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ST. LOUIS — The words used to describe Shawntelle Fisher established her as a woman of accomplishment and purpose. They came in a ruling from a state officer, and they make the final decision — that Fisher will be denied an opportunity to be a foster mother — all the more confounding.

Fisher is “extraordinary” and “remarkable,” the officer from the state Department of Social Services wrote last year. “Her civic awards are unparalleled evidence of a reputable character.”

So why doesn’t the state of Missouri want Fisher to be a foster parent?

That was the subject of an appeals court hearing downtown last week, as Fisher’s attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union used different words to describe the decision of a state bureaucrat, calling it “arbitrary,” “capricious,” and an “abuse of discretion.”

The ACLU jumped to Fisher’s defense after I first wrote of her dilemma last May. Fisher, who lives in Lake Saint Louis, is the founder of SoulFisher Ministries, a nonprofit that helps educate children whose parents are, or have been, incarcerated. This is a personal quest for Fisher. She walked out of prison for the last time in November 2011. She had done a few stints, mostly on bad check charges, since she was 19.

Her life since then has been a whirlwind of education and public service. Fisher obtained an education and social work degree from the University of Missouri-ӣ����Ƶ, and graduate degrees from Washington University and Eden Theological Seminary. She became a licensed clinical social worker and a drug and alcohol abuse counselor.

Her nonprofit started an after-school program in the Riverview Gardens School District and started tutoring women at the Vandalia and Chillicothe prisons. The nonprofit became a United Way agency, got licensing from the state Department of Mental Health and started offering housing assistance to women leaving prison.

I first met Fisher not long after she left prison. We were both speaking at an event sponsored by , a nonprofit that helps people leaving prison to adjust to life on the outside, including finding housing and employment. Fisher was the star of the show — a bundle of energy who inspired people like her, who had been in prison, and those like me, who hadn’t.

One of her messages to ӣ����Ƶ is to remember that most people serving time in prison will be back in our community at some point, as the law intends. Helping them transition takes a village of like-minded folks to overcome obstacles — from landlords who won’t rent to people with convictions and businesses that won’t hire felons. Making it harder for people to succeed after prison doesn’t make us any safer. It does the opposite, by increasing homelessness and poverty.

Fisher, 54, is two years younger than me. I mention that because when I was young (just a little older than Fisher was when she first went to prison), I wrote a bad check or two. One springs to mind. I was driving my family back to Colorado after a vacation in which I had outspent my budget. We were in Kansas, about three hours from home, when I ran out of cash and gas for my car. I didn’t have a credit card. I filled my car up and wrote a check that was no good.

Back in those days, a guy could float a check for a few days. I don’t remember if it bounced or not, but I eventually got money in the bank to cover it. My family got home. I didn’t go to jail.

Fisher did, for a very long time. Now that she’s rebuilt her life, one state agency has licensed her work with foster children. But another state agency, the one that calls her accomplishments “extraordinary,” won’t let her foster a child of her own because one of her long-ago guilty pleas involved a crime of “violence.” It was a dispute with a boyfriend in 1995. She received a suspended imposition of sentence. She successfully served her probation. The crime doesn’t even show up on publicly available searches.

But it’s there, lurking in the background, where regulators can find it. And the Children’s Division testified in Fisher’s hearing that it has a hard-and-fast rule against approving for foster care anybody who has ever pleaded guilty to a crime of violence.

“The agency does not explain why it should apply this decision to Ms. Fisher,” argued ACLU attorney Jessie Steffan, on behalf of her client.

The appeals court decision will come down to whether judges believe the Children’s Division acted within its authority or, as Fisher argued, ignored the weight of evidence in her favor. Either way, there’s no doubt that Fisher’s “extraordinary” post-prison work has been recognized by the court.

“Thank you for everything you are doing,” Judge Gary M. Gaertner Jr., said from the bench after arguments were over. “Please continue your service.”

No doubt, Fisher will do that. One way or another, the foster children of ӣ����Ƶ will benefit.