Thank goodness for CASA

Heather shortly after her adoption.

Yesterday I went to a fundraising breakfast for Denver CASA.  CASA is an acronym for Court Appointed Special Advocates.  These advocates are lay volunteers who work with children in the child protection system.  Juvenile courts appoint these volunteers to get to know children in foster care, advocate for the children,  and in many states, the CASA volunteers do independent investigations about what is in the child’s best interest.   In many of my cases, the CASA volunteers are great advocates for my clients, and great advocates for reunification.  Sometimes reunification is not possible, and in some cases, the CASA volunteer is the only consistent adult in a foster child’s life.  The only adult who remains with the child as foster parents, caseworkers, Guardians ad Litem, and even judges rotate off their case.   I have seen amazing CASA volunteers, volunteers like the one who spends hours each week driving my client 2 hours away to visit her daughter in a long-term residential placement.  I have also seen a few CASA volunteers who have an idyllic idea of parenting, and where their involvement has worked more to break up a family, than look for ways to reunite a family.  That said, those cases are the exception rather than the rule.

A CASA volunteer certainly changed my and my oldest daughter’s life for the better.   In 1998, my oldest daughter, who is my biological niece, entered foster care after a horrific abuse incident.  After a very few short months, it became clear that she was not going to return her parents.  It was also clear that other family members were not in a position to take custody of her.  She was in Tennessee and I was in Colorado.  I tracked down her social worker and told her that I was interested in taking custody of her.  The social worker seemed nice, took my information and told me that she would get back to me.

My daughter and I both have significant disabilities.  My daughter has cri du chat syndrome, a 5th chromosome anomaly that results in severe intellectual disabilities, as well as multiple physical and sensory disabilities.  I have a congenital myopathy, and at the time used a manual and power wheelchair.  I was 26 years old, and in my final year of seminary with a stable job and stable housing.

I did not hear back from the social worker.  After a couple of weeks, I called her again.  The social worker again took my information and told me that she would get back to me.   This song and dance repeated itself every two weeks.  I would ask about my daughter, each call learning more about her history and progress.   I did disclose my disability in one of my early calls, trying to deflect concerns by describing my work with youth, my disability advocacy skills, and role-modeling for children with disabilities.   Finally, after six months, the social worker did call me.  She then took detailed information, including information about my employers, living arrangements, social history and disability.  The social worker told me that she would start the process for a homestudy.

While I practice juvenile law now, at that time, I was clueless about what my rights were, what my daughter’s rights were, and very ignorant about the process to obtain custody of a relative in foster care.    The Adoption and Safe Families Act, enacted a year before my daughter entered foster care, set forth a host of specific deadlines for placement with family members, but in my daughter’s case, those deadlines were all ignored.

When out of state relatives want to obtain custody of a child in foster care, the child’s state sends a request for homestudy to the relative’s state.   The relative’s state then completes a homestudy to investigate the appropriateness of the relative placement.  The relative’s state then sends either an approval or disapproval back to the child’s state.  After that approval is sent, the child’s state can then proceed with placing the child with the out-of-state relative.

I waited for the caseworker’s update, but heard nothing.  I patiently waited three weeks before calling her again.  She said she would check into the status and get back to me.  Again I heard nothing.  I called and was told that my paper work was lost.  I provided all the information again, and waited another two weeks.  Nothing.  I called again, was told that my paperwork had been “lost,” and I repeated the information.  While I was calling Tennessee, I was also calling Colorado authorities to see if I could speed the process up from my end.  After my paperwork had been “lost” three times, the caseworker reported that my paperwork was being sent to Tennessee authorities.

I started calling the caseworker every Tuesday morning for an update.  Each time I called, I was told that my paperwork was “in progress.”    In September, 10 months after I first contacted my daughter’s caseworker, I received an evening call from a woman who described herself as a Court Appointed Special Advocate.  She explained what a CASA is, and what her role was.  She then proceeded to tell me that the caseworker had mentioned my existence in a meeting the prior week, but was not considering me for placement because of my disability.

The CASA wanted to perform her own investigation, and spent several hours over that and the next two nights asking questions.  During our third call, she explained that she was gong to the judge to ask that my homestudy be ordered.   Finally things began to move.  Not only was my homestudy ordered, approved and returned to Tennessee in a few short weeks, but the CASA advocated for me to have a series of visits with my daughter.

I  have no doubt in  my m ind that but for my daughter’s CASA, she would not be with me.  She has done wonderfully, and is now nearly 21 years old.   I cannot imagine  my life without her, and know that both of our lives have been so much better having a family together.   We really owe our life together to that wonderful CASA volunteer who cared for my daughter, and cared about what was best for her.