Father's fight nearly over, with court returning daughter

Editor's note: This is a follow-up to a six-part series of in-depth reports by columnist Issac J. Bailey in which he examined a Conway father's two-year struggle to bring his daughter home from a New York foster home.

After more than two years of fighting, of draining his savings and retirement accounts, of 17-hour drives to New York, Johnny Smith will be bringing his daughter home.

Now it's just a question of when.

But while the legal process is coming to an end, an emotionally tricky transition for Smith's now 5-year-old daughter is just beginning, a transition created by the length of the case.

A judge in Warren County, N.Y., ruled Wednesday morning that the girl, who has been in New York foster care since July 2008 after she was found alone on a busy highway in a diaper and T-shirt, be returned to Smith.

Her mother, Helen Prince, Smith's former common-law wife, had taken her without Smith's knowledge to New York in 2008. There, the teenage sons of Prince's then-boyfriend assaulted the child, who was 3 at the time, according to police and court documents. Prince served almost a year in jail for her role.

"It feels pretty good," Smith said after the ruling. "I'm about wiped out. I just want this to end."

He's happy, but remains leery. He's gotten his hopes up several times over the past two years only to have something work against him.

His attempts to stop what he correctly believed was the abuse of his daughter before she was taken to New York were not followed up by two agencies he approached for help. His pleas over the past two years to allow his daughter to come home during the holidays went unheeded. Even as he inched ever closer to bankruptcy trying to navigate a complicated system, the slow mechanics of a 50-year-old law he couldn't legally challenge ground on.

There were moments during the past two years he considered giving up. But he didn't want his daughter to grow up believing her father didn't do everything he could to bring her home.

"I don't want nothing else to fall through the cracks," he said. "They still had some paperwork missing even today."

His wife, Cheryl Smith, added: "You want to jump up and down, but you get your hopes up a little and something else happens."

Timing of return uncertain

The family had gone into the hearing expecting a fight. The Warren County Department of Social Services had filed documents with the court that argued the girl should remain in foster care because "all of her medical, educational, mental health and emotional needs are being met."

But at the start of the hearing, a Warren County DSS lawyer said the department was not going to oppose Smith's custody petition.

Warren County Family Court Judge Timothy J. Breen didn't comment on the length of the process, the mistakes made, or render an opinion about how S.C. and New York officials handled the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children federal law.

The way that law was enforced is at the heart of the case and its protracted resolution, and the compact is under review for possible change by S.C. officials and child advocates nationally.

While expressing sympathy, Breen told the Smiths "the transition may not be an immediate one."

Another hearing Friday will determine how and how soon the girl's transition home will take place. She could be released into Smith's custody as early as Friday or as late as the Christmas holiday season. Warren County DSS said if she was to be returned home, it should be near the end of the year when there is a natural school break, according to pre-hearing documents.

The judge hinted at a Thanksgiving homecoming.

Smith wants his daughter to come home Friday. She can be back in an Horry County school Monday, he said.

A psychiatrist, counselor and other services have already been arranged for what he knows won't be an easy adjustment for a daughter who has been almost 900 miles from home for roughly 40 percent of her young life. The S.C. Department of Social Services has also said it will help make the transition a successful one.

Such a transition is delicate, said Jim Rogers, a local parenting expert. Children in such situations are at risk for attachment disorders.

"She was so young when she went through all the worst part [of the abuse] that what she will most likely remember is the trauma, the pain, the feelings of helplessness and abandonment, like no one [was] protecting her or nurturing her or comforting her against the world," Rogers said.

"She probably won't remember who did and didn't do what; she will just have the pain," he said. "The little girl's tragic life was caused by other dysfunctional and ignorant parties and made worse by a procedural dragging of the feet."

Dealing with adjustment

Smith has already experienced the reality of the emotional hurdle his daughter faces.

She played with a Fairy Princess Barbie and coloring books during a two-hour supervised visit with the Smiths and an aunt and uncle the day before Wednesday's hearing. The first half of the visit went well, then something unexpected happened.

The Warren County DSS worker supervising the visit told Smith's daughter to "take pictures of your family" with the small camera phone her stepmother allowed her to play with.

"That's not my family," she said. Her father heard her, as did everyone in the room.

"It just really hurt [Johnny] a lot," said stepmom Cheryl Smith. "We were all just sitting there real quiet. We know she is confused."

That's why Smith said he and his wife pre-arranged for a psychiatrist in Horry County to help his daughter deal not only with the transition from foster care back into the home where she lived the first three years of her life without incident, but also with the emotional trauma associated with the assault and injuries she sustained as a 3-year-old.

At the hearing Friday morning, the New York psychiatrist who has been working with Smith's daughter will give her recommendation about the best way for the 5-year-old to be transitioned back to Horry County.

The Smiths told the judge they would welcome contact - through e-mail and calls and visits - between their daughter and the foster family she has known since 2008.

The psychiatrist's recommendations at Friday's hearing also help determine what kind or how much contact Prince, her birth mother, will have with her daughter. Prince has declined to be interviewed for articles on the case.

"You have to be patient," Cheryl Smith said. "With any 5-year-old, you have to be patient. There really is nothing else you can do than show her you love her. And a lot of prayer.

"There may be trying times. We just have to work through them together and love her through it."

Reporter Carl Strock of the Daily Gazette in New York contributed to this report.