GEORGE Lohnes is a Manitoba foster care system success story.
"Honestly, for me, being in foster care made my life better," says Lohnes, now 35.
"The path I was going on I could have seen myself in jail. I was stealing cars. I was stabbed twice. I don't think I really had a future.
"I left home when I was 13. I was in major trouble. I was in gangs and stuff like that."
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Lohnes lived on the streets for a time, running wild. He stole a car. When his parents found out, they turned him in to police.
Foster parent Cathy Wiebe helped George Lohnes turn his life around.
As part of his sentence, he was required to perform community service. That's how he met Cathy Wiebe, the woman who would become his foster mother. She is now a 25-year foster parent.
"I was Cathy's first foster child," laughs Lohnes, now the father of two. "She's an awesome lady. I give her all the credit for the way I am now."
He lived with Wiebe and her husband until he was 18. He sees his own parents, who live in New Brunswick, once a year.
"Cathy is my mom," he says. "She was there through all the rough times."
He says his foster care experience taught him how to be a good parent to his daughters, now six and 11.
"School is a very big thing for me," he says. "I know what they need to be successful."
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Sharon Smith (who requested her real name not be used) was the broken product of a broken home. Her father, with whom she lived, was a violent man.
"There was none of that no tolerance stuff back then," says Smith, now 30.
She came into the child welfare system when she was a young teenager. By the time she was 18, she'd had 13 different placements.
"I don't know if anyone truly has a great experience in foster care," she says. "Some of my placements were short term, some were emergency, some were receiving homes."
She attempted suicide. Ironically, this would save her life.
Smith was hospitalized for three months, suffering from depression. She was sent to another foster home, this time in Beausejour, and took the bus into Winnipeg every day for therapy.
She says she survived (and thrived) because a social worker got her the best care possible.
"One of the things I've learned is, I think, that social workers have a raw deal," she says. "They get into the system. They really want to help. They're burned out. They get fried.
"The social workers need to be supported. The kids need someone to believe in them, to follow through with them."
lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca
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