By Steve Keenan, The Register-Herald
BECKLEY — Shayla Carpenter’s past situation still brings her to tears at times.
But, she now has many more reasons to smile as she moves forward in a new life bolstered by her recent participation in the Raleigh County Family Treatment Court.
Carpenter, of Beckley, will be among the five treatment court participants who will be recognized during a special graduation ceremony at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 13, in the WVU Tech-Neville Auditorium at 410 Neville Street. During the event, Circuit Judge Andrew Dimlich, who presides over the family treatment court in Raleigh, will honor the “perseverance, transformation and resilience of the participants who committed themselves to healing and rebuilding their families,” according to an event press release. It will mark the fourth graduation for the RCFTC since its inception in 2023.
After drug use once steered her down the wrong path and had her facing a potentially bleak future, Carpenter says she has since righted her path under the guidance of the family treatment court, in which she enrolled last August.
“Me and my husband were both homeless and we had our kids with us and we had to give them to my mother-in-law,” Carpenter said Thursday. “But, I was also pregnant at the time, and whenever I had my daughter she was born with — this makes me want to cry — she was born addicted to fentanyl.
