Catherine

Catherine’s newborn son Adam was placed in foster care after a caseworker reported her for neglect to the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).  Catherine was accustomed to being in regular contact with social workers.  As a girl she had been physically abused by her parents and spent years as a ward of the state. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prone to self-destructive rages, she was too much for her foster parents to manage and was bounced from home to home, eventually ending up in psychiatric wards and group homes.  At 18 she finally aged out of the system.  However, with no family to cushion the fall, she lived in a constant state of crisis.  When I met her, she was 25 years old and unable to hold down a job. She lived on disability checks. She’d fallen under the spell of a telephone psychic who convinced her to spend all her money on crystals to get Adam back.  She was in the process of getting evicted from a small studio apartment on Staten Island where she lived alone.  She would get into violent fights with Adam’s father and a friend, and had been arrested for harassment and disorderly conduct. 

Among the many conditions Catherine had to meet to regain custody of Adam, she had to successfully complete an anger management program, a parenting course, and keep weekly appointments with a psychotherapist.  She was allowed 2-hr visits with Adam twice a month at the foster care agency. Catherine struggled to keep up with these demands. She would miss visits and was seen as irresponsible by the caseworkers, even her own attorney. In the end, her parental rights were terminated.  The baby’s biological father, from whom Catherine was estranged and with whom she had a very volatile relationship (he obtained an order of protection against her), worked with the court to get custody. But he had his own challenges with drug addiction and homelessness to overcome.

As her case started to fall apart, Catherine withdrew from the photography project. She was worried it would impact her case.  I lost touch with her and haven’t been able to find her.  I would love to know what happened to her and Adam. Did he ever go to live with his father? Or was he eventually adopted? Is Catherine a part of his life? Did she go on to have other children?