MARTINSBURG – An event on March 15 brought together community members who have struggled with Child and Protective Services (CPS) cases to share their stories and support each other.

The event was organized by Lynn Rogers, a local hair stylist who hosted the event at her salon on Raleigh Street. She went through her own CPS case, which inspired her to host the event, intending to foster a constructive dialogue and allow the community to voice its experiences and concerns about CPS.

The event is far from a blanket denunciation of CPS, according to Rogers. It shared resources to help people, such as ethics forms that they can use to help themselves in court, and even shared a shoutout to one CPS worker that Rogers called the “queen of social work.”

One attendee who shared her story but requested to remain anonymous says that in her case, she was not allowed to take in one of her grandchildren, the reason given being that she was mean to the family, which she disputes.

“I have never punished my grandchildren or anything,” she said. “They never gave a definition of ‘mean.'”

She says that throughout her case, her granddaughter was mistreated by her foster home, had lackluster legal representation and had paperwork mixed up with cases that weren’t hers. She says that if there was to be change in CPS, she’d like to see them receive more training so they can better follow their own procedures.

“I would like to see them follow their own procedures,” she said. “They say that they’re to keep the families together, especially the children, to be able not rip them apart, and that’s all they’ve done is they’ve ripped us all apart.”

Some attendees joined from hundreds of miles away, such as one from Tennessee who also requested to remain anonymous. She says that she’s been working for three years, getting her life in order to get her children back.

She says that her children were taken away after one day when she was pulled over for an issue with her car’s tags, and an officer found a single joint of marijuana in her car.

“They took my kids immediately,” she said. “With no safety plan, no caseworker to visit me to attest to the allegations or work services with me. I ended up going to rehab immediately, I did everything I was supposed to do but they just still wouldn’t give me my kids.”

Rogers is already working to organize another event for June, this time in a different venue, this time further away from Berkeley County’s Courthouse, from which Saturday’s event was just across the street.

“That way it won’t be close to here and people won’t be scared to come and tell their story,” Rogers said. “A lot of people called me, they wanted to come, but they were more scared about retaliation.”

According to Rogers, more than 80 people called into the event instead of attending in-person.

“One thing I want to put out there is that you can never be scared when you’re fighting for your daughters or your children,” Rogers said. “You have to show your face because nobody can fight for them like you.”