Philadelphia Daily News
By DANA DiFILIPPO
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934
She's getting her boy back.
Shannon Berthiaume, the West Philadelphia mother whose battle to get her three children out of foster care was chronicled in the Daily News in January, asked a Family Court judge yesterday to return her eldest son, who has been in and out of foster care since May 2005.
Judge Ann Butchart agreed, with several conditions, and Berthiaume expects to have her 16-year-old son by early summer.
"Finally! Finally!" Berthiaume said a few hours after the closed hearing, at which Butchart approved a therapist's recommendation that the teen be reunited with his mother at school year's end.
"We was all crying. I told my son: 'Pinch me, because this is too good to be true,' and he pinched me hard too!" Berthiaume said, laughing. "I'm on Cloud 9."
Berthiaume, 37, lost her children, then ages 8, 10 and 12, to county custody after she drove her minivan into a West Philadelphia elementary school in May 2005 to protest the escalating racial bullying her kids had suffered there. Read the rest of this story here
By DANA DiFILIPPO
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934
She's getting her boy back.
Shannon Berthiaume, the West Philadelphia mother whose battle to get her three children out of foster care was chronicled in the Daily News in January, asked a Family Court judge yesterday to return her eldest son, who has been in and out of foster care since May 2005.
Judge Ann Butchart agreed, with several conditions, and Berthiaume expects to have her 16-year-old son by early summer.
"Finally! Finally!" Berthiaume said a few hours after the closed hearing, at which Butchart approved a therapist's recommendation that the teen be reunited with his mother at school year's end.
"We was all crying. I told my son: 'Pinch me, because this is too good to be true,' and he pinched me hard too!" Berthiaume said, laughing. "I'm on Cloud 9."
Berthiaume, 37, lost her children, then ages 8, 10 and 12, to county custody after she drove her minivan into a West Philadelphia elementary school in May 2005 to protest the escalating racial bullying her kids had suffered there. Read the rest of this story here
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I am filled with complete joy for you and your son. The days cannot go quick enough for your reunification with your son. I pray you will also regain custody of your other children as this one ruling is a powerful tool to get you all your chidren. They should be with thier mom. God Bless