TW: This episode contains mentions of drug use, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. If these topics could be triggering for you or others, we wanted you to be aware of these topics before listening.
The trauma of our past can often define us and inform what we think and how we behave. This can create a cycle in which we are far more likely to repeat the mistakes of those who have gone before us.
As Darnella Miller was growing up, her mother was caught in a cycle of drug addiction, placing Darnella in many unsafe situations that led to multiple forms of abuse and eventually removal from her mother’s care.
Today, Darnella is the Founder and CEO of BornCovered, a program where she gets to use her personal journey through foster care, teenage parenthood, and aging out of the system to empower, support, and uplift young girls and youth facing similar challenges. A Brooklyn native, Darnella is deeply committed to her family. She is happily married, with three daughters and three bonus sons.
In this episode, you’ll hear the emotions children may experience when being placed in foster care, how Darnella has broken generational cycles, and how the system can offer valuable support.
- [BOOK] Voice Of A Fostered Child: From Pain To Purpose
- Follow Darnella on her website or Instagram
- Give to The Forgotten Initiative
- Foster Care & the Church
TAKEAWAYS FROM TODAY’S CONVERSATION:
1. Children often don’t recognize this isn’t normal when it’s been their normal.
Many times, children in unsafe situations don’t know anything different so their removal can be jarring and traumatic. Acknowledging the challenge of such a big transition is important as we are helping them heal and process.
“This is what life was because as a child, what do you really know? You don’t really have a voice as a child. You just go along with what your parents tell you.”
2. Breaking the cycle takes courage.
There is a fear of being separated from those who you love the most, but breaking cycles creates generational change. Darnella found her motivation when she had her daughter. Becoming a mother gave her the courage and strength she needed to break free.
“I had to break that cycle. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up in that same environment.”
3. We need help to put on a new identity.
Experiencing foster care can cause children to feel unwanted, unworthy, broken, unsafe, and more. In many cases, children in foster care are just trying to survive. In Darnella’s story, a local church came around her and poured out their love and acceptance onto her and her daughter. This washed away many of those negative labels and replaced them with a new one – “child of God.”
“I am not my parents’ story. I can create my own story. I can define my own self.”
Meet Our Guest
Darnella Miller is a former foster child, speaker, advocate, author, and the Founder and CEO of BornCovered. Through her work at BornCovered, Darnella uses her journey to empower, support, and uplift young girls and youth facing similar challenges. She earned her associate degree in Health Services Administration and is pursuing a Bachelor of Social Work. Darnella is a Brooklyn native and still lives there today with her husband, three daughters, and three “bonus” sons.
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