By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

While navigating the child welfare system to get their children back can be daunting, a local initiative offers hope and essential support to African Americans trying to rebuild their families.

To address the overrepresentation of Black children in the system, the Cultural Broker Program, funded by Sacramento County, contracts with community-based agencies to provide liaisons who bridge the gap between families and social workers, fostering trust and understanding.

“We’re putting families back together that have been broken,” says Yolanda Stevenson, a cultural broker at the Rose Family Creative Empowerment Center (RFCEC) in South Sacramento. Stevenson, who also serves as the RFCEC’s program manager and director of social services, emphasizes the program’s significant success. Since the county adopted the program in 2017, it has seen an astounding 86% reduction in Black families entering CPS..

“That number has never been that high since the inception of CPS, but it has shown the impact of us,” Stevenson says.

A key strength of the Cultural Broker Program lies in its focus on building trust and fostering open communication. 

“There are things our families will talk to us about that they’re not going to talk to CPS about,” Stevenson says. “We know things that they don’t know. We can talk to them in ways that CPS can’t.”

These “courageous conversations,” as Stevenson calls them, create a safe space for families to share their experiences and receive guidance without fear of judgment.

The OBSERVER spoke with four mothers who shared their journeys of overcoming adversity and working with cultural brokers to regain custody of their children. Though marked by challenges like addiction, homelessness, and past traumas, their powerful testimonies offer hope as they highlight the systemic issues being addressed to keep families together.

Mauricsha Williams

At age 16, Mauricsha Williams was told she would never be able to conceive due to pelvic inflammatory disease. Her pregnancy at 36 was unexpected and life-altering. Battling housing instability and using methamphetamines and marijuana made things all the more difficult.

“Pretty much I was homeless on drugs,” says Williams, now 37.

Despite knowing the risks associated with her substance use, she struggled to break free from using during her pregnancy.

“I was powerless over my addiction,” she admits.

Williams calls her son Malachi, born June 15, 2024, her miracle. His name, given to him by a cousin, means “my angel.”

“I feel like he saved me,” his mother says. On the streets, she had been in survivor mode.

The child was born with syphilis and marijuana and ecstasy-laced fentanyl in his system, which triggered a report to CPS. The newborn spent 11 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) before his mother took him home. Still struggling with addiction, Williams signed a 14-day temporary placement for her son with CPS.

“I was still using and I let them know that,” she says. “I was reaching out for help and I did not want my son in that environment.”

The new mom was told she’d have to go to rehab to get her son back. It was a “blessing,” she says, to find a facility that accepted mothers and their babies. CPS transported her to the program, and after extending the temporary placement, she was reunited with Malachi. Going 28 days without seeing her son and having no contact with the strangers caring for him was hard.

Williams is no stranger to CPS. The Bay Area native was placed in foster care at age 3 after being removed from her drug-addicted parents. She experienced the instability and trauma of multiple placements, going “back and forth” until her sixth birthday, when she was placed in a foster home where she stayed for eight years. She bravely recounts the sexual abuse she endured from one of her foster fathers, a horrific experience that led to her removal. She was placed in a group home after a disturbing incident involving the biological son of another foster mother, but she ran away.

She was essentially on her own for four years, navigating through relationships and “couch surfing.”

“I did a lot of bouncing around,” Williams says.

She’d eventually get supervised visits with her son. During one such visit, Williams says she noticed a popped blood vessel in Malachi’s eye. She raised concerns that he had been shaken in his foster home, allegations she feels were dismissed. She was grateful when her son was able to stay with her at the rehab facility.

“He’s been with me every day since and I’ve been on the road to recovery,” she says.

Williams recently celebrated nine months of sobriety while living in transitional housing.

The RFCEC has provided some support, offering gift cards and connecting Williams with resources. Her cultural broker has promised to continue working with her when her housing voucher comes through. Until then, Williams is planning her son’s first birthday party, happy to be free of CPS and the drugs that brought her to the agency’s attention in the first place. She has also enrolled her little boy in Early Head Start, determined to provide him with a good upbringing.

“I want to be able to raise him just like a normal person,” Williams says.

Latazia Allen

Latazia Allen, 28, is the mother of five children. Her oldest three turn 11, 9 and 8 this year. They’ll likely celebrate without her again as she hasn’t seen them in six years.

All of Allen’s children have been taken from her by CPS at some point. Allen regained custody of her two youngest after they were removed following an allegation of domestic violence in 2023.

“CPS came to the shelter where I was staying at and removed my kids,” she recalls. 

“My son was only two days old and I was breastfeeding … I was going through postpartum [depression] really early and it didn’t help when they took my babies.”

Yolanda Stevenson was assigned to be Allen’s cultural broker.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” Allen says. “[RFCEC) did make sure that I got into a [drug rehab] shelter immediately, that way I could have my children with me, that way the courts couldn’t deny return.”

Stevenson helped Allen understand complicated paperwork and communicate more effectively with attorneys and caseworkers.

“I’m not going to say I’m uneducated, but I’m not good at big words and stuff like that,” she says. “She helped me get my point across and be understood. I didn’t have that the first time. I didn’t have anybody.”

Allen, herself a former foster youth, has experienced homelessness and other traumas throughout her life. Her mother gave her to a family friend when she was just two years old. The woman cared for her until she got sick with cancer. CPS removed her, beginning a long string of child welfare placements. Allen recalls being regularly molested by biological family members and foster parents whom CPS trusted to care for her. She became pregnant at 12, as a result, and says a social worker told her to have an abortion.

Allen went to more than 50 foster homes and four group homes. Her biological mother had a history of substance abuse and was in and out of her life. She ran away at age 13 or 14 and “tried to make a family” on the streets. Allen got pregnant again at 15 and landed in juvenile hall.

“I wanted kids at a really young age,” she says. “I really wanted that feeling of love back.”

A foster mother offered Allen a home after visiting her at the maternity group home, and Allen remained there until she aged out of the system at 18.

A National Institutes of Health study showed that 8% of people who were in foster care as children later had their own children enter the system. The general rate is 1.1%.

Allen doesn’t sugarcoat the reasons she lost custody of her older children, but remains optimistic that she’ll get them back.

“That’s my plan, to show the courts that I am working on the stability with housing, and I got my other two kids back with that case being closed, with all of the requirements being met without any hesitation.

“Pretty much everything I did for this case, I had to do for my case back then, but I could not stay clean,” Allen continues. “I was smoking meth back then. I was 19 with three kids and didn’t have any help. Once they took my children, I turned to drugs, and it just didn’t help my case at all. I didn’t have anybody to help me. I was homeless on the streets and in parks and just around the wrong people, and it just never got better.”

Allen’s CPS case remains open. Black families’ cases typically stay open longer than white families, often due to systemic racism, economic disparities and limited access to resources, all of which make it harder to meet CPS requirements. Allen admits to being frustrated, adding that she and her children’s father have completed the parenting and domestic violence courses, individual therapy, and drug testing required of them.

Despite ongoing challenges, Allen envisions a hopeful future with her children. She looks forward to co-parenting and seeing her daughter start kindergarten soon, having missed out on such milestones with her older children.

Earnisha Robinson

When her son started displaying behavioral issues at age 9, being defiant at home and getting into fights at school, Earnisha Robinson made a difficult decision.

“I called CPS because I couldn’t take it anymore,” says the 39-year-old mother of four.

“He was abusive towards me,” says Robinson, who was pregnant at the time. “I lost my job. He got kicked out of school.”

The fifth grader’s explosive behavior was also jeopardizing her other children, she says. Feeling overwhelmed, Robinson made the heart-wrenching choice to bring her son into the system. She got support from the Cultural Broker Program.

“Ms. Yolanda was one of the persons that went down with me, to support me, because I didn’t want to do it, but I felt like that’s what I needed to do,” Robinson recalls.

Having Stevenson present for supervised visits, meetings and court appearances was incredibly helpful, Robinson says. “It just made things a little bit easier in dealing with the system. It was a major relief to me because I don’t have any family out here.”

Robinson is well aware of the stigma often associated with CPS involvement and knows she raised eyebrows by seeking help from them for her Black son. She says CPS accused her of giving up on him, but rethought its initial assessment upon deeper investigation.

“That wasn’t the case,” she says. “I needed help.”

Robinson remains connected to the RFCEC and appreciates staff’s continued support.

“We need more people like that out here because there’s not enough of us and there’s so many of us that need help.”

Robinson recently achieved her goal of buying her first house, a source of great pride and happiness. Homeownership is part of her plan to secure her family’s future.

“I push my kids every day to just stay on task no matter how hard it gets,” she says.

Robinson’s son spent almost three years moving around foster and group homes. The boy’s father had been infrequently present before then, Robinson says. “I was really going through a tough time being young, having four kids and no father involved.”

The man stepped up while their son was in the system. While there are still “ups and downs,” Robinson says her “baby boy” has done a “whole 360” living with his father and she describes him as a “straight-A student” who is “going to church.”

She remains steadfast in her belief that calling CPS was the best option for saving him as he was running away, engaging in gang activity and stealing regularly.

“Either he was going to end up dead or somebody was going to hurt him,” she says.

Breanna Chaney

Born premature, Breanna Chaney’s son Cameron was taken from her in 2023 after he experienced a severe medical crisis upon going home from the hospital.

“My youngest, the 1-year-old, ended up getting really sick,” says Chaney, 24.

Doctors called it failure to thrive, a condition in which a child’s physical development or growth is significantly slowed or delayed compared to others. This is often due to inadequate nutrition or having difficulty absorbing or digesting food. Chaney says her son was allergic to the formula the hospital gave her to feed him.

“They didn’t check and make sure it was OK for him or safe for him to drink,” she says.

When Chaney took her new baby home, she noticed his weight fluctuating, but initially thought it was similar to what happened with her two other children when they were born. They were fine, but their little brother wasn’t. The baby became lethargic while being watched by his father, she says, prompting a frantic call to 911.

“The paramedics came with the police and everybody, it was a big scene.”

Cameron went into cardiac arrest, she says, and was near death. Surgery was performed to save him. A day or two into recovering from the ordeal – he physically and his mother mentally – police arrived at the hospital.

“They came and started asking questions,” Chaney says. “They wanted all my kids’ doctors’ information and I gave it. They wanted to talk to the doctors and I gave them permission to do that. Then the social worker I had, for the first report he wrote, it was all bad. That’s why they took my kids from me. He said my kids were being neglected – that I wasn’t doing my part.”

Chaney denies neglecting her children. She says the same social worker came out a week prior, after an anonymous caller reported her to the CPS hotline, and found “everything was OK.”

Regardless, all three of her children were temporarily removed from her custody. While Chaney remained by Cameron’s side in the NICU for two months, her grandmother cared for her older children, who are now 2 and 3.

Several cultural brokers working with Chaney all agreed that something was off. She credits them for helping her stand her ground.

“If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think they would have given my kids back,” she says.

Chaney fought to regain custody, completing various court-ordered requirements, even ones that didn’t apply to her situation. The young mother offers advice for others facing similar situations.

“If you’re going through something like this, just do what they’re asking to get your kids back,” she says. “I don’t care how many courses or things they want you to take, just do it.”

Reflecting on the experience, Chaney expresses concerns about the biases she felt she faced from the system.

“I learned that no matter how good you do, there’s issues. They make Black people look so bad. We’re not even bad, but in their eyes, we are.”

Chaney remains focused on her children’s well-being and future. She hopes to eventually return to college and start a business. Her doing well equals her children doing well, she says.

“I just want them to be OK.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a series of stories by OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow on the child welfare system’s impact on the Black community. The project is being produced through Barrow’s participation in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Child Welfare Impact Reporting Fund.