This morning, amidst a flood of tears I finished reading the book, Damaged, by Cathy Glass. It took me a day to read it. Written under a pseudonym, Cathy has been fostering children in the UK for twenty years. This is one of eight books that she has written; five true stories, each about a child under her foster care, two novels based on true stories of two other children and one on raising children.
Damaged tells the story of Cathy’s experience of fostering a very abused eight year old girl, who over the duration of her stay, reveals the mistreatment and neglect she endured while living with her parents for the first seven years of her life. It is a heartbreaking tale that was very painful to read. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful living her life during that time would have been!
Foster mothers will be the heart and soul of the Project Somos Children’s Village. Finding and training the right women is the most essential piece of creating a safe, loving and healing environment for the children. I was inspired by Cathy’s enduring patience and love for Jodie, who mastered keeping most people from even liking her. As a means of survival and self defense, Jodie developed some shocking behaviours. These, of course made it difficult for her to be placed in care. Cathy was an amazing foster mom who is an example of the special type of person it takes to foster children with special needs and demands.
We all need love and support. Abandoned, neglected and mistreated children need it in a big way. They need people to understand that their acting out can be a reaction to the pain they’ve endured. They need their caretakers to patiently stick it through and to give them that space to heal and recover. May we blessed with finding women like Cathy Glass to become the loving, nurturing parent figures for the children in the Village.
-Heather
In response to an email Heather sent Cathy Glass:
Thank you so much for writing and for your very kind words. Jodie's was a truly terrible and sad story but at least she is safe and doing well now. I have added some updates about her to my website – there is a link on the Damaged book page.
What a wonderful project you are involved in. What a huge difference you will make to those children's lives. I will be happy to donate a set of books for project use. Once you have your village running let me know and I will arrange to have the books sent to you.
In the meantime I'll have some of your email added to Comments when the website is updated after the weekend. With 6000 visitors a day to my website it will give your project some more publicity.
I hope you have a good weekend and that you enjoy my other books when you have a chance to read them. You may find Happy Kids useful.
Thanks again.
Very best wishes
Cathy x