Former Foster Youth Works on Hill to Change Child Welfare System

These days, Marchelle Roberts is a confident 22-year-old who smiles easily and talks excitedly about her plans for the future.

But the rising senior at Philadelphia’s Temple University had to travel a long and difficult road to get to where she is today.

Roberts was taken away from her parents when she was 7 years old. She still remembers vividly the day that long journey began, when a woman she had never seen before and hasn’t seen since came in a car to get her and her brother Shawn, who was 3 or 4 years old.

“It was pretty scary for me,” Roberts said. “My brother and I were in the back with a bag full of both of our belongings. My biological mother got out of the car and the lady kept driving, and she drove to someone else’s house and she told us we’d be staying there, and she left. And so nobody really explained to me what foster care was, or what being taken away from your parents meant, or how long it would be for or why it happened.”

Read the full story on CNN here.