America's foster care system is in dire need of reform, and Alabama is no exception. That's why Lee Marshall founded Kids to Love, a privatized foster care placement system that helps children find forever homes faster and safer, while also helping heal past trauma.
Marshall recently joined "1819 News: The Podcast" to explain how Kids to Love is setting the standard for foster care nationally, despite the pushback and attacks she's received in her own state.
"We have been retaliated against and bullied because of our efforts," Marshall said of her experience working in the state. "All because of trying to serve children. And so I am looking forward to new administration and new change. Our children deserve it. And that's what breaks my heart. Everything we do, it's always with the plumb line of what is in the best interest of a child. And when we have to be focused on whose toes are we going to step on, who are we going to make mad today? Is this fight for our child worth the blowback that we're going to get as an organization? That should not be the caveats of a decision that we should be making. It should be hands down what's in the best interest of a child."
Kids to Love is fully licensed by the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) but receives no state funding.
"We are licensed by DHR. DHR is the governing body. But what we don't do is take any of their funds," she said. "We want to work with DHR. DHR doesn't want to work with us. That's the difference, and that's the sad part."
DHR has been one of Kids to Love's main adversaries, bringing lawsuits and even trying to unjustly remove children they've worked with from their foster homes.
"The devil doesn't like family. That's how he attacks us, is let's dissolve one of the most important, sacred things in our society, and that is family and marriage and relationships and parents and children," Marshall said. "…They pretty much backed us into a corner. When you're in a corner, you've got two choices. You either surrender or come out fighting. And I am never going to surrender when it comes to these kids because this is a God-called mandate that God has given me to be a voice for these children.
Marshall has seen a rise in foster care needs since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, as more moms choose life for their babies, even if they aren't the ones to raise them.
"When we talk about Roe v Wade being overturned, we can't just be 'choose life.' We've got to be 'choose lifetime.' We've got to come along beside these young ladies and support them and that journey," Marshall said. "So for us as an organization, that might mean helping to pay for daycare while that mom gets a skill set, while that mom goes to school. All those are costs that we have to raise and absorb, but that's what needs to happen for that independence so that single mom can be a successful single mom to get off the system eventually to break that cycle which is such an important part of what we do because if not, if we don't break that cycle with her and she's willing to break that cycle then it's just going to be perpetuated generation after generation. And that's not success and independence."
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