That Time I Volunteered for CASA, and What I Learned

From 2003-2005, I was a court appointed special advocate, or CASA, for Montgomery County, MD. I was given one client, and I spent two years with him before the case was closed.

When I first met him, he was living in a group home, away from his mother as the living conditions at her house weren’t deemed suitable by the county, to put it nicely.

My role wasn’t to be a Big Brother or mentor, but someone to make sure the kid was getting the required care, or that bad things weren’t happening. Being a CASA pretty much means you’re the “eyes and ears of the court.” I knew about issues or tragedies that could happen to kids in the system, where quick check-ins could stop abuse or even death, so I felt it was the least I could do at the time.

I tried to visit him at least weekly. I’d attend monthly meetings with his therapist and psychiatrist, meet up with his teachers, his social worker, his group home counselors, and anyone else who was supposed to be involved in his life.

I met with his mother, too. She clearly had problems. I couldn’t read into everything that was going on, but suspected a lot more than I ever would’ve been told. She definitely cared for her son, and I watched her burst into tears when a judge removed him from her home yet again, but she clearly didn’t have a basic understanding of how to properly parent.

As for my relationship with the child, whom I first met when he was 15, I’m fairly confident it was good. Though I wasn’t required to do these things, I did take him out to get away from his group home. I’d take him to the movies, or to the park, and I even took him to see Allen Iverson’s ‘celebrity softball game.’ I could tell for sure that in his heart, he was a good person who was dealt a bad hand in life. His major struggles at the time were getting in trouble at home and in school. None of this was out of the ordinary for kids, let alone kids in the system.

Once or twice he flipped out about something and called me because he needed someone to talk to, but overall, he wasn’t the type of person who got sentimental as he moved from group home to group home. He was too cool for that.

I remember at one point, we had an emergency meeting at his school about his behavior. I counted about a dozen people sitting around, teachers, counselors, his social worker, etc., all of whom were involved in his life in one way or another, giving their input. There was no shortage of resources put into this one child.

While I can’t say everything I saw in the system was perfect (one group home counselor was clearly unqualified to work with children, and I was relieved to hear he was eventually fired), I know this kid got the necessary training and encouragement that had helped so many others overcome these disadvantages in their upbringing (I met several, as they became CASAs themselves). Funded by the county and state, he was given far more resources than his mother ever could have offered.

When he was 17, the judge closed the case. It wasn’t because everything in his life was suddenly perfect, but he was aging out of the system and there was only so much it could do. He absolutely wasn’t ready to be turned over to the wolves (aka everyday life) but what choice was there, really? The county could only do so much. At some point, people need to stand on their own two feet.

As I said before, he wasn’t a sentimental person. After the judge made the ruling, and we exited the courthouse, I bid him farewell.

Immediately, his hand shot up and he waved, before he gathered his composure and put his hand down. After all, he was too cool for goodbyes, especially with system-related folks who came and went from his life before that.

That split-second instinctive gesture told me everything, as I knew I at least made a positive impression on him.

It’s been ten years. Since then I have no idea what has happened to him, as he’s out of my jurisdiction. All I can do is hope he followed through with the things he was taught, benefited from the resources he was given, and became a good, successful citizen. Watching it all unfold in two critical years of his life, despite the challenges, there simply can’t be a good excuse for things to have turned out any other way.

But there are excuses. Any time someone falls short of success and happiness, it’s far easier to blame someone else than to look inward. This attitude is reinforced by ‘educated’ activists, commentators, journalists, politicians or even ordinary ‘well-meaning’ citizens who insist that certain people are constant victims and therefore can’t possibly get ahead. They instead blame every discernible reason they can conjure. The message I hear is that disadvantaged people’s well being isn’t within their hands and others must change to accommodate them – a blatant insult to anyone who overcame these obstacles. While excessive hardships are certainly a reality sometimes, all in similar situations don’t necessarily finish in the same spot. The U.S. child welfare system, or welfare systems in general, while never perfect, can’t truly help people without extraordinary effort by the clients to make the best of the resources.

I can’t help but think that these excuse-makers are getting through to those very folks, giving them the arguments needed to justify their failures while simultaneously dismissing the positive services or influences that were delivered to them via the tax payers. Highly-paid careers exist simply to shout these excuses. For these reasons, I’m scared to know what’s become of the child I was appointed to advocate for as a member of CASA.