"Before my case, there was not a Safety Net," she said, referring to the group set up by the Utah and Arizona Attorneys General to combat abuse and neglect while also encouraging dialogue between polygamous communities and government.

"Before my case, there were not any therapy groups that focused on our particular family lifestyle for people to go to. There was not the level of communication there is now between the different groups. I've seen a lot change because of what I feel is a direct or indirect result of my case."

In that sense, it's been a good thing, Foster said.

"On a personal level, our family is forever destroyed. We are two people short from a whole family. We will never, ever be the same."

Kingston and Foster relinquished their parental rights for their two teenage daughters. The girls were adopted and Foster said she has not spoken to them since.

As Foster talks, the sound of her other children can be heard playing in the background.

"Some of them will have permanent scars from that," she said of the custody battle. "Some have clingy issues. Others have anger issues. It'll just randomly surface and we'll have to work through it all again."

John Daniel Kingston, she said, is a different person.

Members of Utah's polygamist communities have met with child protection workers in an educational outreach setting. Nichols said she posed a tough question to them.

"You decided that the polygamy laws are such that you're not going to abide by them and you're going to break that law. Well, what other laws do you think you don't have to conform to?" she said. "To selectively choose which laws you're going to conform to is not the way our society functions."

Asked if she believes progress has been made in how the system works with polygamist communities, Nichols pauses and sighs.

"I know that they become more cognizant, because they educate themselves: 'This is what the state's going to do if you do this.' Well, we don't see the cases that don't go to the hospitals. We don't see the cases that don't get reported to the police. There's so much that we don't see, that because they are in their own closed communities, it doesn't go reported," she said.

Texas

The raid on the FLDS Church's YFZ Ranch shocked Foster, but she has some advice for the FLDS families.

"Don't let them walk over you," she said. "They're going to keep pushing you until you break or you push back."