Opinion: Even after all these decades, it is still worth fighting for Colorado's foster children

Even after all these decades, I can still remember the outrage I felt the first time I sat in a Colorado courtroom and watched as everyone from the lawyer to the social worker to the judge ignored what was so obviously in the best interests of the toddler who was blind and mentally disabled and whose future was essentially at stake.

The young lawyer in me was so desperate. This little two-year-old boy, who already had so many points of criticism on his side, was about to be taken away for no good reason from the foster family he had lived with almost since he was born and whom he loved. And they loved him too. And wanted him. But the judge decided otherwise. Against all reason and without any legal basis, the judge sent him to strangers. Not a single person objected. It was so cruel and inhumane that I thought my heart would stop.

My first impulse was to stop this farce. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to speak in that Colorado courtroom. So I left the courtroom full of anger and determination to start an organization that advocates for foster children and puts their rights first. In 1985, I founded the Children's Legal Clinic, which later became the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, the first nonprofit law firm for abused and neglected children.

My priority has always been for foster children, who are virtually invisible to the outside world (and often to the system that is supposed to protect them) and whose needs are often third or fourth in priority or completely ignored for reasons of expediency.

I have been in this business for a long time now, practically since I graduated from Rutgers Law School and moved to Pittsburgh in 1970 to work in the Legal Aid Office and later in the Child Protection Division there.

I wish I could say that what I witnessed in that courtroom in the early 1980s doesn't happen today. But that would be wishful thinking. It still happens every day, across the country, where nearly 370,000 children live in foster care, 3,448 of them in our state.

Every one of these kids deserves better. That should go without saying. But not enough people say it or believe it or are willing to do the hard work to make it happen. There is endless data on children in foster care and most of it is not promising.

Girls in foster care are more likely to become pregnant than their peers in regular families. Foster children are much more likely to drop out of high school and forgo college. Suffice it to say, the path from foster care to homelessness can seem like a steel trap.

I believe we are all born with great potential and have a God-given right to live it up. I feel blessed to be able to do what I can.

Still, I know it's hard to care about things you don't know about, and that the foster care system is shrouded in mystery disguised as minors' privacy rights. I try to bring their situations and experiences to light to make everyone understand that the better their development, the better for all of us, not just economically but socially as well.

In 1981, I left Pennsylvania for Colorado, where I worked with thousands of foster children. I created prevention programs and partnerships, co-chaired national committees, and mentored advocacy organizations. The center I founded helped change the lives of at least 15,000 children. And I'm not saying that was nearly enough.

That's why, five decades later, I'm still fighting to improve the lives of foster children. But I also realized I needed a new approach. I was tired of always asking for permission to help instead of just helping.

I then started another nonprofit, Cobbled Streets, to give kids some joy and some of what was missing in their lives. That could be a new bike, the stick and skates to play hockey on a high school team (providing a sense of belonging), or a multi-foster family camping trip that reunites brothers and sisters. Now I can listen to the kids' dreams and needs and, well, do something concrete and immediate for them.

I can't take away the pain of the past, and I can't prevent all the problems that may arise in the future. But I can make the wait a little shorter. And that's exactly what foster kids do: wait. Wait for their parents to get the drug and alcohol treatment they need, wait for them to find out where they'll be placed, wait for them to form a real bond, wait, wait, wait for a future they can't even imagine.

I hate waiting. Always have. Doing something is important. I believe that through action, one person can change the world, even if it is just the world of one child.

Shari F. Shink, Esq. is founder of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center and executive director of Cobblestoneswhose goal is to change the lives of foster and homeless children.

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