On a cold day in March of 2023, 7-year-old Za’Maiya Travis didn’t wake up for school. Hours before, she stumbled upon her mother’s drugs. When first responders arrived, they pronounced her dead at the scene.
Her mother, Shauntaija Travis, maintained that she kept her drugs where her daughter couldn’t find them, but investigators found evidence of drug use throughout the home.
Sadly, warning signs were ignored by a system designed to protect children like her.
Months prior, the little girl told her school about a burn mark her mother inflicted on her chest. But despite being mandated reporters, staff didn’t come forward to authorities about the incident until after her death.
Child protection workers tried to make arrangements to transfer custody of Za’Maiya to a concerned family member, but the girl’s mother stated she “wanted a few more days with the girl,” so the transfer was delayed to April 5.
Unfortunately, it was too late for Za’Maiya.
Parental drug use is now the top reason why Minnesota children are taken from their care, but as the Star Tribune reported in December, the state’s system for identifying and protecting children is filled with holes.
Families rarely receive the coordinated, comprehensive plans that are recommended
Less than 23 percent of infants exposed to drugs prenatally in Minnesota who were screened into the child protection system had a referral to appropriate services, according to the latest U.S. Children’s Bureau maltreatment report.
That’s among the nation’s worst reported referral rates.
Yes, we must invest in substance use prevention and treatment. But we also must invest in protecting children from the harmful – and sometimes fatal – effects of parental drug use. Their safety should be our first priority.
We must absolutely put the child first! In this case, the mother, had been putting the child’s safety and protection, secondary to her own needs and wants. She asked for extra time with her daughter and my guess is that due to keeping a family together, it was granted to her. This was a mistake, as it became clear, that drug paraphernalia was existent through out the home. It cost beautiful little Za’Maiya her life. The term “tough love” comes to mind when you have a home life situation for a child as this one. While I no doubt believe this mother loved her little girl, she was not mentally, physically, or emotionally able to take proper care of Za’Maiya, due to her addiction.
The child was at risk of harm or death daily. She did not ask for the life or home she had had in her few short years.
At the first sign of risk, an investigation, should have been put into place and Za’Maiya
taken out of the home. I realize that much work is needed as far as foster care, temporary homes for children “at risk” in their current family situation. The child is the priority, always.
The mother herself needed help, if good proper programs are in place, then it may be a temporary breakup of the family, but children are resilient. With love, proper care and safety, this family could have had a minor setback while mom got the help she needed and then gotten reintegrated, and little Za’Maiya might still be here.
Adults can understand the bigger picture, a child cannot. They simply ask for love, safety, and security.
We as the adults must make the “tough” decisions. I understand the thinking of maybe it will get better, or maybe it’s not that bad, or even I can’t get involved because it’s not my family.
We as adults have to change that thinking, for the sake of all of our children!
It is about loving our (all of the) children and making them (not the adult) the priority.
We must do better and I know that we can!
1 child lost is 1 too many!
While I would not parent under the influence nor condone such irresponsibility, there are various forms of self-medicating. For example, the vast majority of obese people who considerably over-eat are likely doing so to mask mental pain or even PTSD symptoms.
I utilized that method during most of my pre-teen years, and even later in life after quitting my (ab)use of cannabis and alcohol. [I currently ‘live’ with chronic anxiety and depression that are only partly treatable via medication.]
It’s an emotionally tumultuous daily existence; a continuous discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’ and simultaneously being scared of how badly I will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires.
The lasting emotional/psychological pain from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside the head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others.
It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is treated with some form of self-medicating, which for me is prescription or alcohol [via wine]. Someday I could instead return to over-eating.