On March 22nd Woodland's Daily Democrat reported that the Yolo County Board of Supervisors agreed to form a subcommittee to look into drafting policies for our county’s child welfare department. I have an alternative, cost-effective recommendation that already exists and welcomes robust county and community support to increase its capacity.
Yolo County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) recruits, screens, trains and supports volunteer advocates who are appointed by the dependency court judge to advocate for a child in the foster care system. Our CASA volunteers’ exclusive task is to advocate for the best interests of the child they represent. CASAs meet with their child on a weekly basis and speak with all of the other adults in the child’s life – social worker, foster parent, teacher, attorney, even physician and therapist. As a result of the strong relationship they develop with their child, and the information they are able to gather from these other parties, the CASA volunteer is able to report first-hand critical information about how the child is doing and what services or supports he or she may still need to the dependency court judge. In tandem, the CASA advocate is providing perspective on the child’s well-being outside of court, regularly reaching out to social workers, the child’s attorney, teachers and caregivers to champion for supports to help each child thrive. The advocacy work that Yolo County CASA performs on behalf of foster children is ongoing and frequent throughout the volunteers’ appointment to work with their child. In fact, the CASA is often the only consistent voice and presence that foster children have throughout dependency proceedings.
It is hard to imagine a system more complex and with more at stake than the dependency system, where a decision has been made to remove a child from his or her home and family out of concern for that child’s safety. Because of the monumental gravity of this decision, the law states that every effort must be made to reunify the child with their family of origin when it is possible to do so safely. Reasonable people can and will disagree on where that line lies, which is why our legal system has given ultimate authority over making that decision to a judge, who understands the legal requirements and is provided with multiple viewpoints to make that decision. A healthy system can and should accept multiple viewpoints and challenges while still functioning to maintain the rights of each party involved, keeping the best interests of the child at the forefront.
Having a CASA volunteer appointed to each child in the dependency system ensures that multiple viewpoints are brought to the judge. For example, CASA volunteers often make recommendations to the court that support the recommendations of the child welfare social worker, but sometimes are in disagreement. In this way, the CASA is able to provide a unique perspective based wholly on the best interests of the child. And when a CASA is in disagreement, Yolo County CASA has trained them to provide a challenge or alternative viewpoint that is healthy for the system as a whole. Yolo County CASA works hard to maintain professional, collaborative relationships with every party in the system because when we work to build that trust and stability, children benefit. In fact, my experience at Yolo County CASA and the Yolo Resilience Network has taught me that what works for children, also works for the systems that serve them – healthy, nurturing relationships; stability; trust; honesty and a belief that people as well as systems can and do change for the better.
Here at CASA we’ve worked with children who were removed from their biological parents, and we’ve worked with children who were removed from their adoptive parents. It is important to remember that no one can guarantee a child’s safety into the future. For this reason, Yolo County CASA has taken a leadership role in the Yolo Resilience Network, promoting the understanding of the impacts of trauma on childhood and supporting efforts to establish trauma sensitive and resilience building practices across our community. Resilience begins with strong attachment of infants to caregivers, and continues throughout the life cycle, built on solid, healthy, supportive relationships which anyone can provide – foster parents, CASAs, teachers, ministers, coaches, neighbors, extended family, friends, etc. etc.
There are ways for this community to build resilience in our children and our families if we commit to supporting and nurturing, rather than dividing and conquering. The Daily Democrat article reported on a call for leadership change and I could not disagree more with respect to our HHSA Child Welfare Services department. We have already seen leadership change in child welfare in the not too distant past. The leaders we have now have many years of experience dealing with the complexities of the child welfare system. They have only recently had the budget to fully staff the department sufficiently for caseloads to shrink to reasonable levels. They are still hiring and training staff to reach this desired capacity. To throw the department and its experienced and hard-working social workers into disarray by bringing in new leadership is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Let’s work together to strengthen our community as a whole, not fight the leaders and the workers who have the extremely difficult task of protecting children with no other means of protection. They deserve our praise for being willing to work with families under the most stressful conditions while under constant pressure to balance the needs and interests of many complex parties. And while their task is to support change and make recommendations to the court, they are not the ultimate decision makers.
So if you are concerned that our child welfare system is protecting the best interests of children who have suffered abuse and neglect, please consider how you can help. We have over 200,000 people in Yolo County. If only a fraction of concerned citizens decided to volunteer for or financially support Yolo County CASA, we would be well on our way to ensuring every child has a CASA. You can be a part of that system and raise your concerns for a specific child by becoming a CASA. We currently have 383 children in foster care in Yolo County. Ninety of those children have CASAs. Let’s work together to raise our rate of foster children who have trained CASAs from under 25% to 100%. This is our 2020 goal.
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