The names of the foster children in this story were changed.
Please do not re-publish this piece.
Story by Cailyn Derickson
Photos by Nicole Esch
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Emma’s teacher told her to go to the office. Someone wanted to speak with her. Emma was a straight-A student and in her 10 years of school, she had never been in trouble. Why was today any different?
Emma walked down the narrow hallway of her Concord, North Carolina, high school. She entered the office. A man in a suit was waiting for her. He smiled and said “I need you to come with me.” He was a social worker.
Emma knew he worked for DSS, but she didn’t ask where he was taking her. She got in his car and 45 minutes later, she was in Lexington, North Carolina, at her new home.
The social worker didn’t tell Emma’s family where he took her. Her family didn’t know where she was for two weeks.
Emma started at a new high school. She wore the same two changes of clothes that the social worker bought for her. Everything she owned and knew was 40 miles away in Concord.
Emma is at the American Children’s Home, a non-profit orphanage that accepts children through county Departments of Social Services. The home opened in 1928 by the Junior Order United American Mechanics North Carolina State Council. It was intended for orphaned children of the mechanics. It now houses children, age 11 to 21, who have been removed from their homes by court order.
A large mansion sits at the front of the ACH property. The dark brown rectangular home is decorated with tall white pillars. It looks like a misplaced plantation home. There are six one-level cottages in the back of the property, where the children stay. Each home fits four children and one house parent. There are 28 children at the home now.
Emma was 15 when she was first placed at ACH. She will turn 18 in June. She’s built a close relationship with her house parent Jeana Schopfer. But she will never call Schopfer her mom. She’s waiting for the day she can be with her mom again.
Emma has long black braids that fall to the middle of her back. She wears large hoop earrings and glasses. She smiles when she’s uncomfortable and giggles when she’s nervous. Her voice is bigger than her size.
“The reason I got put here was because I ended up dating and my dad didn’t like it,” she said. “So, we got into an altercation. No, I didn’t win.”
This wasn’t the first altercation. In fact, altercations were normal with her dad.
“We’re not gonna sit here and yell at each other,” she said. “We’re from Brooklyn. We’re gonna fight. I didn’t get a concussion though, so I win.”
Emma’s sister, who’s two years older, moved out soon after the fight. She told Emma she would come back for her, but she didn’t. So, Emma told DSS about the violence and a social worker was at her school the next day.
A few months later, Emma’s aunt, who she had never met before, adopted her out of ACH. She lived with her aunt and her aunt’s girlfriend. A few months later, as soon as her life seemed routine again, her aunt was evicted and Emma had to move in with a friend. She never heard from her aunt.
“It wasn’t really my friend-friend, but it was someone I knew,” she said. “I lived with them for a solid five months. Their house was crummy. It was like the crackhead kid spot.”
She was raped at the house in February. To avoid foster care, she didn’t want DSS to find out, so she thought she was safe telling one person in the home. She wasn’t.
DSS took Emma back to ACH in March.
ACH is licensed by the NC Department of Social Services as a private child-placing agency. Last year, the home served 147 children. The home receives $4,516 a month from the county where the child is from.
There are similar homes across the state. Crossnore School and Children’s Home, a nonprofit that offers residential foster care to children in crisis, has three locations across the state — one in Winston-Salem, Crossnore and Hendersonville.
Susan Craig, program administrator of foster care for Davidson County DSS, said homes like ACH are important for older children who don’t do well in a foster family setting.
“Sometimes you may have a child in a family setting and that child may have to be moved a couple of times because for whatever reason, it doesn’t work,” she said. “Whereas in a group home setting, there is some structure in regards to that piece, and there’s a variety of staff that care for them. That works better for some of our children.”
Emma wants to see her family, but she settles on daily phone calls and texts from her mom.
She has a new boyfriend. He lives across the street in the boys’ home. Their dates consist of walking around the property and talking. They can’t leave the site.
***
Allison, who’s been at ACH for five years, calls Schopfer her mom. Allison’s mother died when she was baby, and she was put into a foster home.
“I was with these foster families that kept beating me,” Allison said. “They kept dragging me from foster care to foster care. Then they put me in a group home, said I need this for my anger, put me in foster homes and foster homes.”
She’s been living with Schopfer for a little more than a year.
Allison turned 18 in January. She signed ACH’s 18 to 21 contract. Under the agreement, Allison is able to move out and into an apartment, fully paid for by DSS. She is required to go to school or find a job.
Allison has wavy black hair and a mole just above her lip, like Marilyn Monroe. She wears her hair in a bun on top her head. She mumbles under her breath when she speaks.
She plans to end the contract after she graduates in June. She will move in with her 29-year-old fiancé.
Allison said she will save up with her mom’s $700 disability check that she is supposed to receive every month. But Allison hasn’t seen any money yet.
Schopfer fears her fiancé is using Allison for the money, but all Schopfer can do is warn Allison. Once she leaves the home, Schopfer is limited. Allison is not allowed back in. She’s on her own.
Schopfer constantly presses Allison about her future. Emma, who tracks her finances on a spreadsheet, squirms in her seat during the discussion.
“I’m only asking you this because I like you,” Emma said. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t ask you this. So, have you ever looked at apartments and planned out your expenses? Have you done any of that?”
“Yes, I have,” Allison said.
“OK. As long as you’ve done it and saved it as a document, you’re good. I’ve just never heard you talk about what you want to do and it worries me.”
“I want to be a flight attendant and I can’t even be that.”
“Why can’t you be that?” Schopfer asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Allison has always wanted to travel the world. She’s worried the required flight attendant classes will be too much work. She just wants to graduate for her mom
“Well, make becoming a flight attendant your goal,” Schopfer said. “Don’t limit yourself.”
***
Peyton, who battles mental illness issues, has been in foster care for 10 years. She’s the oldest of six children and she’s been in 29 homes. She’s lived with Schopfer since February.
She was at Baptist Children’s Home in Thomasville, North Carolina, before ACH. She remembers the day she was transferred. It was the day after her 17th birthday.
“I threatened to kill a girl because she snitched on me,” she said. “I didn’t say it to her face. I said it to her mom because her mom was a house parent.”
Peyton can’t remember what she was ‘snitched’ on for. She was moved to ACH two days later.
About a month in, she punched a girl. The police came and Peyton was taken to a mental hospital. She stayed in the hospital for a few weeks.
“I decided I wanted to die,” she said. “I wasn’t going to. I didn’t kill myself. I just said I want to die.”
She returned to ACH, but she got into a fight again. Immediately, Peyton was moved into Schopfer’s home, who was known as one of the better house parents among the kids, and she hasn’t been in a fight since.
Peyton has a scar on her right hand from punching a mirror when she was in a group home. She wears her dark brown hair in a low ponytail. Bright blue headphones cover her ears. When she’s not spoken to, she’s on her phone. She watches funny videos and every few minutes, she bursts into a contagious laugh. She doesn’t realize when Emma and Allison laugh with her.
Schopfer said she knew what she had to work on with Peyton when she got her.
“She’s gotten angry with me,” Schopfer said. “But she handles it differently, and I think because she’s looked at differently.”
Peyton said she feels guilty now when she hurts someone. She never felt that before Schopfer.
Peyton plans to leave ACH when she turns 18 in December. She will move in with her grandmother.
***
Schopfer takes the girls to church every Sunday. They drive more than 30 minutes to attend Elevation Church in Winston-Salem. Inside the church, it’s black. The only light comes from strobe lights. The crowd shouts along to Christian rock music before the sermon is projected on a large TV screen. It resembles a rock concert.
Each girl sings along at the church. Emma takes notes during the sermon in a journal. Allison stands close to Schopfer. Peyton wears her headphones around her neck.
Schopfer, who has two sons of her own, looks like a mom. She walks close to the girls wherever they go. Her voice is comforting. When she talks about a serious topic, she moves her glasses from her forehead to her eyes. She calls each girl “honey.”
Schopfer was let go about a year ago from her job as a camp director. She went three months without a job. She applied to any job involving children, and ACH was the only place to give her an interview. In her year as a house parent, Schopfer has been offered management positions twice and she’s turned it down. She can’t leave the girls.
“It’s not always a bed of roses, but I love it,” she said. “And what I think I hear from them, the reasons they respect me is because I respect them. When I first came here in this house, none of these girls went to church, but they go because they respect me.”
Although each girl doesn’t refer to Schopfer as a mom, they all say she’s the closest resemblance to one they have right now.
“We don’t ask her to take us out to eat,” Peyton said. “We don’t ask for nothing. She just does it out of the kindness of her heart.”
Schopfer has seen about 12 girls come through her home. Whether the girls stay for one weekend or one year, Schopfer cries each time they leave.
“There was one — she reminded me a lot of (Emma) — she worked while she was in school,” Schopfer said. “She saved her money. She put all of her money in the bank, and I thought for sure she was going to stay after we had so many conversations. She chose to leave.”
She was arrested shortly after she left. Schopfer said she calls daily, begging for Schopfer to take her back. Schopfer’s job won’t allow it. She can only call and text.
“That’s heart wrenching, especially when you invest so much,” she said. “The girls in this house right now, I feel like I’ve invested a lot in and I don’t mean money, I mean time. These girls right now, I just feel so close to them.”
