I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (66 page)

The Department of Human and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) is now the Department of Children and Families (DCF) and they oversee child welfare in the state. However, community based care agencies (CBCs) are contracted to run foster care, adoptions, and other services. There are pros and cons to this arrangement, but in our district it has led to more progressive practices and fewer children languishing in foster care.

When the first edition of this book was published, I had no idea where my guardian journey would take me or the degree it would intersect with my family.

After both our sons were in college, my husband, Philip, and I stared at each other across the dinner table and admitted that we had an acute case of empty nest syndrome. We talked about the many children I’d helped find adoptive homes as a guardian—the Colby sisters were the beginning of a trend in my cases—and I knew there were many other young people with whom we could share our home and hearts. However we didn’t act on our altruistic impulse until we were shocked into changing our life.

The day was dazzling. We were flying in our small private plane to our older son’s graduation from Princeton. Our younger son was in the rear and Philip was at the controls. After an uneventful trip, we soared over the glinting waters of Delaware Bay and descended for a landing in Trenton, New Jersey. Suddenly there was a loud cracking sound. The engine stopped. No airports were in sight. We headed for the nearest field, plowed through a fence, spun around into another field and stopped. Miraculously we were unscathed. Philip hugged me and said, “I guess there is something we’re meant to do.”

Two weeks later we enrolled in the foster and adoptive parent training course, went through the home study, and had our background checked thoroughly. A friend told us about an eleven-year-old foster girl in a nearby county. Eventually we found out her name was Ashley and she had a wonderful guardian handling her complex case. Ashley’s story is so remarkable that she wrote her own book,
Three Little Words
, which became a
New York Times
bestseller. (
www.rhodescourter.com
)

Being a guardian is a lot different from being an adoptive parent, especially to a child who lived in thirteen homes including two institutions prior to coming to us. Today Ashley Rhodes-Courter is an honors college graduate, an author, motivational speaker, and young married woman. Her accomplishments have been well documented in the media and we are her very proud parents. Our most fervent wish is that our love and attention have remediated her sufficiently that she will be able to parent her own children successfully.

Oh, and she and her husband are both Guardians ad Litem!

R
eaders continue to ask what happened to the various children and families featured in
I Speak for This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate
. Just the fact that they care—as I still do—speaks to the humanity in all of us. Updates will continuously be made to the electronic versions of this book, with new chapters—like “Lolita II”—added from time to time.

I am still an active Guardian ad Litem in my Florida community. Since 1989 I’ve had cases continuously, with only a month or two off due to travel. As I write, I am working for three children under age five with a mother who has left the state and three different fathers—including one in prison. Hopefully they will all end up with the same permanent family. There are many complications that will require creative solutions, yet I am not discouraged.

Each guardian case begins with enormous upheaval and crisis for the children and their families. Adults sometimes forget a very basic premise of child development. We often expect children to think as adults do but suppose that they feel differently. In fact, the opposite is true. As children’s minds are forming, they do not process ideas in logical ways. We cannot expect them to sit still just because we say to or to make reasonable requests or thoughtful decisions. On the other hand, even infants are upset when they hear a voice raised in anger. If we told another adult that their actions were “stupid” or shouted for compliance, we would offend them, and yet we don’t allow children to react in the same way. Young people should receive the same courtesy we extend to honored business associates, treasured friends, and respected relatives. We need to allow for their immaturity in behavior while being loving, supportive, and kind. My most important role as a Guardian ad Litem is to interpret this truth to both the children as well as to their assigned caretakers.

Today with so many of my guardian children’s lives in flux, I am asked whether I think I made a difference in the long run. I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. I made a difference on some days. I arranged a dentist appointment or got them into a special education class or located their parent when nobody else had bothered to do so. I listened to their complaints or held their hand when nobody else was around. I told them over and over that they were worth something. I forgave their faults and applauded their achievements. These children are neither failures nor successes, they are evolving human beings.

And no matter what they become, my greatest hope is that someday, somehow, somewhere each one will remember to renew the license to care for another person in need and pass the legacy on.

The heyday of a woman’s life is … when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.

—E
LIZABETH
C
ADY
S
TANTON

9
How to Contribute

The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity

—THOMAS CARLYLE

H
AVE YOU EVER LOOKED UP FROM A NEWSPAPER AND
wondered, “What can I do to help?” If so, there are several national and international organizations, listed below, that promote child advocacy and children’s rights. If you are interested in becoming a Guardian ad Litem or wish to advocate for children in a capacity that bests suits your interests, abilities, location, and time, your participation will be welcomed. Some commitments involve contact with children and the courts, others are more political in nature, but all need concerned citizens and active volunteers to promote the cause of children. Many states use volunteers in court while others engage attorneys as the Guardian ad Litem with volunteers assisting them. Programs are supervised through varied agencies including state judiciary systems, the executive branch, public defender’s offices, or are independent.

National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association (CASA)

www.casaforchildren.org

www.nationalcasa.org

North Tower, Suite 500

100 W. Harrison Street

Seattle, WA 98118

(800) 628-3233

\

The mission of the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association, together with its state and local members, is to support and promote court-appointed volunteer advocacy for abused and neglected children so that they can thrive in safe, permanent homes. National CASA and its network of over 1,000 local community program offices support volunteers serving children. The role of local CASA programs is to recruit, train and support volunteers in their work with abused children.

Children’s Defense Fund

www.childrensdefense.org

25 E Street NW

Washington, DC 20001

(202) 628-8787

The Children’s Defense Fund’s mission is to ensure every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. It provides a strong, effective and independent voice for all the children of America who cannot vote, lobby or speak for themselves.

Child Welfare League of America

www.childrensdefense.org

25 E Street NW

Washington, DC 20001

(800) 233-1200

The Child Welfare League of America is a coalition of hundreds of private and public agencies serving vulnerable children and families since 1920. Their expertise, leadership and innovation on policies, programs, and practices help improve the lives of millions of children in all 50 states.

Children’s Rights

www.childrensrights.org

330 Seventh Avenue, 4
^th
Floor

New York, NY 10001

(212) 683-2210

Children’s Rights is a national advocacy group working to reform failing child welfare systems on behalf of hundreds of thousands of abused and neglected children who depend on them for protection and care. They have been fighting to enshrine in the law of the land every child’s right to be protected from abuse and neglect and to grow up in a safe, stable, permanent home. They have won landmark victories and brought about sweeping improvements in the lives of abused and neglected children in more than a dozen states.

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption

www.davethomasfoundation.org

524 Metro Place North, Suite 220

Dublin, Ohio 43017

(800) 275-3832

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption exists to be an agent of change in the lives of children in North America waiting to be adopted out of foster care and in the attitudes of adults who, either unknowingly or helplessly, allow children to linger in government systems without the birthright of every child—a safe, loving and permanent family.

Defense for Children International

www.defenceforchildren.org

Rue de Varembé, 1 Case Postale 88

Geneva 20, Switzerland

The Defense for Children International promotes and protects the rights of the child and helped draft the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force in 1990.

The National Committee for the Rights of the Child (NCRC)

www.crin.org

2530 Riva Road, Suite LL3

Annapolis, MD 21401

(410) 224-8764

The National Committee for the Rights of the Child works to monitor and implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child nationally in the USA.

North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC)

www.nacac.org

970 Raymond Avenue, Suite 106

St. Paul, MN 55114

(651) 644-3036

In North America, tens of thousands of children cannot remain with their birth families. These children—once labeled unadoptable or hard to place—are mostly school-aged. Some are brothers and sisters who must be placed together. Some are drug-exposed or medically fragile. Most have physical, mental, or emotional difficulties. Many are children of color. All need loving families. The North American Council on Adoptable Children is committed to meeting the needs of waiting children and the families who adopt them.

Places to make a difference in your own community:

CASA/Guardian ad Litem

Big Brothers, Big Sisters

Boys and Girls Clubs

Mentoring

Ys

School volunteers

Library volunteers

Foster parenting

Adoption of children from foster care system

And so much more!