Kacie Rolfes walks into the conference room at the psychiatric hospital and takes a seat across the table from a 7-year-old girl.
The girl is wearing pink shorts and a bright blue T-shirt that reads, “I’m a Dream Believer.”
“Do you know why you’re in this situation?” Rolfes asks.
“Because my mom and dad did drugs,” the girl says.
Rolfes is a Hamilton County social worker. She made the five-hour drive today to the Belmont Pines psychiatric hospital in Youngstown to check on the girl, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric problems.
The girl is from Colerain Township, but she hasn’t been home since she found her mother slumped over the toilet last year, high on heroin and barely conscious. Her father died of an overdose earlier this year.
Children’s services placed the girl with a foster family, but that ended when she tried to drown her foster sister in a YMCA swimming pool. After that, the girl’s doctors sent her here for more intensive treatment.
'via Blog this'