My position as owner and editor of the only monthly foster care magazine allows me to interact with some of the most passionate people
you could ever imagine. Some are CEOs, some are entertainment personalities while others are on the front line of foster care. From
speakers to advocates, I get to meet them all. I call them my Foster Friends. But unlike my time in care these folks don't show up in the
middle of the night with all of their belongings in tow. Meet one of my Foster Friends. ~Chris Chmielewski
I was 12 years old and getting ready to go to my first sweat and Sundance but foster care came into my life and ripped me away. Being placed with strangers in a strange environment, I was scared
and emotional. I was not coping well and the system’s solution was to place me on psychotropic medication; medication with bad side effects. I really wanted sage and prayers with an elder, but that
was not a choice for me. Even as a tribal youth, I knew how our cultural remedies could help in mind, body, and spirit; help me be well. The system often unknowingly strips these everyday cultural
rituals away from our youth entering foster care not even considering the cultural ways as a strength to help young people. I was given hope as an adolescent for a new life, a better life. My stay,
which was supposed to be only temporary, turned into long-term foster care. I was raised in the Colorado state foster care system where I was slowly disconnected from my Lakota culture and
everything that I was every taught as a young boy.
I aged out into a world of uncertainty. I didn’t have what I truly needed for my well-being; a connection to my tribe and culture. Not unlike many youth who age out of foster care, I had very little
support. One of the most difficult effects of growing up in foster care was that I was disconnected. It is important to give young people the opportunity to have an elder, spiritual leader, or tribal role
model to be connected to while in care. This would give the opportunity to have an alternative for health and healing without the first choice being psychotropic medication with side-effects. Going
through the foster care system, I lost the connection to important family members who taught me to dance and sing. I longed to go to the local urban Indian center and interact with other natives and
leaders in the community who look like me, who I could identify with. Many choices that were made for me were made without me. I suffered from the choices that judges, GAL’s, and caseworkers
made for me and my family. In my journey in the state care system, I felt left behind.
A few weeks ago I attended the First Nations Repatriation Institute’s Annual “Gathering for Our Children and Returning Adoptees Pow Wow” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was an experience that I will
never forget. The Pow Wow brought together adoptees and youth alumni from across the nation as well as some from Canada. Each person had a story, stories of cultural identity being compromised.
There was a healing ceremony; it was a moment in life that was unexplainable. It was the first ceremony where I had the opportunity to be recognized for the many struggles and challenges we faced
being away from our Indian communities, to be welcomed home. I had to wait 12 years to experience this and many youth will not have this opportunity. It is the systems responsibility for well-being
decisions for youth in foster care. We need to keep in mind the agony, hurt, and disconnection that many native youth going into care will experience and make a conscious choice to consider their well-
being in relation to connection to culture.
At the end of the ceremony I looked around and saw the many faces old and young. This gave me strength and direction that my voice in advocating for young people in foster care is important and
making sure that “No American Indian Child is Left Behind”.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski