It has been called “Worry Swap” and even “Service Passport” – the decision to hand over custody of your child to the state.
It sounds cruel. But listen to the stories of those who did it and you will quickly find that it is often a heartbreaking act of love.
The families faced with this decision may run out of ideas on how to protect their children with autism from forcibly hurling their bodies against a wall. Parents struggle when children with dual diagnoses such as impulse control disorder and intellectual disability wander out of their door and into the arms of child robbers.
The stories are real. It is stressful for parents navigating through programs trying to help find who actually makes a difference.
As part of a data grant with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, 11Alive’s investigative team, The Reveal, aims to demonstrate how the challenges of raising children with severe emotional and developmental disabilities can lead to abandonment.
In the past five years, 1,268 children in Georgia have been abandoned or abandoned due to a parent’s ineptitude or child behavior. More than half of these children have been abandoned twice – either by their parents, another family member, a foster parent, or an agency that thought they could help.
