Former Foster Care Youth Speak Candidly About Their Experience

More than two decades after they were removed from their home as children, brothers Steven and Hebron Franklin did something they'd spent years learning how to do: tell their story.

The lived experience panel, moderated by Matt Whitson of the Arkansas Family Alliance, gave them space to talk candidly about what it's like to grow up in foster care and the challenges they faced.

Hebron told the crowd that telling his story publicly was an act of reclaiming power over the labels, the stigmas, and the assumptions people make about "what a foster care kid is supposed to be like."

"I'm here for my healing, and I'm here for the kids," he said.

Meanwhile, Steven framed his reason for participating around community. He noted that no single system delivered him to where he is today. He is 34 years old, married, a father of three, and a college graduate with a career in sales.

He credited the people who showed up at key moments in his life. "It's the power of community and just different people at critical points in my life being there to help turn the ship when it could easily have ended up a different way."

Steven said it is important for child welfare professionals to keep in mind that for a child, the home they're removed from, however chaotic, is the only normal they've ever known. Being placed in foster care means learning an entirely new set of rules for survival, often in real time, often without a roadmap.

"So even though in some instances you absolutely have to remove the child from the home because it's the safer thing to do, you have to understand that for that child that environment is their only point of reference. I knew what was going on in my home, but it was all I knew," he explained. "So when I'm taken out of the home and I'm transplanted into this new environment, I have to learn a new normal."

He described watching kids around him, including in his own sibling group, get labeled because they didn't adapt to a new environment the way adults expected. A trauma response that shows up as anger or poor grades doesn't always get met with patience. It can get a child written off.

"So for me, what I learned is to read the room, understand who's in the room, and be that. So essentially I learned how to not have a voice."

Hebron recalled what the trauma felt like the day he was removed from his home before he was even 10 years old and how much it hurt his mother.

"If somebody pulled up to your house and took your kids out of your home against your will, let me tell you something. We ask of the parents to continue to fight after we took the wind out of their sails, after we took jewels and gems. You remove a woman's children from her and you take her power. You take her reason to fight," he explained.

"At low income levels, being a mother is all about pride. And they take pride because that's all they have. They don't have the man bringing home the money. There is nobody that's going to come save them. And at some point, the only solace they can take is whenever those kids go to sleep at night and the house is finally peaceful, she can look at these kids and she says: I did my part. I still matter. Society's turned their back on me. There's nobody that's here to help me. But these kids need me and I have a reason to be here to fight."

When Stable is Not Normal

Steven talked about what happens once a young person who comes from a crisis situation finally reaches something stable. He said it can actually feel wrong to the child when they find themselves in a stable environment. Therefore, adults might wonder what is wrong with the child and why they do not seem grateful.

Steven said he was very grateful for all of the people who didn't give up on him, even when he gave them every reason to. He talked about Matt Whitson, who he calls his "white pops," who took him in during his last two years of college and taught him things as basic as how to say thank you for a compliment, or how to live under a curfew for the first time at 20 years old.

He also described running away after an argument with Matt, spending the night somewhere unsafe, certain that one mistake would cost him everything he'd built. But the next day, Matt showed up anyway.

Steven was incarcerated at 14 and spent time in a mental health facility.

"Sometimes love looks like a second chance. Sometimes it looks like someone driving out to pick you up from a place you shouldn't have been."

A Message For the People Doing the Work

Whitson pushed both brothers for a piece of encouragement for the caseworkers, foster parents, and advocates in the room who sometimes feel like giving up.

Hebron pointed to something unexpected: imagination. Growing up, he found a sense of community in cartoons and anime, in characters who kept pursuing a path even when every door seemed closed. "When you are feeling like you are on your last leg and there is nothing else, refresh the scene. Remember to use your imagination, and don't lose your inner child because you're trying to keep children."

Steven turned to faith and community, citing John 4:19: "We loved because he first loved us." Reminding the room that no one can pour from an empty cup, he encouraged anyone feeling the pull to quit to lean on something bigger than themselves, whether that's faith or the community.

But he also offered a harder truth: sometimes stepping away is the right call, if the work has started causing more harm than good.

"Because y'all are doing hard work. A lot of the time thankless work. It makes me think about the educators that impact your life. You may never hear thank you. You may never know the impact that you're having in the lives of some of these children. There were times when people were loving me, and I didn't know how to reciprocate that love. So I guess all I'm saying is continue to fight and recognize that just because you don't know the impact you're having, it doesn't mean you're not having impact," Steven said.