Dreya, 9, was running out of time and options.
After five years in foster care, Dreya needed a family badly. Her Dallas CASA volunteer Ann-Marie could see beyond Dreya’s challenges to the smiling, playful girl beneath.
Dreya deserved a family, and Ann-Marie was determined to find her one, even if it came from an unexpected place.
Dreya came into care after a domestic dispute in her home, which uncovered that her mother and her boyfriend were using drugs and not caring for Dreya. Her biological father was incarcerated, and her grandmother was not an appropriate placement.
Dreya initially landed with her aunt, but between Dreya’s impulsive, sometimes overwhelming behavior and the aunt’s two-year-old with special needs and a new baby on the way, the placement broke down.
“For the most part, staying with her aunt was a good fit,” Ann-Marie said. “They got along well, and it allowed Dreya to easily see her mother for supervised visits. But she was so impulsive and full of energy that it became challenging. She jumped on tables and kicked her pregnant aunt in the belly. It was just too much.”
Over the next five years, Dreya cycled through placement after placement. There was a time with a cousin she’d never met before, time spent in a mental health hospital, a placement where Dreya ran away from school on foot and another placement that ended due to Dreya wandering at night.
Through it all, Dreya had Ann-Marie. Week by week and month by month, Ann-Marie met Dreya where she was. She helped ensure Dreya had access to counselors and a full mental health evaluation. She supported Dreya as doctors adjusted medication to help with her moods. And she celebrated Dreya’s strengths, including her spunk and energy, the way she always looked put together with her hair styled and her love of the outdoors. Ann-Marie visited the school, where she was pleased to see Dreya fitting in socially and making friends easily. She visited Dreya in each and every placement she was in.
Due to caseworker turnover, Ann-Marie was the only one with full knowledge of the case from beginning to end. She updated the caseworkers and placements with needed information to help Dreya settle into her new placements, but nothing seemed to work. And each caseworker or placement change added to Dreya’s woes.
“Dreya remembered the names of her caseworkers even when I didn’t,” Ann-Marie said. “And that really bothered me. She knew what was happening.”
After five years, Ann-Marie was ready to consider almost any placement that could work for Dreya. That’s when Dreya’s aunt re-entered the picture.
Her children were now seven and five, and she was committed to intensive family therapy to help any transition go smoothly. She wanted Dreya to join after-school activities to channel her energy, and she felt she had more bandwidth with her biological children older.
“I knew we could not fail Dreya again,” Ann-Marie said. “It felt like this could work, but it was a big risk if it didn’t.”
Hesitantly, Ann-Marie supported placement there again and was grateful to watch the transition go smoothly this time. Dreya’s aunt folded her right back into the family, stayed in close contact with Ann-Marie, sought support when needed and embraced her niece’s enthusiasm for life.
Ann-Marie’s Dallas CASA supervisor said having one volunteer for all five years on the case meant a different future for Dreya.
“This was a child who could have bounced around foster homes and possibly never been adopted due to her behaviors as a result of her trauma history,” the supervisor said. “This felt like her last chance at permanency.”
Thanks to Ann-Marie, Dreya has a family.
