Ex-Maine Foster Child Tells A Scary Tale Of Alleged Inept State Management Of Human Services In New Book

If Maine legislators are really interested in fixing the nightmare known as the state Office of Child and Family Services, they need to talk to Sabrina Rose.

Rose, who lives in Presque Isle, has written and published a new book about how she believes the state’s foster system failed her and others.

The state “removed me from my mother’s care and placed me with strangers, promised me that life would turn out better that way.

“But I still grew up to be an addict.”

The publication of Rose’s book comes amid an effort by state Sen. Jeff Timberlake, R-Androscoggin, to investigate the state’s child-services division of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

Timberlake recently wrote a legislative government oversight committee to begin looking into some of the problems playing in the child-welfare bureau.

“A 2023 study showed that Maine led the nation in terms of the mistreatment of children in the state’s custody – a superlative that has been a blight on the system,” Libby Palanza of The Maine Wire wrote last year. “Groups like Walk a Mile in Their Shoes have been sharply critical of the agency that has been so poorly run that it has cost some of the children under its care their lives, the non-profit’s founder, Bill Diamond, said.”

Rose, who is in recovery and has been sober for nearly two years, said she “decided to investigate why the state removed me from my mother’s care.”

She said was “handed over to a man who would inflict child abuse and neglect until I finally ran away at 17.”

“The state of Maine,” Rose said, “has a lot of answering to do.”

“Finding Michelle Canu,” a story about Rose’s search for her mother, was released last week on Amazon.

The book is about what Rose calls a “generational cycle of trauma” created decades ago by state child-welfare officials.

“From the gut-wrenching reality of life inside adoption to the biological war of bipolar disorder and PTSD, this is my hunt for the truth,” Rose says. “It is a journey back through the shadows of addiction and systemic erasure to find the woman they tried to make me forget.”

Rose has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with seven years of experience in social work. She also has written two memoirs with the intention of inspiring others to find purpose in life.

Outside of her work, Rose enjoys yoga, music, and travel.

Her author bio says she “writes to inspire those trapped in the same systems she escaped, proving that while a life can be redacted, the soul remains unerasable.”