My name is Kristin. I am the mother of 4 children in Iowa. I live with my 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son. We lead a faith led, love filled life. They are absolutely thriving. Happy, loved, amazing children. However their 8 and 9 year old siblings are not with us. Both at risk in different ways.
I am not your typical DHS/HHS complaint. I have documented, kept every text, email, photo, video over the last 7 years. I am educated and unwavering. However I need my community’s help.
Thank you for reading below.
My journey with our DHS/HHS system began when I was just 2 years old, moving in and out of the same child‑welfare world that I would later have to navigate as a mother. Truth be told, as a child, they saved my life. However they separated me and my siblings.
As an adult, my problems with the system began in 2018 when DHHS pushed a safety plan that required me to find and start state‑funded daycare in a single weekend, even though FSRP notes 3 days prior said my children’s needs were being met, we had a strong bond, and my main struggles were health and finances. When I followed their instructions, left an unhealthy relationship, and went to a domestic‑violence shelter connected to daycare services, my children were still removed days later because daycare enrollment is not immediate, and the narrative being written about me in court began to drift further and further from the reality of my efforts.
Over the next two years, I underwent two surgeries, completed a psychological evaluation that found no major issues, participated in outpatient substance‑abuse treatment with negative tests (marijuana being only accused drug), and I continued to show efforts, even as housing and health problems made everything harder. Despite emails, letters, and records showing that evaluations, treatment letters, and therapy information were sent and available, the court and department later claimed they never received key documents and labeled me “uncooperative,” then terminated my rights to my two oldest children while admitting termination to my daughter wasn’t “strictly necessary.” That’s how they treated my fundamental rights. Not necessary, but did so anyways. They noted my children loved me and I loved them. They didn’t listen to me, begging them not to let my children be in this home. They ignored alternative options that I felt were safer if they couldn’t be returned to me at that time.
The termination order stated my children couldn’t be returned to me in the foreseeable future, but that was very false.
Only four months after that decision, Iowa and Illinois HHS approved me to bring home my premature daughter, their little sister (10 weeks early partly due to stress of losing my rights) on a heart monitor, caffeine supplements daily for bradycardia, and a special car‑seat bed because she was under five pounds at discharge. I cared for her safely at home, even as the Iowa Court of Appeals later affirmed the termination to my older children. In the years that followed, I continued parenting my younger children and, when the former adoptive family allowed visits, I documented and reported abuse disclosures from my older two—audio, video, photos, texts, emails, and a roommate’s statement—sharing them with the county attorney, HHS leadership, police, the DHS supervisor, the judge, the former GAL, and the Ombudsman, anyone I could reach. I even told the former director of Dhs for iowa . I had a long conversation with her on the phone, but it didn’t matter. My son would go through four more years of abuse and my daughter would remain there. I had promised my daughter I would help them. However no one acted to protect them.
In 2025, my son was finally removed from the adoptive home with cigarette burns and other injuries. A teacher finally spoke up and they couldn’t brush her aside . My daughter was left in the very home my son received these injuries, and remains there today.
I immediately emailed and called HHS asking to be considered as a placement, to at least begin to be a therapeutic support, and to have the sibling connect, but was shut out at every turn. I was able to go to the state Ombudsman and secured a family notice. When I formally moved to intervene, the State argued I was no longer a relative to my own child; my intervention was denied twice without any current safety concerns cited, and on April 1, 2026, the appeals court affirmed that denial, blaming my use of AI and even questioning whether I should have the ability to appeal at all. During the same period, I applied for a foster‑care license and was denied mainly based on prior founded marijuana reports, and during this over 100 pages of highly confidential family records were mishandled and lost after being mailed in a thin envelope that arrived to me empty and stamped “received open.” those have never been recovered and are still in the public somewhere, they even had our Social Security numbers on them. We were told that situation was forwarded on DCI, but we never heard back.
Most recently leadership of the department of human services of iowa told a representative in a meeting about our case that they would be having one of their field staff reach out for visitation to begin. They told him how my child was struggling with trauma behaviors and was becoming as they put it “hard to place”. He’s been in at least three foster homes since his removal and rescue a year ago. I waited an entire week for a phone call before an email from the attorney General came that said they were not considering this and their stance has not changed. Having my emotions played like that as a mother has been soul crushing. However, I made my kids a promise when I saw them last and I told them I would help them. As a mother, no matter how hard it gets I cannot break that promise and I cannot stop. I won’t.
Out of this, my role has shifted from being silently processed by the system to actively challenging it. I gathered letters of support from teachers, licensed foster parents, a BSW, and a pastor’s wife, collected signatures urging that my child be placed with me, I have spoken at a local city council meeting, and began traveling to Washington, D.C. and Des Moines to tell this story directly to decision‑makers. I’ve gained their respect and their support. It seems the only people who think this is OK is the very department themselves.
Since October 2025, I have made six trips to D.C.. I got the honor to meet with Senator Grassley and his staff, Senator Ernst’s staff, and many others. I’ve met with state leaders like Representatives Holt and Representative Hayes, who have acknowledged that cases like mine show the need for a reinstatement amendment. It shows Iowa needs to have better protection of sibling and relative relationships.
This fundraiser will help me retain an additional experienced family law attorney to unravel the legal and procedural failures in my case, work with the civil attorneys already involved, fight for meaningful involvement in my sons case, help me see how to help my daughter, and work toward bringing all of my children back together. To break this cycle so it’s not theirs to break.
It will also allow me to dedicate more time to advocacy and to building a founding team for a long‑term initiative in Iowa focused on helping families navigate HHS and the courts, protecting sibling bonds, and turning lived experience—mine and others’—into practical tools and policy solutions.
The cycle that began with me as a 2‑year‑old in care has now played out on my own children; with your help, I am determined that it ends here, with us, and that it leads to lasting change for the families who come after us.
I believe we went through all this for a reason and a purpose, and I want to live that purpose. God bless all of you. Thank you.
