Parenting one day at a time
Rebecca McGregor will never forget the day her toddler son was returned to her. In fact, the only dates that carry equal or greater emotional weight for her are the day he was born and the day he was taken from her.
McGregor celebrated January 7, 2000, with more pomp and circumstance than her birthday. That is the day she became clean and sober, the day her journey began toward recovery and toward recovering her life, her son, and her ability to care for him.
At first, she didn’t understand. She couldn’t see that removing her child from his home and his mother was in his best interest — and hers. She wasn’t, admittedly, in a position to see things clearly.
“Mothers struggle very much,” McGregor says. “If you have a substance abuse problem, you don’t want to deal with the pain of the real world, so you keep using to soften the edges or avoid it altogether. And it only gets worse. You think you’re doing a good job, but you’re not. You just can’t see that. Today, I know how to put my child’s life first, to look to what’s in the best interest of my child.”
Along her road to recovery, McGregor took parenting classes through the Salinas Adult School. The school is working in collaboration with the Monterey County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and the Cabrillo Family Resource Center to provide educational services to a wider audience.
“CAPC provides forums for interagency cooperation and coordination in the prevention, detection, treatment, and legal processing of child abuse cases,” says David Maradei, director of Monterey County’s CAPC. “We also are here to promote public awareness of the abuse and neglect of children, and the resources available for intervention and treatment.”
To this end, Community Hospital has contributed between $1,000 and $1,500 a year to CAPC since 1998 in support of its “Raising Healthy Families Conference,” an annual bilingual forum designed to work with parents and families in providing tools for better, more effective parenting.
McGregor now works professionally for two programs that guided her along her own recovery path. McStart, the Monterey County Screening Team for Assessment, Referral and Treatment, assesses drug-exposed children and then refers them for treatment. The Mentoring Moms program, which she now runs, serves women who have had their children removed from the home by Child Protective Services for reasons such as drug abuse or domestic violence. Mentoring Moms helps them work through the system to get their children back.
“Through Mentoring Moms,” she says, “I meet with women in court right after their children have been taken away. I tell them I’ve been there and that I can help them navigate the system. Some mothers aren’t ready for me right away, but after awhile we connect.” 