To the thousands of children removed from their homes each year, that perception of safety, no matter how ill perceived, is disjointed and destroyed forever. In that moment of displacement, where as a small being with no sense of power or entitlement you are simply placed in a new surrounding with strange and foreign people, home becomes a new word entirely.

Those involved in this painful process are just that- in pain. It is most difficult to be on the sidelines of that youth who must break into a new pattern of life, a new set of rules, a new form of family, however long that transition may last. God bless the caseworkers, the people at Children’s Services, the police and other officials present at this most tender and defining moment in a child’s life. In the end, it is a sense of duty and morality to provide a better life for our children in danger. But in doing so, a life made better is a life made so different- and it is sometimes impossible for that child to make sense of where and how life became so very strange.

Our board was told over and over that one of the saddest metaphors in this process was that, when told the child had five minutes to gather the last vestiges of life as it was known, they were given a plastic garbage bag in which to gather their belongings. It seemed to be a very loud statement. Our board put aside a large sum of money to provide these children with a strong and steady duffle bag in making this transition, and for the past five years, children going into care were given a respectable mode of transport for the treasures they cared to keep. One caseworker told me recently that when given our duffel bag to a young man being taken from his home, the young man looked up to her and said, “it’s just like Christmas!” The caseworker was in tears.