Shay Roberson quickly typed the words into her phone. She knew she would never be able to say them out loud.
"Can you think about adopting me one day?" she asked via text. "I really want a mom."
The Indiana native's early dream of reuniting with her biological family had faded long before she aged out of the foster care system. Now, at 24 years old, Shay wondered if she might have another chance at a family.
Shay sent the text to Ginnie Wing, her former school resource officer. Wing, now the police chief of Brownsburg Community School Corp., was already Shay's safe place, her emotional support system and the person she never wanted to let down.
Shay wanted Wing to be more.
Shay looked at the text she had sent, and panicked. She quickly fired off another: "You don't have to respond just think about it."
Shay met Wing as a sixth-grader at East Middle School in Brownsburg.
It was the first time Shay had ever seen a female police officer. And the first time she'd met an officer she liked.
"My only interactions with police officers were always bad," Shay recalled, "so whether they were coming to my house or, you know, in my neighborhood or removing me from my parents."
Shay and two of her sisters entered the child welfare system in 2005, when Shay was 11 years old. Their mother was addicted to crack cocaine, Shay said.
She and her siblings bounced from home to home, mostly living with relatives. They'd return to their mother only to be removed again. And the family kept growing. Eventually, there were six of them in the child welfare system — Shay and five siblings...
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