Orphan Pleaded to Be Adopted in 2013. Now He Shares ‘Trauma’ He Endured in Foster Care — and Finding Love with a Family

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Orphan Pleaded to Be Adopted in 2013. Now He Shares ‘Trauma’ He Endured in Foster Care — and Finding Love with a Family

In 2013, Davion Only made national headlines when he pleaded to be adopted in front of a church in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Born in a prison hospital, Davion spent most of his life in foster care, which he recounts in a powerful new documentary, The Davion Effect

Despite the hardships he faced, Davion found love with adoptive mom Connie Going and wants to help other kids by speaking out

When 13-year-old

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spoke up in front of a church service in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 2013 and asked for someone — anyone — to adopt him, he didn’t expect

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.

More than a decade later, the young man who was born in a prison hospital and spent most of his childhood in foster care is using his platform to change the system.

“No kids should have to go through this,” he tells PEOPLE.

Now 27 and a private chef, Davion is the subject of a new documentary,

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, which premiered at the Sarasota Film Festival last month. It’s a haunting look at the years he spent bouncing between foster and group homes, the abuse he experienced and the overmedication he was subjected to — a misguided effort to fix what wasn’t broken, which the doc depicts as a systemic problem for vulnerable children trying to process anger, grief and trauma.

In 2022, more than 368,000 kids were in the U.S. foster care system on any given day, according to the nonprofit

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. That same year, more than 18,000 young people aged out of the system, the majority of whom “left without the emotional and financial support necessary to succeed in life that other children can receive within a family.”

According to the

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(AAP), mental and behavioral health is the largest unmet health issue for children in foster care. And while certain kids with mental health diagnoses in the system do benefit from psychotropic medication, “coercion (both subtle and blatant) to take psychotropic medication occurs all the time,” the AAP has found.

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Davion (right) discussed his time in foster care with his mentor in the new film.

Davion says that many kids have had similar experiences to his, which is why he’s speaking out. As he’s gotten older, it’s become easier to talk about what he endured.

“My trauma and everything I’ve been through in the past, it’s a good feeling to be able to talk about it,” he says.

It also means he’s gone through the stages of grief he needs to be in a healthy way, he says: “Knowing that [the documentary] is going to help and shed light on the problems, it makes me feel 10 times better about sharing things.” (In the documentary, Davion says he was also abused by another child in his first foster home.)

His former case worker Connie Going, who has known him since he was 7,

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. She’s advocating for change, too, but her main purpose is to be there for Davion in his journey.

“You were forgotten,” she tells Davion during their joint interview with PEOPLE. She wants to help prevent kids from aging out in the system like her son.

“We have to do something, because kids are lingering,” says Connie, a single mom of four. “To have a permanently committed adult in your life in every way will make a difference.”

She supported Davion’s decision to go

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at St. Mark Missionary ******** Church in St. Petersburg in 2013.

“I know God hasn’t given up on me,” the teenager said that life-changing day. “So I’m not giving up either.”

More than 10,000 people responded to his plea, and Davion made the move from Florida to Ohio to be with an adoptive family.

In The Davion Effect, he revisits the short time he spent in that new home before he moved back. The adoption failed, but Davion says he doesn’t “blame” the family.

“I think they weren’t ready, but … they were still loving,” says Davion, who shares in the film that he struggled with anger issues when he was a teenager because of the constant change and sense of abandonment he experienced. “They accepted me. I learned a lot.”

Davion says one lesson from a pastor who baptized him has stayed with him ever since.

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‘The Davion Effect’ premiered at the Sarasota Film Festival last month.

“Remember your past, but don’t live in your past,” Davion remembers the pastor telling him. “Because if you live in your past, your past is going to define you.”

Davion has spent the past 10 years as part of the Going family, alongside Connie’s three other children: daughters Carley and Sidney and son Taylor — the latter of whom Davion met while they were both in foster care.

“The bottom line is we’re family. The love is unconditional,” Connie says. “The acceptance is unconditional.”

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Davion agrees. The name for his catering company, OG Kitchens, is a combination of his two last names.

After

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and the Culinary Institute of America, where he was on a scholarship, he dreams of teaching children in foster care cooking skills so they’re better prepared when they enter the workforce.

He doesn’t regret stepping to the front of the church 12 years ago, or the attention that followed. He used his voice and he changed his life.

“If I can go back and talk to myself, I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, do it,’ ” Davion says. “‘This is what you need to do.’ ”

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#Orphan #Pleaded #Adopted #Shares #Trauma #Endured #Foster #Care #Finding #Love #Family

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