FW: [VeganWay] Family Needs Help - Letters Needed

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Cats2Save [Cats2Save]Tuesday, 9 January 2001 07:50undisclosed-recipients:;[VeganWay] Family Needs Help - Letters NeededI'm not including sample letter with this b/c this is something where every letter needs to be from personal experience. Cross-posted with permissionCOPIED MESSAGEkathy D lee_quan_2000Subject: Support For My Family!? This may be a rather strange way of introducing myself but I think it will give you the heart-and-soul view of my family the quickest. We have a situation in which I could use the help of as many of your members as feel compelled to help. My name is Kathy and my husband is John. We have five special needs kids that we have been raising for 21 yrs. Over the last few years we discovered the tremendous healing effects of bonding with animals in our case, especially turtles and CATS!!! The effect was so profound it was amazing to our psychiatrist. The three older, biological kids have done amazingly well. They are combinations of ADHD, manic depression, anxiety disorder, and learning disabilities. They have discovered that holding the cats calms and soothes them, helps them focus better, etc.... The two younger, adopted kids are Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, cocaine-exposed, emotional trauma, and neuro/brain damaged. The cats have helped them learn to touch, to bond, to self-soothe, and to nurture. We adopted all of our cats from shelters or rescues and have nurtured them and loved them and made them beloved parts of our family! We just had a run-in with the Department of Children and Family Services who FORCED us to give up all of our turtles and cats or our kids could not return back home!! Our youngest son is a kidney patient from the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the two girls have asthma. DCFS claims that the animals were a danger to the children's health and have charged us with environmental neglect which is why we had to give them up. I have documented PROOF from our vet and from our children's doctors that the animals never had any effect on the kids health except for the therapeutic/emotional benefits!!! The children and I are grieving horribly without our beloved "family members" and the children have begun regressing at an accelerated rate. This is a disastrous loss for our family! We are calling for an appeal to deal with these charges so that we may either get our original animals back (if possible) or at least start over with new animals that desperately need homes. As is, we have been told that we can never have pets again and I' not even sure that's legal!!? Here is my plea: Would any of you be willing to write letters addressing the healing benefits of pets and the serious bonding that takes place? Also, the effects of abruptly having a precious "family member" stripped away for no harmful reason? I want to add these letters to my vet's and doctor's letters to show that this was not only unnecessary but actually harmful.I have to do something to save my kids' hearts and restore our home. If any of you feel compelled to help, you can reach us at:Kathy Dolan702 W. ThomasWheaton, Il. 60187 Thank you for hearing me out and giving this some consideration. We want to go back to helping animals and welcoming them helping us!! END COPIED MESSAGE