The Waltersons seemed on the way to a happy ending with their adopted son.
Cameron had been through a lot in the six years he lived before meeting his family.
Born addicted to heroin and cocaine, he suffered every type of abuse in more than a dozen foster homes that followed, his mother says.
There were two failed adoptions and a push to place him in a group home, an unusual move for someone so young.
Then he happened to meet the Waltersons.
The Egg Harbor Township family of four had no intentions of adopting or even fostering when they met the troubled boy with a talent for sports and an intelligence that surpassed his years.
Friends were fostering him and reached out to the Waltersons' older daughter, Lainey, now in the nursing program at Iona University.
The family fell in love with Cameron, explains Karen Walterson.
They decided to have a brother join their two daughters, including Sienna, now a senior at Egg Harbor Township High School.
It took a fight. The Division of Child Protection and Permanency was not helpful in Cameron getting a family, she says.
When they finally adopted him at 7, Cameron chose to take the family name and also changed his middle name.
Christian is the younger brother he has not been able to see due to a family issue, his mother says.
“If I can’t be with him, at least I’ll have a piece of him with me,” Cameron Christian Walterson told his new mother.
His younger sister — born behind a Galloway Township hotel in 2019 to their drug-addicted mother — joined the family as well. Cameron even spoke on her behalf.
“He was highly functioning,” Walterson said.
Cameron, now 13, was in the gifted and talented program as well as excelling at sports.
Then things changed around sixth grade.
It’s known to happen in children born with drug addiction and who have suffered trauma along the way.
When a child is born addicted, they are technically in recovery for the rest of their lives, his mother explained.
“Nobody talks about that either,” she said. “His brain is damaged.”
Now the family is fighting to get him help.
They know what he needs. They even have a doctor that has found a perfect facility for Cameron.
The problem: insurance.
The family has two. Neither approves any of the facilities that special in the complex trauma treatment Cameron needs.
His mother's worries about the danger he is to both himself and their family should he be sent home too soon.
That would already have happened if not for the action of those she reached out to, she said.
Congressman Jeff Van Drew reached out directly to the insurance company and got the family some extra days in the Philadelphia facility where Cameron currently is.
But after that, the family is on their own for payment.
“Our State's/Country's Mental Healthcare System is beyond inadequate!” the family writes on the GoFundMe page. “It's failing to provide critical mental health services to keep our children and their family's safe!! Even for people that DO have health insurance!!!!!”
Meanwhile, Walterson said they will still push for the funding they believe they should be getting both from the school system and insurance.
Any money left over from the fundraising efforts will go toward helping others in their situation, possibly creating a group to address the issue and be there for others in their situation.
