Rise Magazine

Fifteen years ago, Nora McCarthy launched a unique publishing project to give child welfare-involved parents an opportunity to see their often-overlooked perspectives in print, through a magazine called Rise, which exclusively features their essays and interviews.

As Americans holed up last Saturday with family, doing puzzles or chatting online, teens in one New York City-area group home filed out of their bedrooms two at a time. Staff caring for the young people had been alerted Friday night that one of their colleagues tested positive for coronavirus, and a professional cleaning service had arrived to fumigate.

New York State lawmakers approved legislation this week that would allow judges to order contact between parents and children, after the court severs the parent’s rights due to child abuse or neglect.

Lakisha had an idea: “Why don’t they give us a handbook?” Lindsay added: “Yeah, why am I finding out about my rights here? Now?” Both were parents with children in foster care who had joined a weekly writing group I ran at a child welfare services agency called Graham Windham.

As a teen mom in foster care with a baby of her own, New Yorker RaiLei Girard resolved never to become “known.” To be “known” meant possibly having her own child placed in foster care — to be accused of child neglect or abuse, then becoming “known” to a child welfare system that takes children from teen moms in foster care at an alarmingly high rate.

The first time I set eyes on my son’s foster mother, I did not see her through rose-colored glasses — they were more like fire red! I was angry and resentful that my son had been removed from me, so I was in no mood to be friendly or forgiving.