Foster Kids in Utah -- I Was 5 Years Old… and Raising My Sister скачать в хорошем качестве

Foster Kids in Utah -- I Was 5 Years Old… and Raising My Sister

Celeste was five years old the first time she climbed onto a kitchen stool to make mac and cheese for her little sister. Her dad was in and out of jail. Her mom was passed out on the couch. By kindergarten, Celeste wasn’t living a childhood—she was raising one. What followed was years of instability: bouncing between relatives, foster homes, and mother-child drug rehab centers as far away as Detroit. She moved more than 30 times before she turned 16. At every stop, Celeste stepped into the same role—protector, caretaker, and sometimes the only steady person in her sister’s world. In this Utah Stories interview, Celeste explains what it’s really like to grow up inside Utah’s foster care system. She describes the chaotic reality behind “parentified children,” the fight-or-flight training of trauma, and why kids who seem “tough” or “defiant” are often just trying to survive. She also talks about the larger system—the one many people call “broken.” But Celeste, who now works directly with child-welfare agencies through The Christmas Box House, sees it differently. The system that failed her wasn’t evil, she says. It was complicated, under-resourced, and full of gaps no one had filled. Today, she’s helping fill those gaps. Celeste works alongside the very institutions that once shuffled her from home to home. Through The Christmas Box House network—created after the unexpected success of Richard Paul Evans’ bestselling book The Christmas Box—she helps kids entering foster care find safety, stability, and immediate support. Her message is clear: Children aren’t meant to be raised by a system. They’re meant to be raised by families and communities. And until that’s possible for every child, we need to understand what kids like Celeste endured—and what we can do to make the system better. Watch the full interview to hear her remarkable story and the urgent truth behind Utah’s foster care crisis. Purchase Celeste's book at https://celesteedmunds.com/ Visit UtahStories.com for more and to subscribe to our free digital newsletter. There you can also support our journalism by becoming a subscriber or member for $5 or $10 per month. Follow us on: Instagram @UtahStories Twitter @UtahStories