All posts by Derrick Peavy

About Derrick Peavy

Sometimes entrepreneur. Former foster. Derrick Peavy is one of the millions of former foster children, having livd in seven foster homes between 1976 and 1989. His final foster home was the right home and became his family. Follow Derrick on Twitter @SurvivingFoster or on Quora

How to deal with living in foster care. NOT.

General Discussion, Stupid Things, , ,

I came across this page from WikiHow titled “How to deal with living in foster care.”

Holy Jebus monkey balls on a bat.  Who the fu** wrote that?

A few gems:

1) “Stop crying. It’s always a good idea to let your feelings out, but there’s a certain point at which you have to stop. Sit up, stop crying, and face some facts. This is your life now, and there’s no changing that. You can be upset for a little while, but eventually you should come to face reality.”

There is NO WAY this was written by a foster child.  No. Freaking.  Way.
Continue reading How to deal with living in foster care. NOT. →

With help of D.E.A., foster children increase odds of going to prison.

Foster Statistics, General Discussion, In The News, Politics, , , , , , ,

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is now “funneling” information on suspected drug dealers and insiders to local authorities in secret. Not that you thought any differently, nor that any of us want to let the “dealers” off the hook. (Source)

The problem with this is hard to understate:

“The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence – information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.“

So, in an effort to convict and incarcerate suspected drug dealer and such, the DEA is gathering intel, packaging it, handing it to local authorities and then in an effort to avoid judicial review of the actual collection of data, re-creating the collection trail in such a way as to hide the origin of its data.

What does this have to do with Foster Care? Let’s review our pretty picture of stats:
Continue reading With help of D.E.A., foster children increase odds of going to prison. →

Starbucks Wi-Fi, Foster Care

General Discussion, ,

Traveling home from a week in Virginia my wife and I stopped at a Starbucks in South Carolina so that I (the driver) could jack up on caffeine – America’s leading upper which is not only cheap considering it’s effects, but also legal!

As we drove into the parking lot, a mid-sized SUV was sitting in front of the entrance with several of its passenger doors open.  In the driver’s seat was mom, an African American lady probably in her 30’s, and two boys were moving in and out of the car.

Initially I was going to park beside them, but the open doors indicated that I might very well get a few (more) dings on our old Civic. Rather not. I parked, walked in, ordered my stimulant, something sweet for my wife (it was her gift card after all), and walked out.

Oh, and I went to the bathroom too.
Continue reading Starbucks Wi-Fi, Foster Care →