our child home or find a solution. They offered no support and no other options. We were researching every possible option. We came across two programs in Utah that were designed to offer trauma-informed care for the exact needs of our son. They were both members of NATSAP.
The first was a wilderness program. We had heard really difficult stories about some programs—things that should never happen to a child. We were so scared and wanted only the best for our child and safety for every member of our family. We spent time exploring the program, their staff, their model and spoke to parents who offered their stories of the support and hope they had found. The program was transformational for our son. We received consistent reports about his physical health (including food and water intake), mental health, physical safety, and progress in therapy. He went from displaying rage, anger and destruction, to an ability to acknowledge that he needed help and an ability to articulate that the harm he had experienced in his early life was leading to his own destructive behavior. While the short wilderness program allowed our son to see his own trauma and pain, it was not extensive enough to offer the longer term therapy he would need for healing.
After the intensive wilderness program, he then transferred to another highly specialized and trauma-informed residential program that supported him through his treatment and healing. The support he received was loving, caring, and focused on family restoration. We were offered family retreats, family therapy, and individual therapy. As a parent, I was offered coaching on the particular needs of my child. My child was offered therapy and support to address his trauma, to unlearn the coping skills he had developed as a very young child, and to understand the painful harm he had caused. Having a child you love living away from your family is painfully difficult, but there was no other way for him to receive the type of intensive treatment he needed while preventing him from doing further harm that would have horrible impacts on his own life, and potentially the life of others.
With my son receiving love, support, and healing, the other children in my home were also able to experience safety, love, support and healing. My son is now 21 years old. I am able to have a loving supportive relationship with him and there is no fear of him harming others. Early life trauma leaves horrible scars. As a community, we not only need to step up to provide loving homes and families for children who do not have them, we also need to be willing to invest in the intensive types of treatment that may be necessary to help children recover from abuse and/or mental illness. Without that type of support, the harm will just be perpetuated.
I grieve the harm that some families and children have experienced in residential programs; there is absolutely nothing defensible about it. Our own experience with two programs offered a chance for restoration and healing. They felt like extensions of our family. My wish is that for those whose children require intensive therapy for their own safety and for the safety of others that there would be programs that are trauma-informed, subject to licensing and oversight by therapeutic professionals, staffing training and standards, and clear protocols for the kids/patients/parents to access advocates.
Of course, I can not know what would have happened without these two programs, or this level of intensive treatment. But I do know, the police were being called to our home regularly and my child was at risk of legal charges which would have plunged him into the criminal justice system. In addition, the mental health of my other children was deteriorating. I am so very grateful for the resources we found and wish only the same for other parents in such heartbreaking situations.