LACEY RUNIK 18, of Placerville, left, studies psychology with Chelsea Shaver, 23, of Placerville in the student lounge at Folsom Lake College, El Dorado Campus. Democrat photo by Shelly Thorene
Editor?s note: This is the second in a two-part series. Part 1 ran Monday, Sept. 26.
Lacey Runik entered the California foster care system when she was just a year-and-a-half old. The court found ?neglect and abuse? on the part of her biological parents, who separated before she ever knew them. She doesn?t know all the details, but said her parents were using drugs when a judge pulled her and two siblings out of the home.
A sister went to a grandmother. She and her brother went to a foster family, who later adopted them, providing a healthy, loving home for the next dozen years. That all changed when her adoptive father suffered a serious but nonlethal heart attack.
In the first of a series of rejections over the next four years, Runik was shocked to hear her adoptive parents blame her for the heart attack. ?They said I stressed him out and was a hazard to his health.?
She insists that she wasn?t a bad kid. ?I was going through the things that any 13-year-old girl goes through,? she said.
They didn?t want her to wear makeup, and frowned at the rock music she listened to, which she insists was merely Christian rock. Both her music and her life would harden over the next four years.
They made it clear to her that she was no longer welcome in their home. She?d maintained contact with her biological mother, and accepted an invitation to move in, with her cat, temporarily ?to cool off,? she said.
Runik?s mother was still using drugs regularly, as was her abusive boyfriend. Neither had any problem with Lacey?s makeup or taste in music, which soon gravitated to a genre called ?black metal.?
Runik recalls enjoying the freedom. ?I got a taste of no bedtime, no rules of any kind really, and that worked for a while,? she said.
Both the girl and her cat soon became the target of the boyfriend?s physical abuses. She begged her adoptive parents to let her return. By then, however, she was smoking, drinking, drugging and sometimes staying out all night. They refused her.
After one particularly violent evening, she called the police and walked out of her mother?s house. ?I remember thinking that if I took my own life it would prove that I didn?t cause his heart attack,? she said.
That type of thinking eventually led to episodes of self-mutilation and landed her in a mental hospital. An aunt in Foresthill, Placer County, took her in, but the rebellious 13-year-old couldn?t handle the isolation. The police picked her up hitchhiking to Auburn after midnight.
She turned 14 in a strict Rocklin foster home with several other foster kids. She escaped repeatedly. One outing culminated in a multi-day drug and alcohol run, after which she returned to the foster home, still reeling, and discovered that her favorite CD, by a band named ?Cradle of Filth,? was missing.
A fight ensued, after which she wrote a suicide note to her brother and stabbed herself in the arm three times. ?I woke up in a mental hospital,? she said.
Pleas for help to her adoptive family were rejected more vehemently this time, with the now-legitimate concern that they couldn?t keep her safe. Their actions later led to abandonment charges by Child Protective Services, according to Runik.
She was booted out of another high-security group home after just three months for disabling the alarm system and sneaking out at night.
The Sacramento Children?s Home became the foundation of her turnaround. She arrived to find a pillow embroidered with her name. ?They made it just for me,? she said.
Unlike her prior group home experiences, she received a detailed treatment plan, with goals and rewards. She saw therapists on a regular basis and thrived under the structure, eventually repairing, at least temporarily, many of the damaged relationships in her life.
She recalls making a conscious decision to ?just focus on me,? she said. ?I was determined to stay clean and sober, catch up on school, and work to live outside of a group home one day.?
She earned the right to visit her adoptive family on weekends and felt she?d regained their confidence.
Her former foster mom in Rocklin saw Runik?s progress and invited her back to help care for a new grandchild in the house.
The ensuing months became an oasis in the chaotic desert of Runik?s mid-teens. She integrated herself into her foster and biological families, providing care for both the baby and her biological grandmother. She met family members she never knew she had, and felt a connection that many foster kids never experience.
At age 15, Runik celebrated a year-and-a-half of sobriety. ?My life was coming together,? she said.
Not so fast. Her carefully reconstructed family life soon collapsed. Her adoptive family felt betrayed by her cozy relations with a newfound biological family and cut her off, she said.
Her biological mother similarly rejected her, apparently distraught over Runik?s daughterly relationship with her Rocklin foster mom.
Rejection No. 3 was initiated by Runik. Her Rocklin home life deteriorated with the arrival of new foster kids, one of whom drove a wedge between Runik and her foster mom, she said.
She felt she had to leave, but this time vowed to do it on her terms, to stay sober and take responsibility for her actions. At age 16 she said she gave her foster mom a hug and walked away.
Technically, she was on the run, ?But it?s not like anyone?s actually looking for you,? she said. ?Foster kids are like these invisible beings out there.?
She stayed with friends when she could, and sometimes slept outside, eventually contracting a stubborn case of bronchitis and a head-to-toe dose of poison oak.
Desperate, she signed into an emergency room under the biological family name she hadn?t used since her adoption. She quickly discovered that she wasn?t as invisible as she thought. She recalls suppressing the urge to lie when a police officer identified her, instead standing by her commitment to accept the consequences of her actions.
After one more failed group home experience, Runik landed in the New Morning Shelter in Placerville, which she recalls as a kind and supportive ? but temporary ? respite.
More foster flameouts followed, including an ill-fated stay in Shingle Springs that came to a bizarre conclusion on a Northern California camping trip with her foster parents and two of their other foster girls ?way past Redding somewhere,? said Runik.
She recalls all three girls being uncooperative campers, resulting in a miserable weekend for all involved. The family broke camp without breakfast and drove several hours without food, said Runik.
By afternoon, the famished girls became impossible. Their foster dad relented, stopping at a Burger King drive-through in Willows, where he proceeded to order and pay for burgers, ignoring Runik?s pleas from the back seat for extra ketchup.
Runik rolled down her window and took her request directly to the drive-through cashier, an act that so infuriated her foster father that he drove away without the food, she said.
At the first stop sign, a hungry Runik jumped out of the car to retrieve her burger ? extra ketchup, please. Her foster family drove on, leaving her shoeless and penniless, she said.
He reported his ?runaway? foster child to a police officer at the other end of Willows. The officer made him stay put, and retrieved Runik from the Burger King, eventually convincing her foster parents to allow her back into the car.
Runik and her foster parents argued that night and again the next morning. She came home from work to find her belongings piled in the middle of the living room. They ordered her out, an action that ultimately got them removed from the foster program, said Runik.
Outbursts between foster parents and older foster kids are not uncommon, according to Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Program Director Cathie Watson, who said there is often more to the story. ?Kids like Lacey that experience a series of abandonments just decide they?ve had enough,? she said. ?Then they become the problem.?
Runik?s social worker arranged for the girl to spend the night with Sheila Silan, who was Runik?s boss at a county-funded career skills program at the time.
Enter CASA volunteer Dorian Brandon, whose initial responsibility was to ferry Runik and her belongings from Shingle Springs to Silan?s house, where the girl stayed for a month. ?She would have let me stay longer,? said Runik. ?I didn?t want to burn any more bridges. I wanted a safe haven.?
She?d need one. Another ill-fated placement followed. But this time Brandon was in the mix to get her out before matters escalated.
Runik returned to Silan, who eventually found her a spot in a now-defunded transitional housing program, where the girl had to attend regular meetings but lived fairly independently, using public transportation to get to work and school. She turned 17 there.
Runik wanted to be responsible for herself as an adult. Brandon supported her emancipation effort. ?I thought she?d be way better on her own than going through what she?d been through,? said Brandon. ?And she was.?
Watson has known many foster kids who come through CASA. ?What sets Lacey apart is her resiliency,? she said. ?She has the ability to turn it around and keep moving forward. She?s a strong one.?
Runik doesn?t claim to understand the source of her strength. ?Somewhere in the shuffle I just realized that Dorian and Sheila could stand by me and encourage me, but that I had to do it myself.?
She also forgave the rejections she experienced during those four turbulent years, and has apologized to her Shingle Springs foster parents for her part in their falling out, she said.
The CASA volunteer and the former foster kid are still close. ?She?s like a mother to me,? said Runik. ?Up until Dorian, everyone got paid to handle me. I was this huge inconvenience. She was always there for me, even when I got a little crazy.?
Brandon?s explanation for the success of their relationship is simple. ?Everything I do is out of love. She?ll always be part of my life.?
After a series of unhealthy relationships, Runik now has a supportive man in her life. Boyfriend Joe Easton insisted she see a doctor about persistent, blinding headaches she experienced just before her 18th birthday. The doctor found and removed a potentially lethal cyst on her brain. That?s as happily-ever-after as this story gets.
CASA El Dorado is facing a 12 percent budget cut next year that could deprive 54 kids like Runik their CASA volunteer, as described in the Sept. 26 Mountain Democrat story ?CASA: Helping kids that need it most,? which examined the success and costs of the local agency, along with the impacts of proposed budget cuts.
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