Disclaimer: *This story contains content that discusses self-harming behavior.*
KANSAS: Aaliyah entered foster care at the age of four after her parents’ rights were terminated for neglect. By the time she was finally adopted at age eight, she had spent half of her life in foster care and had endured bullying and multiple moves. In Aaliyah’s adoptive home, it seemed like she had finally found stability, but at 14, everything fell apart when she reported being sexually abused by her adoptive father.
Aaliyah was immediately returned to foster care for her safety. Due to her complex trauma, she was taken to an institution with specialized therapy. Aaliyah’s emotional and behavioral health declined significantly. She engaged in self-harm and made numerous attempts to take her own life. Professionals, therapists, and caseworkers were at a loss on how to help her. During her time in foster care, she went in and out of more psychiatric facilities, but nothing seemed to improve her feelings of hopelessness and despair.
Desperate to help her, Aailiyah’s care team decided to take a different approach and asked Aaliyah, “What do you think would help you?” She immediately replied, “I want to find my family.” She wanted people in her life who were not just paid professionals.
Fortunately, her care team had access to Connect Our Kids’ People Search and Family Connections tools, which they used to honor Aaliyah’s wish to search for her biological relatives. They eventually found her grandmother and aunts, who, it turns out, had been looking for Aailiyah ever since her very first entry into foster care a decade earlier. They were eager to reconnect and have been calling, sending letters and gifts, and visiting her.
“Finding her family [through Connect Our Kids’s tools] changed everything. Aaliyah no longer felt alone,” the supervisor overseeing Aailiyah’s care team shared. “Her self-harm decreased, and she finally started to engage with life. It was life-changing.”
After reconnecting with her family, Aaliyah’s behavior began to improve, and the suicide attempts stopped. Reuniting with her biological family gave Aaliyah the emotional foundation she needed. Finding her family was literally life-saving. With the support of relatives, who had always been searching for her, Aailiyah was finally able to get to a point where she could begin her long journey toward healing.
Connect Our Kids is a non-profit dedicated to leveraging technology to find families, build connections, and create a community for children in the foster care system. Want to help more children like Aaliyah? You can today by donating HERE.
*Name has been changed to protect privacy.
