Alternate Ending
Coach Macmillan points out to the women’s field hockey team areas of improvement while going over the video from their losing game on Sept. 1, again Syracuse at the Pruitt Field in Athens, Ohio, before practice on Sept. 3, 2014. “They aren’t doing anything that you can’t do,” said Macmillan. © Lauren Dickey
Neil Macmillan has been the head coach of Ohio University’s women’s field hockey team for the past ten years. After coming here from coaching from Wake Forest, N.C., Macmillan said, “The team embraced me here.” © Lauren Dickey
Coach Macmillan gets caught up on his emails and voice messages on Sept. 9, 2014, after being gone from Athens, Ohio, with the team for a game in Indiana. Apart of being a head coach of Ohio University’s women’s field hockey team Macmillan has to travel frequently leaving his wife and two sons, 6 and 9 years old, behind. “Traveling is tough on the family but we kind of knew that going into it,” Macmillan said. © Lauren Dickey
Coach Macmillan points out to the women’s field hockey team areas of improvement while going over the video from their losing game on Sept. 1, again Syracuse at the Pruitt Field in Athens, Ohio, before practice on Sept. 3, 2014. “They aren’t doing anything that you can’t do,” said Macmillan. © Lauren Dickey
Tayna Holter and Randy Filkins adopted Christian Mark Filkins, 5, from a substance abuse environment.© Lauren Elizabeth Media
Mark and foster child Brian carry the electronic car up to the driveway to play. © Lauren Elizabeth Media
Mark looks out the window as his mother, Holter, drives him to school after being kicked off of the bus for fighting. © Lauren Elizabeth Media
Tayna Holter and Randy Filkins adopted Christian Mark Filkins, 5, from a substance abuse environment.© Lauren Elizabeth Media
The use of drugs in the United States has steadily increased within the past several years and unfortunately so have the reports to Child Protective Services. Child Protective Services, CPS, receives reports on children falling victims to abuse and/or neglect within households of drug users and Meigs County, Ohio, is no stranger to these reports. In case of a child's removal from his or her home, he or she will then be placed into foster care until CPS and the court deem the environment is safe again.
Meigs County is not only notorious for its supply of marijuana, known as “Meigs County Gold,” but also well known for its poverty and drug-struck area. According to the U.S. Department of Job and Family Services, in 2013, 22.4 percent of people in the county fall below the poverty level compared to the state’s percentage of 16.3. Researchers have seen a relationship between substance use and maltreatment of children.
Once a report is made to CPS, an investigation is launched where a social worker will determine if a child needs to be removed from the home and placed into a temporary home with a foster family. Meigs County has about five foster families who care, protect, feed and help children who are removed from their homes.
Tanya Holter and Randy Filkins are just one of the families who have stepped up and made a commitment to help children in the Meigs County area by becoming foster parents. Holter wanted to become a foster parent because when she was younger, she too was a foster child in three different homes. As Holter grew up she knew that she wanted to give back to the system by becoming a foster parent.
Foster parents for the last two years to over 24 children, Holter and Filkins currently have four foster children who were removed from their homes due to substance abuse.
“I’m able to see where the kids have been and where they will end up. It makes me frustrated,” said Filkins. “I give them the exact care I would give to my own children.”
On Nov. 3, 2014, Holter and Filkins received a new foster child who would later flip their world upside down.
Mark came into their home from a substance abuse environment. He was on five different medications, would destroy things at school, the house, turn over bookcases and more. Holter said she was at the school for a new incident every day.
Mark was in and out of foster care for fourteen months before being placed with Holter and Filkins for six months.
Holter said, “He (Mark) told his teacher ‘I knew if I was bad enough, I could go back to Randy and Tanya.’”
After six months of foster care, Mark’s mother decided to give permanent surrender of Mark to Holter and Filkins. On May 26, 2015, Holter and Filkins welcomed their newest edition into their family of five, Christian Mark Filkins.
Mark still deals with the effects of being raised in a substance abuse environment and being placed in and out of foster homes for several months; however, Mark was able to be taken off of three of the five medicines.
“I have seen a huge difference in Mark since he was adopted,” said CPS social worker Chelsey Imboden. “He’s more willing to listen and be OK with change. Before he was like a wild child who wouldn’t listen. Now he has people who are investing in him where before people wouldn’t give him the time of day.”
While Holter and Filkins still fosters children, Mark is in a stable, loving environment. He watches children come and go out of the house, but his name still remains in his room. He has a family whom he adores and adores him back.
After Mark was adopted, they received an eight-month-old baby whom Mark loved. Being from a foster care environment, Mark turned to Holter and said, “Can we keep it, or do we have to give it back?”
Not every child is as lucky as Mark. Several children go back to their homes and then are put back again into the foster care system because of abuse or negligence. According to the Children’s Bureau, less than 24 percent of children in foster care are able to get adopted. Mark was the fortunate one — he was given an alternate ending.