For many families who find themselves separated through the system, reuniting can seem like an impossible hurdle.
In LA County, the mission of the Department of Children and Family services is to get those families back together. Next year, an estimated 6,000 parents will be reunited with their children, despite the sometimes difficult process.
"It was hard," said Patricia Villalobos, who was reunited with her children Friday during DCFS’ Family Reunification Week, an event to spotlight the agency's success stories in bringing families back together.
Villalobos said deep down, she knew her life before she was separated from her children was not a model of motherhood.
"Because I knew," she said. She said she knew she also had to work hard for them to be given back to her custody.
"I knew once they were taken, I had to do whatever it took to get them back," she said.
DCFS took her two sons away after one of them had run away from home. Villalobos said she didn’t realize they might be struggling even more than she was.
"I was always a momma's boy, let's put it that way,” said her son Daniel, 16. “I always felt the love from her, but now seeing her doing better, putting food on the table for me and my brother, it's just amazing."
And that dedication has been evident not only to her sons, but to the courts who had taken them away.
"And the jurisdiction of the court is hereby terminated," said Judge Michael Nash, presiding judge for LA County Juvenile Court, Friday during the hearing to officially bring the family back together.
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Moments like the Villalobos’ appearances, as emotional as they can be for so many families in the system, are important.
"It's not easy, but at the same time the public has to understand that number one, it's our primary goal to keep families intact and secondly, it's something that we do more than anything else," Nash said.
And yet it’s not a fail-safe process. The death of a 2-year-old boy in Signal Hill last month, while still not officially ruled a homicide, marks the first time in the LA court’s history that a child suspiciously died after the court signed off on family reunification.
"You never know what can happen, however, that being said, there's no doubt in my mind that each and every one of us who works in this system can do better and we need to do better," Nash said.
The hope remains that what DCFS does, and what the courts do, and ultimately what the families do will be successful.
Elijah, Patricia Villalobos’ younger son, said it has helped his family.
"It seemed like God just changed her around, like he flipped her inside out," he said of the change in his mother.
His mother said she’s committed to maintaining this new life for her family.
"Nothing's gonna take us apart, you know, it's the beginning of a new life for all three of us," she said.
