Troy And Nakaiyah Have Family That Love Them!
Our Story
On Thursday August 27th 2009, my brother (Troy) had taken his children (Troy and Nakaiyah Tate) to CHOP in Philadelphia PA. While he was in the waiting room, DHS showed up and proceeded to remove his children from his care. The complaint against him was that he and the children’s mother were not following up on previous doctor appointments for Troy Michael Tate Jr. who has Glaucoma. Due to this, the hospital had to make the call to child services. Monday August 31, 2009 just a few days after, myself (Cassandra) as well as my mother (Denise) showed up to court after making numerous attempts to contact the social worker at the time (Ms. Briggs) to tell them that we were ready, willing and very able to take the children.
At this court date, it was requested by the child advocate attorney that our home be "Approved" for safety before placement of the children. It was also requested that we go through a background check/child abuse clearance as well. By the following week, all of these tasks were completed by the social worker and the following day after she approved our home, we were to show up in court to confirm this approval so the children can be released to us. Myself, my mother, brother and the children’s mother (Jessica) all showed up to court that day but the social worker that was supposed to give confirmation to the judge did not show up. She also allegedly did not inform the person representing her that day in court that our home had been approved to release the children. This resulted in the child advocate attorney requesting that the children remain in foster care.
This was heart breaking, stressful and very painful as things continued to go downhill from there. DHS switched caseworkers on us about 3 times after this incident. Each switch came with a demand that they approve our home each time (something a couple of them informed us was not normal) which then delayed the process of us getting the children. They then made a big deal out of our home not being a "Medically approved home" because of my nephew (Troy Jr.) having to have eye drops put in his eyes.
I pleaded with them, explaining to them that I myself was in the medical/nursing field, not the mention my mother’s history of raising her own child (the father) with this exact diagnosis, even more severe than my nephews. When that was no longer an excuse at court hearings, they demanded that my mother and I go get finger printed and become certified foster parents in order to get the children. We had one issue with this, we did not want to be a part of their program and wanted nothing to do with their funding. We felt as though this was our family and we can take care of them without state funds or their program. We just wanted the children back with us as they belonged.
Child advocates repeatedly made comments stating that we "Needed" the money although we both had our own source of income. My mother has been working with children for the school district for over 20 years and counting while I was attending school and had a hair styling business on the side. After numerous court dates being canceled, numerous excuses of why we could not get them although we were
indeed approved to have them, we finally had no other choice but to agree to the stipend and eventually they allowed us to get them under their conditions. That was February of 2010.
The entire time that my mother and I were fighting DHS to get the children, the children’s mother (Jessica) was there helping. She told the judge, case workers and everyone else that she wanted the children to be with my mother and I. She knows that we love them, she knows that we would take great care of them and she knows that I personally treated those children as they were my own and spoiled them with so much love and attention which is why she also agreed to name my niece Nakaiyah Cassandra, after me.
Unfortunately, after she and my brother fell off on bad terms and stopped seeing each other, she began to not show up and see the children as much. They LOVED and ADORED their mother and my nephew (Troy) would talk about her soooooo much it made me sad at times because I could not make her come visit them. They were happy when she was around though, and although we were a bit disappointed in her for not showing up, we never denied her access, we treated her the same as we always had and was happy that they were excited when she came around. After continuously not showing up to see them, we figured something was wrong. She ended up telling us that she was pregnant and although she was unsure about whose baby it was, she was more confident that the baby was her new boyfriends child. She then started to make arrangements to see the children downtown where visitation was usually held
instead of in our home. She then went on to ask for unsupervised visits
at her new place with the children.
During these visits, to our surprise, she started taking photos of the children’s arms, legs, faces etc in an effort to build
a case for her own personal gain. The children (mainly Nakaiyah) had numerous “Hyperpigmentation” marks on her body due to “Mosquito bites” that Jessica tried to present to DHS as abuse marks from us abusing the children. Those claims were false and documented to be exactly what they were from both DHS and the children’s PCP. She knows in her heart and in her mind that we would NEVER do anything like that to them, or anyone for that matter. She lived with us prior to my niece being born and she seen first hand the love we have for each other and those children. She figured in her mind that if she took those pictures and showed them to DHS, she would be able to take her children from us and have them for herself.
Although we love the children and wanted them more than anything, we never had intentions on keeping them from her at all. I personally believe that children need their mother and I would have been more than happy for her to get them bac...
