On June 5, 2026, I stopped being Dr. Rupi Legha and became Tiana Flores.
Tiana is a 29-year-old Asian/Pacific Islander mother fighting to regain custody of her two-year-old daughter, Mia. He graduated from high school and worked several retail and service jobs until the mistake of being arrested for shoplifting. He spent 14 months in prison, during which time he was separated from his daughter.
Tiana earns $500 per week as a part-time seasonal retail employee. He doesn’t have a car. He uses public transport. He currently lives with a friend. Rent: $2,000. Deposit: $500. He has no identity card. Because of his criminal record, many employers hesitate to hire him.
Nothing about us without us
Tiana is fictional but very real. Her story was printed on the Life Card I was given at the start of Walking in Her Shoes: The Effects of Divorce – 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 law student. While her daughter was in custody, she was taken away and adopted for violating her probation due to a lack of housing. Two days after the simulation, on June 7, her daughter turned another year old. It had been ten years since Stephanie had seen him.
“Every time I share my story, it helps me heal,” she told me. “By sharing, I give people hope. My daughter can see every article, every podcast, and she knows that my mom fought for me.”
Exact size was an important point
Through this simulation, individuals applying to CPS or influencing reunification decisions can experience the obstacles, frustrations, and realities that families face. The goal is to develop empathy, raise awareness, and encourage greater awareness and empathy decision making. Judges, social workers, lawyers and other authorized reporters participated. All volunteers working at the stations have passed the system.
The vast room was laid out like a board game—stations showing how to pass the test, career centers, counseling services, supervised CPS visits, parenthood classes, a pawn shop, a wild card booth for plasma donations and unexpected life challenges. Armed with a small amount of travel tickets and limited funds, we raced through 30-minute rounds to complete about ten requirements before time ran out.
In the first round I was tested directly because it seemed necessary to refer to my criminal record. But when I arrived, I was told that I needed an ID first. I didn’t have one. So I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get my ID – wasting a lot of my time and two out of six traffic tickets on my one request, using my limited funds.
Then I went to the workstation to earn more money for housing, but I had to sit for five minutes, simulating a shift when the clock stopped working. When I looked up, I couldn’t do counseling, tutoring, or housing. Worst of all, I hadn’t been to Miya.
I am a psychiatrist. I couldn’t figure out how to do it. And I had the wonderful privilege of knowing that when the round was over, I had to go home. When I went through four thirty-minute rounds and never managed to complete the ten tasks, I realized this process wasn’t working. The obstacles families face are not proof of failure. They are the design of the system.
What mandated reporters are not taught
By law, mandated reporters are required to report child abuse or neglect to CPS. This includes doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers and others. The bar is low: “reasonable doubt.” Journalists don’t need proof. In most states, they face no legal consequences for giving you false, unfair, or misleading information.
As a certified reporter, I have completed several hours of required training on relevant topics. It never covered what happens to parents after their children are taken away.
Stephanie put it bluntly: “That’s what your parents do—it’s a big checklist—and then you send them off. There needs to be more of a social worker working with parents to navigate those obstacles, not just giving them a list. It’s what you sign up for. And if you don’t feel like you can do the job, walk away.”
“Parents are often labeled and misunderstood based on their circumstances at the time. The support they may or may not receive is based on the social worker’s judgment of whether or not the parent is worthy – whether or not the parent will be able to get their child back.”
We all need to walk in their shoes
More than that half of black children In the United States, children under the age of eighteen undergo CPS investigations, often for poverty-related neglect rather than abuse. Tiana Tiana Flores was not destined to succeed. It wasn’t designed for Stephanie Jeffcoat to succeed. A single report submitted by a reporter within five minutes can explode the already fragile balance in the family.
Across the country, grassroots organizations are contacting families by phone, connecting them with parenting classes and legal support, teaching them how to talk to a social worker and their lawyer, and building insider knowledge of the system that families already have but almost never give. FIR4E is one of them, born out of Stephanie’s experience navigating this maze alone and determined to make sure no one else had to. He plans to continue his deep experience, starting with state legislators.
Every mandated reporter—every doctor, every social worker, every teacher—who picked up the phone to call CPS—should do what I did: spend the morning as Tiana Flores. Distracted, running out of time, running out of money, I couldn’t see my daughter. Then I went home and got on with my life. Tiana, Stephanie, and many other parents can’t do the same. This is why every mandated reporter must walk in their shoes.
