PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tanesha Grant, Executive Director of Parents Supporting Parents New York
2:23:20
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155 sec
Tanesha Grant, Executive Director of Parents Supporting Parents New York and a survivor of the child welfare system, testified in support of Intros 9-A and 652. She emphasized the importance of informing parents about their right to an attorney during ACS investigations and highlighted the long-term mental health impacts of separating children from their families.
- Shared personal experience of being separated from her family at birth and placed in a closed adoption
- Stressed the need for more input from individuals with lived experience in the child welfare system
- Urged ACS to consider the long-term mental health consequences when removing children from their families
Tanesha Grant
2:23:20
Sure.
2:23:20
Why not?
2:23:22
Hello?
2:23:23
Oh, great.
2:23:26
Thank you, chair Stevens and committee members, for this hearing.
2:23:29
My name is Tanisha Grant.
2:23:30
I am the executive director of parent support in Parents New York.
2:23:34
I am also an impacted person since birth.
2:23:37
I am in support of 009 and 0652.
2:23:42
All parents should know they have the right to an attorney at at first contact with ACS.
2:23:49
That's why we are strong supporters of the family Miranda rights.
2:23:53
Too many times, for decades, parents are suckled into the system and children are removed from their whole bloodline, like I was in 1976.
2:24:04
My birth mom was also in a pilot preventive program too, but that did not stop me from being separated from my whole family.
2:24:13
I was thrown into a closed adoption, which was which was facilitated through Children's Aid Society.
2:24:20
Yes.
2:24:20
The same foster care agency that created the orphan train.
2:24:24
The same Children's Aid, who now has over 200 employees today.
2:24:29
I never received any mental health services as a child, nor I cannot even describe how hard it is to be a productive adult when you were a child who was destroyed mentally by an uncaring violent system.
2:24:47
I was raped at every facility I entered.
2:24:50
This has not ended for a lot of children, of a lot of black children.
2:24:55
We have too much too many professionals and not enough lived experience experts at the table.
2:25:03
We must understand that the people closest to the problems have the answers.
2:25:07
This is my life, Chair.
2:25:09
I am a survivor of the child welfare system.
2:25:12
I know too many children that didn't survive the system.
2:25:16
Jordan nearly is one of them.
2:25:18
Jordan nearly watched his mother be murdered and was thrown into foster care, and as soon as from that system on, he was failed at every institution, and he was killed on a train for having a mental breakdown.
2:25:32
As someone who has mental health problems, because I was torn away from my family at birth, I strongly urge you to urge ACS to think about that, when they are removing children from their from their family.
2:25:46
The mental health issues do not go away when we grow up.
2:25:49
Thank you for listening to my testimony, community.
2:25:54
Thank you.
