Wentz-Graff Media

Storytelling: Unify

Thousands of Milwaukee County children live in temporary homes as the state tries to find a permanent placement for them. There are only three options for permanency--adoption, guardianship, or return to the home they were removed from.  

The primary goal of the foster care system is to reunite families, but how is that achieved when families fail to care for children properly? This is the story of how the system handled two of those cases, involving three children.  

  • Brandy looks out the window at her children Tae, 12, and Shakiem, 10, who play in the courtyard below. The boys were each removed from Brandy's care shortly after their births, and have spent the majority of their lives in foster homes. Brandy regained custody of them twice before, but lost it shortly thereafter when she returned to drugs. She has now been clean for months and is working towards reunifying with the boys for a third time.
  • Shakiem gives Brandy a hug after showing her his report card. Shakiem was removed from Brandy's custody when he was an infant and has lived in over a dozen foster homes. Brandy has battled a drug addiction problem which led to the removal of each of her children shortly after their births. She has regained custody of her boys twice before, but the each time they were removed after a month in her home. They now have regular unsupervised visits, including occasional overnights.
  • Brandy has been working hard to make improvements in her life, and credits a women's drug program with helping her to become and stay clean. She gets support from a friend, whose children are also in the foster care system, during a group therapy sessions, April 28. As reunification with her sons gets closer, her anxiety increases, making her more vulnerable to returning to using drugs.
  • Brandy prays outside of the courtroom at Children's Court before yet another placement hearing. As reunification gets closer, her stress levels rise.
  • Brandy puts new baseball cleats and clothes on the new bunk beds awaiting her two boys. The court granted a trial one-week visitation with Brandy as a pre-run before reunifying the family.
  • Brandy glares towards the bench where Tae sits as the family waits to go before the judge at Children's Court. Weeks before the family is scheduled to reunify, Tae told his lawyer that he wants to remain at his current foster home and does not want to return to Brandy's care.He is deeply angry with his mother, having been returned to foster care twice before after reuniting with Brandy. {quote}Once we came back home for a month and had to go back to foster care,{quote} he says. {quote}I can't even count how many homes we've lived in. I can't even count how many schools we've been to.{quote} He has finally relented, and tells the judge that he'll try living with Brandy one more time.
  • Tae, 12, has been having trouble at home and at school, and told his lawyer that he did not want to return to Brandy's care, which delayed the reunification of the family for several weeks. Tae eventually changed his mind, telling the judge thathe was now ready to try, for a third time, living with his mother.
  • To help the boys meet other children from their neighborhood, Brandy has signed them up for local Little League. On opening day she searches the crowd for her two sons, proudly snapping photos of them as they march by with their Little League team during a parade.
  • After months of hard work, Brandy's children are finally home. They celebrate their reunification day, with a cake that Tae baked. He was at home during the school day after being suspended from the last week of school after an altercation with a teacher. His behavior has become increasingly erratic as the date neared to be reunited with his mother. Brandy is very uptight about her new responsibilities and keeps a watchful eye on the boys as Tae (left) and Shakiem eat the cake.
  • Tae, 12, unpacks his belonging from a cardboard box, which include a Milwaukee Bucks jersey that he has long outgrown. Shakiem, 10, checks out a new whiffle ball set sent from his foster family.
  • Shakiem looks down from his balcony, wishing he could play with the children below. Since returning to his mother's home, she has grown increasingly irrational, not allowing him to leave the apartment, constantly screaming at he and his brother, and even engaging in physical altercations. One month after the boys were reunited with Brandy, they were removed from her custody, returning to foster care for the third time in their short lives.
  • Tae sits in a dark room playing video games at his mother's home.
  • After the boys lived with their mother for one month, they were again removed from her custody and placed in foster care. Court records show that there were reported episodes of violence, verbal abuse and chaos in the home. Brandy storms out of Children's Court without attending the hearing placement and the courts must now determine how to find permanence for the boys once again.
  • Across town, another mother is also struggling to regain custody of her children. Three of Danettea's four children are currently in the foster care system--her older two were removed following allegations of abuse, and one-year-old Denice was removed after she was born with traces of TCP in her system. Denice has never had an unsupervised visit with her mother. She lives in a different foster home than her siblings, and sees them during one of the weekly visits with Danettea.Danettea has been diagnosed as a borderline personality, and social workers are unsure if she is able to show protective capacity for her children.
  • Danettea confronts social worker Laura Reitz following a hearing in Children's Court where Reitz told the court that Danettea is not complying with requirements. Danettea had also requested unsupervised visits with her daughter, to which the social workers did not support.
  • Denice clings to the hand of her transportation worker, who drives her between Danettea's home and her foster home. Countless dozens of adults come in and out of Denice's life on a daily basis, evaluating, transporting and monitoring her life in the foster care system.
  • Denice has lived her entire life with foster parents CJ (right) and Ann, who have hoped to adopt her. The courts began the process of terminating Danettea's parental rights, but then put that plan on hold. At this point, Ann and C.J. do not know whether they will be able to have Denice as a permanent part of their family, but try to continue life as usual.
  • Ann gives Denice a giant cupcake in honor of her second birthday.
  • After two years with her foster family, it's still unclear if they will be her forever home. A concurrent placement plan for Denice has the courts moving in two different directions. On one hand, the courts are gathering enough evidence to terminate her mother's parental rights. But the other plan is moving forward with reuniting them. As part of the reunification plan, social workers now approve unsupervised visits for Danettea and Denice. The foster parents are heartbroken, fearing for Denice's safety and are dismayed that each step seems to move farther from having Denice be part of their family permanently. Eventually Denice was returned to her biological family.
  • Home
  • Storytelling
    • The Gift of Sight
    • A Love Interrupted
    • Abandoning Our Mentally Ill
    • Inside out: Transgender stories
    • Science of Gender
    • The Soldier's Child
    • Fatal Care: The state of foster care in Milwaukee
    • History in the Making: Obamanomenom
    • Missing
    • Unify
    • Deadly Delays
    • Faces Of The Recession
    • Cashing In On Kids
    • Bringing Courtney Home
    • World Naked Bike Ride
  • Faces
  • Scenes
  • Motion
  • Action
  • Edibles
  • About Kristyna
  • Contact