Second Time Foster Child by Toni Hoy

Author:Toni Hoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Chapter Eleven

THE CASA DEBACLE

WHILE DANIEL WAS AT THE group home, we received a letter from the CASA organization notifying us that the judge had assigned a CASA volunteer to be Daniel's “voice in court.” It said that she'd be scheduling an appointment to meet with us. After the second court hearing, we learned that the CASA volunteer, Judith, had already been to visit our son three times without our knowledge or consent. She had not visited us even once. Apparently, no one had told her that there was no bigger constant in this child's life than his very own parents.

Upon learning this, I called their office to ask why they had sent the letter, but had not yet set up a meeting with us. How could they advocate for our son's “interests” without ever speaking to his parents? A supervisor responded by saying that, as a rule, they never spoke with parents prior to adjudication. That it's just how it is, but since I'd called, she'd make an exception. The supervisor went on to explain in a rather abrupt tone, that they would be our child's constant and that they were not here for us, but for our son.

Judith scheduled an appointment to come to our home to meet us and learn more about the case. She handed me a CASA brochure. She did not consider that we were long time foster parents and were quite familiar with her organization. Unlike the DCFS investigator, she accepted our offer to tour the damage Daniel had done to our house. We'd not had time to fix most of it. She understood that he was aggressive; however she'd been misled about one very important fact. She relayed to us that DCFS told her we didn't want our son back. We emphasized to her that quite the opposite was true. We had made decisions which sought out very expensive treatment for our son, while keeping our family safe. As she left, it seemed we were on the same page and we resolved to work together to better the situation for our son and us. Soon after, we suspected she had a different motivation.

Excessive Rule Breaking

Judith was visiting Daniel far too often. We noticed excessive boundary bending and rule violations in the areas of legal, case management, and family.

Judith had a law degree, but to our knowledge, had never formally been employed as an attorney. She advised us to replace our attorney with one that specialized in children's law and that we should log our visits and phone calls to Daniel. This constituted giving legal advice, which she was not allowed to do within the scope of her role as a CASA volunteer. While I was mildly annoyed about this, I chose to overlook it, until she made another mistake at the first school meeting.

I arrived at the new school for Daniel's school placement meeting in the new district. His newly appointed educational surrogate sat next to me in the school lobby.

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