At Custody Hearing, Mother Chooses Drug Treatment

The mother of 3-year-old Tamika Triggs--dressed in jail-house blues with her arms cuffed behind her back--said during a custody hearing Thursday that she wants treatment for heroin addiction, a move she hopes will lead to being reunited with her daughter.

Theodora Triggs, 34, plans to immediately begin drug rehabilitation after her release from jail, where she is serving a 30-day sentence for misdemeanor child endangerment. Superior Court Judge Owen Lee Kwong of the juvenile division approved monitored visits between Triggs and Tamika.

During the hearing, Triggs was not asked to make any lengthy statements. She simply said “yes” when asked if she was willing to undergo drug treatment. The judge also ordered that the mother undergo parenting classes and random drug tests.

“We are trying to help everyone here--you and your daughter,” Judge Kwong told Triggs.

Triggs was arrested Sunday and her daughter was placed in foster care after a series in The Times, “Orphans of Addiction,” documented the kind of neglect that Tamika--along with hundreds of thousands of other children across the country--suffer at the hands of substance-abusing parents.

Triggs told The Times during the reporting of its series that her love for her daughter is often overtaken by her addiction to heroin and cocaine.

At the hearing, Kwong issued no ruling concerning Tamika’s long-term custody.

Federal law states that child protection agencies make diligent efforts to reunite a mother and a child before considering permanent foster care or adoption. Generally, children are not put up for adoption or long-term foster care until they have been in protective custody for 18 months.

Tamika’s court-appointed attorney, Lawrence A. Aufill, said he had talked with Tamika’s temporary foster mother Wednesday night and is confident she “is getting excellent care. . . . The foster mother says the girl is doing very well.”

Aufill said he had requested counseling and “play therapy” for Tamika to help her recover from the ordeal of living with a heroin-addicted mother--and the trauma of being separated from the only parent she has known. Tamika’s father is in a Colorado prison.

The judge set the mother’s next court hearing for Dec. 3.