On June 5th, 2026, I stopped being Dr. Rupi Legha and became Tiana Flores.
Tiana is 29 years old, Asian/Pacific Islander, and a mother fighting to regain custody of her two-year-old daughter, Mia. She graduated from high school and worked several retail and service jobs before a mistake that resulted in her arrest for shoplifting. She served 14 months in jail, and during that time she was separated from her daughter.
Tiana earns $500 a week as seasonal retail staff, working part-time. She does not own a vehicle. She relies on public bus transportation. She is currently staying with a friend. Rent: $2,000. Deposit: $500. She doesn’t have any IDs. Because of her criminal record, many employers are hesitant to hire her.
Nothing About Us Without Us
Tiana is fictional — but drawn from lives that are very real. Her story was printed on a Life Card handed to me at the start of Walking in Their Shoes: The Effects of Separation — An Immersive Simulation Event. It was organized by Families Inspiring Reentry & Reunification 4 Everyone (FIR4E).
The woman who built it, Stephanie Jeffcoat, is a survivor, organizer, and now a law student. Her daughter was taken away and adopted out while she was in custody for a probation violation that stemmed from being unhoused. Two days after the simulation, on June 7th, her daughter turned another year older. It has been ten years since Stephanie saw her.
“Every time I get to share my story, it helps me heal,” she told me. “By sharing, I give people hope. My daughter will be able to see every article, every podcast, and know my mom was fighting for me.”
The Sheer Volume Was the Point
Through this simulation, individuals who make referrals to CPS or influence reunification decisions can experience the barriers, frustrations, and realities that families encounter. The goal is to build empathy, increase awareness, and encourage more informed and compassionate decision-making. Judges, social workers, attorneys, and other mandated reporters participated. The volunteers staffing the stations had all been through the system themselves.
A large room was laid out like a board game — stations representing probation check-ins, career centers, counseling services, supervised CPS visits, parenting classes, a pawn shop, plasma donation, and a wild card booth for unexpected life challenges. We moved through 30-minute rounds, racing to complete nearly ten requirements before time ran out, armed with a small supply of travel tickets and limited funds.
In round one, I went straight to probation because addressing my criminal record seemed most urgent. But when I arrived, I was told I needed an ID first. I did not have one. So I traveled to the Department of Motor Vehicles to acquire my ID — drawing from my limited funds and losing a significant amount of time and two of my six transportation tickets to complete just one of my requirements.
I then proceeded to the workstation to earn more money for housing, but had to sit for five minutes, simulating a shift while the clock ran down. By the time I looked up, I hadn’t made it to counseling, parenting classes, or housing. Worse, I hadn’t visited Mia.
I am a psychiatrist. I couldn’t figure out how to do this. And I had the extraordinary privilege of knowing that when the round ended, I got to go home. As I moved through four thirty-minute rounds, never able to complete all ten tasks, I realized this process does not work. The barriers families face are not proof of failure. They are the system’s design.
What Mandated Reporters Are Never Taught
Mandated reporters are required by law to report suspected child abuse or neglect to CPS. This includes doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, and many others. The bar is low: “reasonable suspicion.” Reporters do not need proof. And in most states, they face no legal consequences for reporting you unfairly, unjustly, or incorrectly.
As a mandated reporter, I have sat through hours of required training on related topics. It has never covered what happens to parents after their children are taken away.
Stephanie put it plainly: “This is what you have parents do — this huge checklist — and then you just send them off. It should be more of the social worker working with the parent to navigate those barriers, not just giving them a list. This is what you signed up for. And if you don’t feel like you can do the job, then get out of the way.”
“Too often, parents are labeled and misunderstood based on their circumstances in that moment. The support they may or may not receive is based on the social worker’s perception of whether or not that parent is worthy — whether that parent will get a chance to get that child back.”
We Should All Have to Walk in Their Shoes
More than half of Black children in the United States experience a CPS investigation before age eighteen, most often for poverty-related neglect, not abuse. The system was not designed for Tiana Flores to succeed. It was not designed for Stephanie Jeffcoat to succeed. And the single report a mandated reporter files in five minutes can detonate a family’s already precarious equilibrium.
Across the country, grassroots organizations are getting on the phone with families, connecting them to parenting classes and legal support, teaching them how to talk to their social worker and their attorney, and building the kind of insider knowledge that the system assumes families already have but almost never provides. FIR4E is one of them — born directly from Stephanie’s own experience of navigating this maze alone and determined to make sure no one else has to. She plans on continuing the immersive experience, starting with state legislators.
Every mandated reporter — every physician, every social worker, every teacher — who has ever picked up a phone to call CPS should be required to do what I did: spend a morning as Tiana Flores. I fumbled, ran out of time, ran short of money, and didn’t get to see my daughter. Then I drove home and moved on with my life. Tiana, Stephanie, and so many other parents do not get to do the same. That’s precisely why every mandated reporter should have to walk in their shoes.
