Former foster tells foster parents: 'Don't give up on kids in your care'

Selena Burks shares hope, happiness she found in foster care

Selena Burks is a hugger.

“I just love them,” the young filmmaker said as she left the stage and headed for a social worker in the audience. The worker was overcome with emotion after Burks’ presentation last month of her documentary “Saving Jackie”. The film chronicles the relationship between Burks, her sister and their biological mother Jackie as Jackie deals with the results of a drug addiction that sent her children into foster care.

“Hugs always give me peace,” she told the worker and more than 70 foster parents, guests and other social workers who attended the October event, coordinated by HCJFS and its partner agencies in the Everyday Heroes Collaborative. “Hugs are so therapeutic, aren’t they?”

The ability to give hugs, Burks recounted, is a far cry from what she was able to do as young girl and teen watching her mother using drugs. She credits her foster mother with helping her get through many tough times, and considers her “to be my mom in so many ways.”

But it wasn’t so easy getting to today.

“I think you’d say I was a hateful person back then,” she told the group. “I didn’t see that, though. I always thought of myself as a good person and I really tried hard to be that person. But I was also pretty angry with my mother and the people who enabled her. I acted out.”

Burks said she spent years watching her biological mother use drugs, and Burks grew angrier by the day. She and her sister had gone to live with their father, but that didn't last. "He was having his own issues at the time, too," Burks said.

They moved back to their mother's apartment - and Burks didn't find any improvement at all. She finally felt she had little choice but to take matters into her own hands. She reported her mother to children services in Cuyahoga County.

“I was tired – tired of not having hot water to shower, of not having food, of not having clean clothes,” Burks recalled. “I got to the point where I wouldn’t go to school because the other kids made fun of me. They new my mom, they knew what was going on in our house. It was really hard.”

Burks and her sister were removed and placed with a foster mother. Their father, Burks said, “wasn’t able to care for us properly. We lived with him for a little while, but he had his own drug relapse and couldn’t help.”

Burks focused most of her talk on her foster mother’s role, and the importance she still has today in Burks’ life.

“Betty Jean taught me that family is still the most important thing in our lives,” Burks said. “I wanted her to adopt me, but she would always say no. She said that Jackie was our mother and that was a relationship that could never be changed.

Though she respected Jackie, Burks said she always had been Jackie’s caretaker and not the child. Their relationship got better as Burks got older, but she believes her foster mother did more for her.

“I still consider her ‘mom’ in every sense of the word. I still call her, tell her about what’s happening in my life, and she listens to me when I’ve had a bad day. I couldn’t ask for more.”

Burks told foster parents they can’t give up on children in care. She was no model child, she said, but she finished high school. She also went on to college to study film and earned a bachelor’s degree, and parlayed that into work not only on her own documentary but feature films as well (Burks worked on “W” in 2007 while living in Shreveport, Louisiana).

"They are just looking for someone to give them some peace for awhile. I know that's how I felt. I got it from a very understanding and caring foster mother.

"You are all just as caring and loving. I know the kids in your care challenge you sometimes. But love them with all your might. They can amount to something wonderful because of you."