Being a CASA Volunteer - Looking Back at 5 Years

Today I'm excited to celebrate the graduation of my 2nd CASA foster youth from high school - with mostly As no less! So proud of her and all she's overcome.

In honor of this milestone, I wanted to share some of my experience serving as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (a “CASA”) over the past 5 years I’ve been a CASA volunteer in hopes it may help anyone who is considering volunteering.

And with the focus on diversity, inclusion and equity, I encourage everyone to consider foster youth as a group needing support. I've seen enough resilience from foster youth to know they can and will succeed with the right support and opportunities.

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After serving as a Big Sister volunteer through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program over 17 years in Chicago, Houston and Denver, when my 4th little sister graduated high school, I decided to focus my volunteer efforts in a different direction. So in 2016, I completed the 40 training hours to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and selected my first case with two teenagers, hoping my years as a Big Sister mentor had prepared me for the role.

The case was a dependency and neglect matter for a 13 year old girl and her 16 year old brother who were taken into custody after a physical abuse incident. She’s now 18 and graduating high school, and her brother is now 22 and finding his place in the world after officially emancipating from the Denver Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) system last year. So far in her 5 years in foster care, she has moved between 11 different group home placements not counting stays in a handful of treatment hospitals and centers for temporary admissions. Her brother survived 5 different group facility placements (not including similar temporary admissions for extra care), including long-term stays at residential child care treatment facilities where youth are not allowed to leave the building without special permission. Unfortunately these youth have no family in Colorado where they were taken into custody while living homeless in a van so placement options were limited (we did do an ICPC with family out of state a few years into the case but that failed for various reasons). But not once have they been placed in a home with a mother and father or core family unit structure in their time in foster care in Colorado.

It's sure been an emotional roller coaster serving as their CASA. To start, you're an unpaid volunteer, but because you're so active on the case many assume you're a paid member from DHHS since they see you more than the caseworker or attorney who are often overworked. Early on, I faced family members blaming me for DHHS not doing more for the youth, or the parents blaming me for the youth being in foster care, since they didn't understand I'm a volunteer there to help advocate for the best interests of the youth. I shed many tears wondering how I could actually do good when the system is so very broken and underfunded. 

But months later, as people realized I was there to help and the main person being responsive and able to serve as an effective middle-man with the DHHS caseworker and others, the out-of-state family apologized, began calling me an angel and thanking me for every update. 

Don’t get me wrong – these youth have caseworkers, attorneys, and therapists appointed and provided by the system who strive daily for what is best for the youth. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of the most amazing attorneys, caseworkers, and therapists around (and also the worst who set the case back in my opinion), but those saints are underpaid, overworked, emotionally and physically exhausted, and often consumed trying to put out fires on their many dozens of cases each day. That means youth who aren’t attempting suicide, hurting others or running away often receive minimal attention. And given the strains of their jobs, many professionals move jobs so each of my youth have worked with dozens of new professionals during their case that have to catch up and form new relationships. Thus the importance of a CASA.

And just when things seem to be improving for the youth, the next visit I find them so depressed, angry, frustrated or exhausted that it seems quite likely prison could be a next stop. But because I know of the deep trauma and all they’ve been through and still face, I realize I wouldn’t be disappointed in them in the least if that happens since I doubt I’d have lasted so long myself. It's easy to think you'd pick yourself up by your boot straps if in their shoes when you're an outsider, but after witnessing such long and hard struggles there's a different perspective. 

Then on the next visit, even if they are down and unmotivated when I arrive, by the end of the meeting I’ve been able to share my personal struggles and ideas for facing their challenges, and feel inspired and believe all will be well in the world since they’re motivated to tackle life and come out on top. That's the piece that keeps me motivated - witnessing how without mentors and friends they can spiral downward but if I and their core team of therapists and DHHS staff simply check in consistently and frequently and show we care and are there to support and motivate, they rise up. 

In the end, being a CASA is a 100% humbling and gratitude building exercise. It’s impossible to be too stressed about irrational transaction counterparties or closing deadlines at work, or airlines losing your luggage, when your youth are working day after day to overcome horrendous trauma and survive. 

It was eye opening to witness them each applying for fast food job after job. For the boy, rejection came in part due to sealed records appearing on a background check. Little do potential employers know it may have been for an assault ticket issued following a scuffle under the basketball hoop at the group home where he had been bullied month after month but shared a room with multiple other kids so couldn’t get a moment of privacy. When he finally snapped and punched his bullying peer during a heated basketball game, the group home staff calls the cops to avoid liability for the facility when most parents would send their kids to their rooms, avoiding any charges.

How much I've begun learning about how chronic abuse, neglect and trauma impact and interrupt brain development and behavior. Science shows that these can all have significant impacts on the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus region, and amygdala, and make it difficult for youth to self-regulate or save themselves from quickly spiraling downward with what the rest of us may deem small triggers or stressors. 

And then there's the deep desire to be loved, even by parents who abused and rejected you. I'm in awe by the strength the youth have to again and again put themselves out there to open communication with abusive or neglectful parents, hoping deep down to find love or some sort of acceptance that’s been missing their whole life, only to be blamed for everything wrong in the parents’ lives or told it’s their own fault they're in foster care. What a gut punch to the moon and back.  Thankfully therapists in the system are adept at finding ways for healing sessions to open doors for healthy communication and opportunity.

As a CASA I've also taken cases with younger youth and had the pleasure of witnessing multiple family members vying for custody and wanting to love and support younger children. One case I served on with a 5 and 7 year old closed within a year with the youth supported by a parent and inlaws that all wanted what is best. But teens in the system face greater challenges in my experience with fewer options for adoption or true home environments so graduating high school and holding a job is a huge accomplishment.

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts and experience to date as I look back. If you're interested in learning more, please visit https://nationalcasagal.org/advocate-for-children/be-a-casa-volunteer/ or reach out and I'm happy to share more about being a CASA. 

They say that at-risk youth who make it have one common denominator – they had someone who cared about them consistently in their life.