LITTLE ROCK, AR – A state lawmaker at the center of an adoption controversy has addressed the media.
Speaking at a news conference at the State Capitol Friday afternoon, Rep. Justin Harris (R-West Fork) told reporters “We were failed by DHS. We were met with nothing but hostility.”
Harris was talking about the adoption of three girls that he and his wife Marsha later had rehomed.
Rep. Harris explained he and his wife originally intended to only adopt two of the girls, but that the State Department of Human Services (DHS) required them to also adopt an older sister.
Rep. Harris said the oldest of the girls had been traumatized by previous abuses, but did not specify what those abuses were. He said she was placed in therapy and later transferred away from their home.
“Because we have degrees in child development,” Harris said, “We believed we were equipped to deal with this situation.”
Harris said he and his wife then proceeded with the adoption process and started intensive therapy for the two younger girls. He described the girls’ issues as “severe reactive attachment disorder,” adding that he took them to a therapist after one of them crushed a Harris family pet to death.
Harris then described what he said was a struggle with DHS, saying he was told they would press abandonment charges if the Harrises returned the girls. He added that DHS was of “no help.”
At some point later, the girls were turned over to Eric Francis, who Harris said had “experience with international adoptions,” as well as being familiar with the disorder noted above.
Francis was sentenced to 40 years in prison last November, in part, for raping a six-year-old girl Harris had put in his care.
Before this afternoon’s news conference, an attorney for Harris sent this statement via email:
Rep. and Mrs. Harris have suffered a severe injustice by the failure of DHS to be truthful about the circumstances surrounding this case. Ultimately, the impropriety of certain actors at DHS led to circumstances that could have been prevented and children who, like so many before them, were also failed by the system that is supposed to help them. Due to threats of possible abandonment charges, they were unable to reach out to DHS for help with children who presented a serious risk of harm to other children in their home. Upon the advice of both a psychiatrist and a pediatrician, they moved the children to the home of trusted long-time friends, who had a lot of experience with children with reactive attachment disorder. Eric Francis had formerly worked in a pre-school owned by Rep. Harris, but was unable to make his schedule work due to a demanding load at the seminary he was attending. He left work at the daycare on good terms. Rep. and Mrs. Harris are devastated about the outcome of that decision, but faced with no good option, they did the best that they knew how.
Tune in tonight at 5:30 for more on this story.