(Kansas Methamphetamine Prevention Project)-- Her childhood experiences perfectly fit the definition. Modia was prenatally exposed to alcohol and other drugs and grew up in a home with parents who used alcohol, marijuana, and crack cocaine. She was placed in Police Protective Custody and lived in foster care. However, Modia’s story is not what you might expect. 

Despite facing numerous challenges, Modia has displayed strength and resilience. Modia’s mother drank alcohol and smoked marijuana and crack cocaine while she was pregnant. Though she was born addicted to crack cocaine, Modia didn’t experience any lasting physical or developmental problems from the exposure. Modia believes the lack of complications from her prenatal exposure was an early indicator of her fighting spirit. 

Modia spent most of her childhood living with her father and step-mother in Kansas City. Her father drank and smoked marijuana daily and was involved in marijuana distribution. Modia’s step-mother was addicted to crack-cocaine and would leave Modia in the car for hours while she was inside her drug dealer’s house getting high. Modia’s step-mother stole from her and the children’s Christmas gifts were sometime pawned for money to buy drugs.

When Modia was 16, her father was sent to prison on a marijuana trafficking conviction. Modia soon found herself with no place to sleep and nowhere to go. A case worker at her school dropped her at the juvenile intake center and at the age of 17 Modia entered the foster care system.  While she finished high school Modia lived in a children’s home and two foster homes. She encountered difficulty in one foster placement when she realized that the foster parent’s biological daughter was doing drugs in front of her own child.

 

Modia was angered by this behavior and knew the risks the child was being exposed to by the parent. “If you are high around your child, dangerous and harmful things could happen to your child and you wouldn’t even know,” Modia said. 

In the fall of 2008 Modia moved to Wichita to attend Wichita State University. The transition to college wasn’t easy at first. “Most college students have parents and siblings they can lean on. I didn’t have that kind of support,” Modia said. In a new city, without a car or a job, Modia relied only on herself and learned to adapt to her new surroundings. She credits services she accessed through SRS Independent Living, such as money for books and rent, with helping her get established. Modia has a message for professionals who work with drug endangered children: never stop believing in these youth. “Self-fulfilling prophecies are not to be taken lightly. Please don’t look at a kid and assume they are going to end up like their parents.

Addiction is a generational curse, but kids become the messages they hear. The message I heard from the support people in my life were, ‘Modia, I see you going far. You are going to do something with your life.’ People who work with children need to choose their words wisely. No one ever said to me, ‘Don’t end up like your mom’, so it never crossed my mind that I would. Be a positive force and tell youth what great things they can become.”

Today Modia is a sophomore majoring in criminal justice and communications. She hopes for a career working with youth. She works part-time at an art gallery on campus, enjoys reading and writes poetry as a means of self-expression. Modia is also the president of the Kansas Youth Advisory Council, a leadership group that seeks to provide youth in care with a voice and assist them in obtaining life and leadership skills.

 

Modia’s family relationships are improving. She is repairing her relationship with her siblings. Her mother has been sober for three years and the two of them have grown close. Modia’s father will be paroled soon and they maintain occasional contact through letters.

Modia believes her story can have a positive impact on troubled youth. “Even though difficult things have happened in my life, I wouldn’t change the life I’ve had because it has shaped the person I have become today. I am meant to share my story. I am optimistic about life and know that other youth can rise up out of situations similar to mine.”

Modia Evans certainly was a Drug Endangered Child, but with the assistance and resources she received through SRS Independent Living services, she has not allowed her difficult childhood to determine the trajectory of her life. As Modia says, “I have never been a victim. I was just living in that situation for a little while.”

 

LINK: http://www.ksmethpreventionproject.org/KMPP%20March%202010%20Newsletter.pdf