Dead Babies Everywhere

Dead Babies Everywhere

Share this post

Dead Babies Everywhere
Dead Babies Everywhere
The Death of Joy King-Castro, Part 2: What Leadership Was Doing
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More

The Death of Joy King-Castro, Part 2: What Leadership Was Doing

Stories from the Inside

Belle Pfau's avatar
Belle Pfau
May 31, 2022
∙ Paid
2

Share this post

Dead Babies Everywhere
Dead Babies Everywhere
The Death of Joy King-Castro, Part 2: What Leadership Was Doing
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Share

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” ~Anne Lamott

Part 1:

Dead Babies Everywhere
The Death of Joy King-Castro, Part 1
“This all has to be for something.” ~Sheneika Brothers, Youth Affairs Specialist Joy King-Castro was a beautiful, highly intelligent 4-year-old child in foster care in Brevard County, Florida. Brevard Family Partnership, the private entity that handled every aspect of her case, is the last mandated Child Welfare organization I worked for. Her death was the last death I will ever experience as an employee of these systems. Now I am an advocate for the people chewed up and spat out by these systems. I speak for those who’ve lost so much because of the problematic people running these organizations. Their behaviors deserve the glaring eye of analysis, just as the families they serve experience…
Read more
3 years ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Belle Pfau

The last time I saw Phil Scarpelli he was jumping up and down on my Zoom screen like a monkey in a Simpsons episode. The man is tiny, so you could see his whole body moving around in the square like an episode of Hollywood Squares. He was yelling that what I was saying was a lie. I was feeling very like Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, slitting my eyes and thinking, “The lady doeth protest too much.”

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Dead Babies Everywhere to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Belle Pfau
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share

Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More