Member in Focus
Rosa McFarland, Age 22

My name is Rosa McFarland, and I grew up in Centerville, Utah. My birth mother was a drug addict and my stepfather was an alcoholic. I spent my first nine years cleaning up drugs, and drug paraphernalia like pipes and burnt needles. With a steady stream of strangers in and out of my home all the time I never felt safe, and I feared for the safety of my brother and sister. At the age of eight, I was often left home alone, sometimes for days at a time, and I had to care for my brother and sister.

At the time that we were taken out of my so-called home, I was nine, my brother was six, and my sister was four. We were placed into the shelter for a month, then we were moved to the home of our grandparents, who, for the fourteen months, would continually beat me six-year-old brother. They punished him by making him wash his clothing in a bucket out in the snow. My grandmother removed the carpet from his room because he wet in the closet, and she made him sleep on the cement floor for a year. She made him so afraid to speak that he would rarely speak to anyone. Things got so bad that my grandmother threw boiling water on my brother; he bares the scars to this day. That day my grandfather called our caseworker to have us removed from the house.

When the caseworker spoke to us alone, I showed her my brother's burned stomach, and she took us that same night. We spent the next month in the shelter, and after that we were placed in a friend's house. We spent six weeks there, but we were such a handful that we were removed to another foster home where we spent the next month.

My siblings and I were then separated; my sister and me in one home and my brother in another home. I stayed at this home for a year and four months. My sister only stayed for two months before she was removed and placed with my brother. I was removed from this house and placed with a potential adoptive home where I stayed for six months but after awhile we figured out it wouldn't work out and I was placed in a shelter again for a month.

I was then placed in what was supposed to be a temporary placement and after three months I was placed in yet another potential adoptive placement but that didn't work out because she wanted a friend more than she wanted a daughter. I was looking for a family, not a friend. When the temporary family found out that I would be going to a group home, they took me back until the state could find another placement that would work for me, and I never left. I've been here since I was 14 and I'll be 21 this summer. I know they never planned to keep me, but I know it just felt right on both my family's part and my part. I know I haven't been the easiest person to adjust to but I love my family more than anything in the world. After a time, they adopted me, and I felt that this is where I was meant to be.

When I look back at my life I know it was hard getting here, but I wouldn't change anything. It's made me the strong person that I am. You can't dwell on or change what has happened in the past. Move on and learn from the mistakes you see throughout your life. I am now in college and I hope to be involved in the many changing aspects of foster care.