Support of Georgia House Bill 1222

Cheryl Deluca-Johnson Testimony

Dear Chairman Van Valkenburg and members of the Senate Subcommittee on Rehabilitation and Social Services:

My name is Cheryl Deluca-Johnson, founding CEO of Street Grace, Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and mother of 6 children, two of whom were adopted out of the foster care system at ages 9 and 10. I am writing to support HB 1222.

Through my work at Street Grace, an organization that works to end the sex trafficking of children, I learned there was a correlation between foster care and trafficked children. It is estimated that 60% of trafficked children have had an interaction with CPS and that 37% of all children will have a CPS encounter.

Through my work as a licensed counselor, I know that children express themselves in a different language than adults, especially in areas of trauma, and that children’s language can often be neglected or misunderstood in these instances. So, when testimony from a child relies on the interpretation and accuracy of an adult to be recorded appropriately, there is a wide margin for error.

My experience as a parent of children adopted through the foster care system has placed me at the frontline to witness how information that is misinterpreted or neglected can affect the outcome of the child’s future and the future of that child’s family.

Our two youngest daughters were adopted at the ages of 9 and 10 in 2011. They had over 12 placements prior to us, some promising permanency that did not occur. We know there was abuse because of the overly sexualized behaviors, stealing, violence, and other behaviors that they displayed. We also noticed a scarring behind the ears of one of our daughters that could not be explained.

Although the social workers who helped place them with us were caring and had been with them the longest, we could not piece together parts of their past that would have helped with their psychological, social and physical development. Written notes were vague and incomplete. Periods of time were completely missing. This delayed us getting appropriate treatment in a timely manner.

The other mitigating factor that delayed helping our daughters is that they had learned, from repeatedly being asked the same questions, to try to give the “right” answers. These answers were often untrue. This is also the problem with not having recorded interviews. The child is asked repeatedly to repeat a story, and traumatized children just want to please the adult and change the story to achieve this goal.

All these experiences leave no doubt that we should afford our most traumatized children, because they don’t come to CPS when lives are good, the reliability that their story will be properly recorded and that they will not have to continue to relive the trauma that brought them to CPS. We may also learn from these recordings how to understand the language that children use in these situations to identify red flags for abuse earlier. Most importantly, we would be better able to appropriately support these children in a timely manner.

For these reasons, I respectfully urge you to support HB 1222. Thank you for your service and for considering my testimony.

Sincerely,
Cheryl Deluca-Johnson