Tyrome Laundersville was just 9 years old when his parents placed him inside the family vehicle and took him to foster care. He believed it would be enjoyable. What followed was a decade of being moved from one locked-down treatment center to another, each place worse than the last.
The NPR report How the system failed us: Former foster youth tell their stories covers Laundersville’s story along with two others. It relies on federal data tracking over 500,000 children in foster care in 2025. That data shows disabled children stay in foster care for 50% longer than kids without disabilities, return home from care less often, and get adopted at lower rates.
Laundersville’s Long Road From Home
The parents of Laundersville could not understand his fits of screaming, his bursts of anger, and his habit of destroying property. Their plan was straightforward: he would receive treatment and return home.
The pattern was not stability but constant change. From age 9, he moved from one location to another until he reached 18, and each relocation pulled him farther away from his family.
“I missed my parents. I’m not going to deny that. And even when I was mad or hurt, I still wanted them there. I still forgave them. I wanted them to fight for me. And I needed that connection. And when it wasn’t there, it just left me feeling abandoned,” Laundersville told a group of child advocates and researchers in 2024.
The medical profession attached a string of diagnoses to him over time: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Each label missed the mark entirely; none of them described what was truly wrong with him.
Pike’s Thirty Placements
When Marissa Pike entered foster care in Massachusetts, she was just a child, 12. Her frustration would surface as screaming and yelling. Staff responded by labeling her as problematic, confrontational and aggressive.
Within a period of less than 10 years, she was placed in 30 separate settings, including both psychiatric facilities and hospitals. Throughout that time, she was given anti-psychotic medication.
It wasn’t until several years later that she received the correct diagnosis of autism. Once it arrived, it finally explained all the behaviors that had gotten her into trouble.
“I would be overwhelmed doing something and I would refuse to go where the staff would want me to go,” she says. Simple activities or routines could overstimulate her and set off a cycle of meltdowns and punishments.
When she was young, she remembers going through strict routines at treatment centers. She would step outside to play dodgeball, return inside for dinner, and wash her hands. To her, dodgeball was harsh, and she required time to unwind afterward.
Back then, she lacked the ability to request that kind of room for herself. Today, at 28, she can reflect on how she was “just overstimulated and probably needed some noise-canceling headphones and 15 minutes, then I would have been fine.”.
Kimble’s Diagnosis Erased
JoJo Kimble received accommodations for her autism while in school, but when she entered foster care in South Carolina, her diagnosis vanished.
She was 15 when she suddenly got labeled as having bipolar disorder instead. “It’s easier to treat,” she says. “You can’t treat autism with medication. You can treat depression, the symptoms of depression … with medication and all types of therapy.”
She moved through a string of places after her label changed, passing through therapeutic group homes and psychiatric hospitals alike. Today, at 23, she has left foster care behind and entered the independently run system of public services that serves people with developmental disabilities.
The System’s Slow Turn
When children experience explosive outbursts, restraint and punishment are often used to manage their behavior. New research into how the brain works reveals that these methods can be harmful to children. They generate stress that places a child’s body on alert and trigger additional explosive outbursts that the child can’ outside of his own control.
Staffers tried to get Pike to come inside, but she would not budge. They grabbed her, and that only made her more upset. She got angry, and staff restrained her, with one, two or three staffers holding her down. That only upset her more.
She says there were occasions when she was restrained for extended stretches — an hour or more at a time — which set off guidelines that she had to be taken to the hospital, since prolonged restraint carries risks of injury and danger.
The Numbers Behind the Stories
An examination by NPR has established that among children entering foster care, those with disabilities — which cover physical and behavioral health conditions alike — form the largest single category, and they also experience the worst results. Roughly 10% of disabled youth in foster care reside in group homes and institutions, a figure that stands at 4% for non-disabled children.
The numbers on how long disabled children remain in foster care stand out from the rest of the report. These young people stay in care 50% longer than children without disabilities do. The data also shows that disabled children are less likely to leave care by returning home to their families or by being adopted.
| Outcome | Disabled Children | Non-disabled Children |
|---|---|---|
| Length of time in foster care | 50% longer | Shorter |
| Return to parents | Less likely | More likely |
| Adoption | Less likely | More likely |
What the Stories Reveal
Each of these young people tried to communicate that their behaviors came from fear and frustration, not malice. Laundersville said he “wasn’t just being bad. I was hurt. I was angry. And I didn’t know how to properly express myself after the many years of just not being heard. I just wanted someone to understand me and not judge me for my behaviors and actions that I’ve always had my whole life.”
Pike explained that her screaming and yelling were simply how she expressed anger and being mad. Kimble said that her autism diagnosis had been erased during her time in foster care, replaced by a label that was easier to treat.
None of them received what they required. The system kept moving them from one location to another, labeling them again and again, and punishing them for behaviors that were not their fault.
The Foster Care Community’s Resistance
Because of its deep connections to institutional care, the foster care community has moved slowly toward change.
These accounts are not mere numbers on a page; they are the individual experiences of people whose lives were shaped by systems that failed to serve them.
Tyrome Laundersville, Marissa Pike and JoJo Kimble were let down by the system time after time, from their earliest years all the way into adolescence, and in some cases even past it. The system moved them around, misread them, gave them medicine without knowing what it was doing, and tied them down when they needed to be still.
It is time to fix it.
Source material: “How the system failed us: Former foster youth tell their stories,” NPR.
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