Last year, I joined local non-profit Community Legal Aid as a parent advocate for the organization’s Family Preservation Project, an innovative initiative which provides legal support to families who are involved with the Department of Children & Families (DCF) for poverty-related reasons rather than issues of abuse or neglect.

Across our country, traumatic family separations are used to address problems, such as housing instability, that would better be solved by connecting families with support and resources. According to Human Rights Watch, every three minutes a child is removed from their home and placed in the foster care system and one in three children in the United States will be part of a child welfare investigation by age 18. Many of the parents who lose custody of their children had been foster children themselves.

The goal of Community Legal Aid’s Family Preservation Project is to prevent a child’s unnecessary removal from the home. Our team, which also includes an attorney and a case manager, works collaboratively with DCF to refine and reduce the scope of DCF’s concerns while helping families overcome problems such as housing instability and financial insecurity, which are often the reason that DCF becomes involved with a family. As a parent advocate, my role is to engage in ongoing communications with DCF, empower parents, and develop a trusting relationship with families.

My passion for this work was born out of my own experience with DCF.

My story began in early 2016, when my three young children were removed from my home. That began a five-year journey to reunite my family. Through the long, complicated, and invasive process of proving myself to be a worthy parent, there were people who provided me with support, guidance, and advocacy, and helped me learn to successfully advocate for myself and my children. None of them, however, had been in my shoes. None had felt the fear, shame, and embarrassment that I had felt about having my children taken from my custody. None knew how hard it was to see my own children in the homes of strangers, or to maintain a strong relationship with my children when DCF reduced my family time. None understood how all-consuming the process could be, and how at times it became a struggle to continue. At the time, I wished I had someone by my side who understood all these things. Now, I want to be that person for others, and that is why I am a parent advocate.

With the support of my partner and my church community, and with faith in myself, I was finally able to reunite with my kids. Each one has been affected differently by our separation. We each continue to heal in different ways, and my kids have begun to thrive in their own unique ways. Some of my healing has been to use my experience to help others, which I am proud to do.

June is Family Unification Month, a time when we honor the families who have been able to reunify. It also serves to bring attention to the importance of preventing removals and separations whenever possible and keeping families intact through advocacy, supports, and services. Celebrating family unification means honoring parents and their communities of support who fight tirelessly every day to keep their families intact.

To learn more about Community Legal Aid’s Family Preservation Project, or to see if you are eligible for help, visit www.communitylegal.org.

Kayla Baillargeon, is a parent advocate at Community Legal Aid in Worcester. Community Legal Aid also has offices in Springfield, Pittsfield, Greenfield, Fitchburg and Northampton.