Foster Parents

Choosing Foster Parents over Fathers

In the heartbreaking Melinda Smith case, a father and daughter were needlessly separated by the foster care system for over a decade.Smith was born to an unwed couple in 1988. Her father, Thomas Marion Smith, a former Marine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, saw Melinda often and paid child support. When the girl was four, her mother abruptly moved without leaving a forwarding address. Two years later, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services found that Melinda's mother was abusing her.

Though the social worker for the case noted in the file that Thomas was the father, he was never contacted, and his then 6-year-old daughter was placed in the foster care system.Thomas--whose fitness as a father was never impugned nor Thomas--whose fitness as a father was never impugned nor bills.Authorities refused to disclose his daughter's whereabouts, and didn't even inform him that his daughter had been taken by the County. Smith employed private investigators and attorneys to try to find Melinda and secure visitation rights, but he eventually ran out of money.

Rather than allowing Smith to raise his own daughter, the system shuttled Melinda through seven different foster care placements. An understandably angry child, her outbursts led authorities to house her in a residential treatment center alongside older children convicted of criminal activity--when she was only seven years old.Melinda says that during this period she was told that her father was a "deadbeat dad" who had abandoned her. When Melinda was 16, she told an investigating social worker that the "most important thing" for her was to find her dad. Moved by her story, the social worker began searching for Melinda's father--and found him in one day. In 2005, Thomas and Melinda were finally reunited.


This is one more example how fathers are facing injustice out of divorce cases when court privileges the mother in all cases and don't consider at all the bond between the father and the child