Vladimir

Vladimir Kadeev is a 15-year-old boy in foster care, and is the first child I’ve been able to host since being licensed as a foster parent. Vladimir was originally born in Belarus, which is now separate from Russia but is actually closer to Moscow than Roman’s home in Orenburg. He has been in DSS custody for a couple of years, and it is a long strange story we won’t get into here. I was introduced to him during lunch in Monroe with his DSS social worker Judy Parker, and we spent several hours together. We got along well, so Ms. Parker set up a weekend visit, called ‘respite care,’ where the foster child takes time away from the therapeutic foster home. We had dinner at my mother’s house, worked around my house cleaning up the yard and moving stuff around. I had a rather full Saturday- Democratic precinct meetings in Ramseur, a special meeting between local Democrats and state senator Kay Hagan, who is running for US Senate. Vladimir came with me to those, and met people, and seemed to interact well. Of course we also had some meals out and trips to the mall, etc. And Sunday we spent the day at the zoo- a pretty and sunny day, comparted to Saturday. I took him back to Concord at 4PM, and I hope he’ll get to come back soon.