Reunited and it feels so good
Published: April 5, 2007
Maybe because she’s told the story so many times, Lori Williams doesn’t get emotional anymore when she talks about losing her five children.
She calmly recounts living in the back of a sweltering minivan during last summer’s heat wave, of standing in line at 5 a.m. with other homeless folks, jostling for first dibs on a low-paying, temporary job.
Of having a newspaper columnist tell her he suspected she and her husband were swindlers, telling them he wasn’t interested in another “hard luck” story.
Her voice doesn’t even waver as she describes “the dreaded phone call” that informed her that Bucks County Children and Youth had taken custody of her kids.
But she was gushing tears Thursday as a banquet room full of the very people she had butted heads with for more than a year gave her family a standing ovation.
“I don’t even have words,” she said, trembling at the podium.
Williams and her husband, Jason Hallett, both 37, of Bristol Township, are the 2006 recipients of the Resiliency Award in the family category. The annual award is presented by a coalition of more than a dozen local social-service agencies at the Bucks County Resiliency Conference and Family Expo.
Children and Youth caseworker Danel Williams - no relation to Lori - and May McDonnell, a Children and Youth supervisor, nominated the family.
“When I first met Lori, she went up one side of me and down the other,” Williams laughed, recalling the day he was assigned to investigate claims the couple was neglecting their children.
“It was a bit rocky at first. But once I got to know this family, I realized that they were the real deal,” he said.
A self-described “aggressive personality,” Lori is candid about the circumstances that led to the family being torn apart last year.
Fearing she was going to be arrested for owing more than $13,000 in child support for her 14- and 16-year-old children from a previous relationship, Lori sent her five younger children to live with her parents while she and Jason hid out in a motel.
She said she was planning to turn herself in and was just buying some time. She believes a family member tipped off authorities, and soon, deputy sheriffs were banging on the motel door. Lori was whisked off to prison in York County, where her child support case originated.
During her two weeks in jail, Jason missed work. He got fired. They were accused of missing a rent payment on their Bensalem apartment (an allegation they deny) and were padlocked out of their home. They lost all their belongings.
“I was walking around in the parking lot with five kids. I didn’t know what to do,” Jason said.
The children went back with Lori’s parents. Allegations of neglect were made, and Children and Youth was called. The children were later moved to foster homes.
“I couldn’t believe what was happening to us,” Lori said. “We don’t abuse our kids; we’re not on drugs. I considered us to be good parents. How dare these people come in and say we’re not?”
By state law, Children and Youth must investigate all reports of child abuse and neglect. Lori and Jason said the 26 allegations were made by a family member and all later turned out to be unfounded. Children and Youth officials won’t discuss details of specific cases.
The agency gave Lori and Jason a list of goals to accomplish before they could regain custody of their five kids. Get jobs. Find housing. Anger management counseling. Parenting classes.
The couple took whatever jobs they could get, lining up each morning at Labor Ready in Bristol Township to work as day laborers.
They lived inside their minivan with no air conditioning as the temperature soared past 100 degrees. They washed their bodies with buckets of water in the woods, slept in apartment complex parking lots and tried to save cash for an apartment.
“And while they’re living in the van, they’re calling agencies, setting up conference calls on their cell phone when the kids were having trouble at the foster home,” Danel Williams said. “In a van. In the heat.”
Lori and Jason spent all their free time knocking on doors, asking churches, politicians, anyone they thought could help them.
“I’m saying, ‘Help me, I want my kids back.’ No one would listen,” Lori said.
Lori and Jason said they grew weary of the condescending tone in people’s voices, and the look they got as a bi-racial couple.
“There’s still a lot of racism in this area,” Lori said. “People believe you’re on crack, or that you did something really bad for the county to take your kids. No one wants to give you a chance.”
When a newspaper columnist handed Jason a list of the same agencies they had already tried, Lori said she felt insulted.
“I was so mad. But you know what? I think that gave me the extra umph I needed to get through it all,” she said.
Their next stop was then-Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick’s office. His staff set her up with a housing agency, and soon they were moving into a low-rent townhouse in the Bloomsdale section of Bristol Township.
One of the first things Lori did was unpack all her kids’ framed certificates, one of the few things they were able to save when they lost their apartment.
The awards - more than 50 in all, for student of the month, good citizenship, honor roll and other achievements - cover one wall of their tidy townhouse, floor to ceiling. In the bright morning light, tiny fingerprints are visible on the glass.
The couple accomplished everything on their to-do list in less than 10 months. Children and Youth estimates that it takes most parents 15 to 20 months to complete the process. Their children were returned, although the agency still keeps tabs on the family.
“I was still angry at Children and Youth, but I came to a realization that if I didn’t turn my anger into something positive, I was never going to see my kids,” Lori said.
It was during Children and Youth’s Parenting Partners Education Program that Lori found her hidden talent. Most of the people in the eight-week parenting classes are court-ordered to be there.
And like Lori and Jason, most of them are very angry. With her tell-it-like-it-is manner, Lori was a natural to lead discussions.
“The first thing you hear people in the classes say is, ‘You don’t know what I’ve been through.’ I say, oh yeah? I hated Children and Youth, too. I hate what they put me through,” Lori said. “But I survived, and you can, too.”
Lori was such a hit that when the class ended, counselors asked her to come back and help out a future group of parents. Children and Youth invited her to speak to groups of social workers, then foster parents.
At the awards ceremony Thursday, McDonnell infor-med Lori that she’s been hired to teach future parenting classes at the American Red Cross homeless shelter.
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