Inspire, Winter 2002

Oregon resident Sue Lepine Miholer ’66 had always worked with children, but it wasn’t until her own nest emptied that she decided to take a new step. In her own words, Sue describes the special children’s advocacy program which she has joined. I had worked with kids in one context or another all of my adult life— Little League team mom, day camp coordinator, summer staff at the local Boys and Girls Club, volunteer director of children’s ministries at a local church, school bus driver, etc. Children’s issues are very close to my heart. I had heard about the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program for several years. In 1996, and on my own again after a divorce and the marriages of my two sons, I decided to investigate the program further. What is CASA? CASA is a national program, administered by states and/or counties, that trains and uses volunteers to act as advocates for abused and neglected children who have become part of the court system. These kids are the neediest of the needy, and their stories are not pretty. A CASA is assigned to a child or sibling group and is “the child’s voice in court.” Even the lawyer for the children—generally court-appointed—does not get as involved with the children as the CASA does. In my first case as a CASA, I usually gathered and passed information to the children’s attorney since she didn’t have time to ferret it out herself. Training CASA training is a 40-hour curriculum which covers important information such as the court process, child development, cultural competency, and interviewing and advocacy techniques. Courtroom observations make up eight of the 40 hours. My training took place over two or three Saturdays, as well as four or five evenings. We heard from caseworkers, experts on abuse and neglect issues, attorneys, the coordinator of the Citizen Review Board in our county, and others who were very knowledgeable about how the system is supposed to work—and how it actually works! There has been wonderful federal and state legislation in place the past five or six years that puts the permanency of a child’s placement on the fast track, giving parents one year to get their act together. Court challenges, the backlog in the system, lack of personnel, and the magnitude of the problem itself have all interfered with the legislation’s full implementation. Now That You’re A CASA After being sworn in as a CASA in a court ceremony, I was assigned my first case. I spent at least ten hours at the state child welfare agency, reading through files, making copies, and talking with the caseworker to get me up to speed on the case. (Fortunately, the caseworker and I agreed on the outcome we wanted for these kids, and we had a good working relationship. That is not always the case.) Although the initial phase of being on a case is quite time-consuming, the average amount of time spent as a CASA is ten hours a month. Part of that ten hours includes a visit with the children each month. As a party to the case, I have access to all the information about the children on my case. I am allowed (and encouraged) to talk to every source possible: the children themselves, the foster parents, the caseworker, the children’s teachers and counselors, doctors, police officers, attorneys for everyone in the case, and the biological parents themselves (if they’re cooperative). Reviews In the State of Oregon, every child who is a ward of the court and in non- family foster care has his or her case reviewed by the Citizen Review Board (CRB) every six months. So, at least every six months, I prepare a report to update the court and the CRB on how the children are doing. I also appear before the review board to field questions and help map out strategies on behalf of the best interests of the children. Often there are also court dates in- between these CRB reviews for which I produce an update, as well as put in an appearance. My First Case The children in the case I was assigned in 1996 (and recently completed) were taken into foster care in February 1995 because of the atrocious sanitary conditions in their home and the fact that the mother was teaching the older children to steal. Since the situation had not been remedied by the time another child was born, that baby was taken into custody right from the hospital later that year. When the parents repeatedly failed to follow court mandates regarding their attendance at drug rehab and other programs to help them be fit parents, the State took them to court, and we were able to terminate their parental rights in 1998. Fortunately for the children, they were placed in a wonderful foster home and were officially adopted by that family in April 2002. (They were emotionally adopted by the foster/adoptive family long before that.) There were times when the foster family expressed reservations about taking on the challenge of these children, and the paper trail got convoluted at times. (continued on next page) 18 Winter 2003 Inspire 19 Similarly, Chris sees the pros and cons of urban ministry. “Fortunately, this ministry allows us to reach a marginalized segment of the population. Unfortunately, this segment is often uncomfortable receiving any new people into their lives because all others who have approached them before have, for the most part, taken advantage of them,” he observed. David summed up his view of urban outreach programs by saying, “Adopt-A-Block and ministries like it seem to me to model most effectively the ministry life of Christ— recognizing that people are not just souls and not just bodies, but both together, and, in light of this, meeting people’s deep spiritual needs along with their obvious physical needs.” Further, he added, “I think that in a fragmented and individualistic culture such as ours in America today, many people are going to look suspiciously on the church as an institution. Ministries like Adopt-A- Block circumvent that suspicion by getting into people’s lives and showing them the reality of God and the true sense of community that can be found in relationship with Him and His children. Adopt-A-Block shows that Christianity is neither an impersonal institution nor a way of individualistic self-gratification.” A CASA for Kids S u e L e p i n e M i h o l e r ’ 6 6