A parent’s look inside: Child Crisis Arizona shelter

Theblonde two-year-old toddler hugs his 7-year-oldbrother at Child Crisis on Feb. 29, 2016. The 2-year-old just arrived at the shelter, but his older brother had been there for several weeks.

For five months I was granted unprecedented access to document the lives of the nearly 30 children that live in the Child Crisis Arizona shelter in Phoenix.

Child development specialist Gloria McGinty comforts the girl with the curly hair who was crying and didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning at Child Crisis on Feb. 9, 2016.

The only condition of my visual reporting was my photos and video could not reveal the identity of the children. The shelter is filled almost exclusively with just a drop in the bucket of the nearly 20,000 kids in the custody of the state, Arizona Department of Child Safety. Nearly every minute of my time there I was reminded of my own kids as I witnessed the laughs, tears and tantrums.

Child development specialist Amany Al-Sayyed, comforts an upset 5-year-old girl at Child Crisis in Phoenix on April 6, 2016. The shelter houses nearly 30 children ages zero through 8, who are primarily brought in from the Department of Child Safety. The children stay at the shelter an average of six to nine months.

During my time at Child Crisis Arizona I connected with the children, reading to them, asking them about their day and showing them the photographs I took. But like so much in these kid’s live my presence was inconsistent, something these kids are painfully accustomed to.

Child development specialist lead Relles Abeytia comforts a 5-year-old boy as he takes a nap at the Child Crisis on Jan. 28, 2016.

When I would return home from photographing at Child Crisis Arizona I would give each of my three kids hugs and kisses, something I will do for the rest of their lives. Back at the shelter there is some sadness, some happiness and a lot of waiting around for love and consistency.

Boys brush their teeth in the morning before school at Child Crisis on April 7, 2016.

This article was written by photojournalist David Wallace and originally published on azcentral.com in September of 2016.

For the full article including additional photos and video, go to http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-behind-the-lens/2016/09/15/parents-look-inside-shelter-kids-state-care/90435028/

For more of David’s work check out http://www.azcentral.com/staff/16573/david-wallace/

David Wallace has been a staff photographer for The Arizona Republic since 2006. He has covered stories dealing with the U.S. border with Mexico, wildfires including the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire that left 19 firefighters dead, the 2011 Tucson shooting that wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Mormon fundamentalism in Arizona, environmental issues on the Navajo Nation, meth addiction, inner-city education, mental health and Super Bowl XLII, among many others. David thru-hiked the entirety of the 2,650-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail from the Mexican border with California to the Canadian border with Washington in four-and-a-half months.

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