Yolanda Goodwin Took In Six Young Cousins the Night Their Mom Called. Now She Has Adopted All Six, and They Call Her ‘Auntie.’

The phone call came about five years ago, and Yolanda Goodwin answered it as a mom of two with a full-time job. On the line was the mother of six of her young cousins, saying children’s services was about to take the kids. Goodwin said yes that same night, and her Northeast Ohio household went from three people to nine.

She thought it would be temporary. Instead, Goodwin, now 34, has adopted all six children so they could grow up together, according to a Heartstrings report by WKYC’s Lindsay Buckingham. The siblings still call her “Auntie,” and that is on purpose.

Six cousins, one night, one answer

The children are Goodwin’s cousins on their father’s side: Lorenzo, 13; London, 11; Harlem, 10; Royal, 9; Messiah, 8; and Prince, 5. When they arrived, Goodwin was already raising her own two children, Dariyonna, now 19, and Camari, now 12.

Goodwin works as a DSP manager, caring for adults who need help with daily living. She told WKYC that taking the children in was never meant to be forever. “My whole goal was for them to go back home with mom,” she said.

That changed when Cuyahoga County told her the placement needed to become permanent. Rather than see the six split among different homes, she adopted every one of them. Goodwin told WKYC she simply stepped up and decided the family would have to work together.

Why the kids still call her “Auntie”

Many adoption stories end with a child calling a new parent “Mom.” Goodwin chose differently. The children’s parents are part of their lives again, and Goodwin told WKYC she wanted them to keep their roles as mom and dad. So to the six siblings, she is Auntie.

One of the children told the station that Auntie cares for them the same way she would care for her own child.

The household now runs on teamwork. The older kids help the younger ones, whether that means homework or a loose shoelace, one of the children explained to WKYC.

Report card day is its own event. Goodwin keeps track of seven of them, and she told WKYC the grades are mostly A’s and B’s, “maybe a couple C’s, maybe one D.”

Why relatives often step in first

What Goodwin did has a name in child welfare: kinship care. The federal Child Welfare Information Gateway describes it as children living with relatives such as aunts, uncles, grandparents or extended family when their own home is not safe, and calls it the preferred option because it keeps family connections and reduces the trauma of separation.

Research gathered by the Grandfamilies State Law and Policy Resource Center found that children placed with relatives tend to have more stable placements and are more likely to stay with their brothers and sisters. A relationship that already exists can also soften the shock of being removed from home.

For Goodwin’s cousins, it meant waking up the next morning in a house with someone they already knew, and with each other. In practice, that meant six siblings who never had to be split up, and two older cousins, Dariyonna and Camari, who suddenly had a lot more company at the dinner table.

Hundreds of Cuyahoga County kids are still waiting

Stacy Gura, senior manager of Cuyahoga County’s Permanency Support Services Department, told WKYC that about 800 children are in the county’s permanent custody. About 500 have a plan to live permanently with relatives or with a foster parent who intends to adopt. That leaves roughly 300 still waiting.

As of Oct. 31, the county had finalized 155 adoptions this year, and another 161 children were in adoptive placements, the last step before a judge makes it official, the station reported.

Gura said a relative’s home is often the gentlest landing for a child. “It’s less traumatic and they will thrive in a loving environment,” she told WKYC.

The county’s Division of Children and Family Services says its goal is to keep children at risk of abuse or neglect protected and nurtured within a family. Its foster and adoption readiness page lists what families need, including a home safety inspection, a bed for each child, and proof that household income covers expenses. Single applicants are eligible, and the county’s recruitment department can be reached at 216-881-5775.

The same page spells out the rest. Applicants must live in Cuyahoga County, though current county-licensed foster parents are an exception. Every adult in the home is fingerprinted, every household member needs a doctor’s statement, and the county asks that applicants have been in their current marital or relationship status for at least 12 months. Same-sex children can share a bedroom, and children of different sexes can share only until age 5.

Her advice for anyone thinking about fostering

When WKYC asked what she would tell someone thinking about fostering, Goodwin kept it simple: a good heart, she said, will carry a foster parent over mountains they never imagined climbing, as long as they remember it is “a kid in need.”

Her reason for doing it fits in one sentence. “My purpose is to make sure that they have enough love to be able to spread the love,” Goodwin said.

Other families have made similar choices this month, including a Texas aunt and uncle who adopted their 19-month-old niece Meadow and a Florida foster mom who adopted sisters Ana and Payton while still fostering the boy they call their brother.

For six kids in Northeast Ohio, the answer to one late-night phone call turned into a permanent home, with their siblings beside them and their parents still in the picture.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Shixart1985 – CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons