Laura Haynes Collector posted:You might want to check with the Court Appointed Special Advocates. We meet once per week with the youths we advocate for who are in Foster Care.
The outcomes for kids with CASAs are much better-- but it involves not just being an AAA, but also advocacy in court, pushing for changes and solutions, being a voice of the child within the foster home if need be, and also providing practical help to the child that a parent might normally provide.
For example, besides emotional connection and support, I also got my CASA youth out of the regular mental health care track for foster youth in my town, so she could access Neurofeedback through adult Medicaid, and I helped her find a healing volunteer involvement at an adaptive riding program, and I helped her apply to colleges and scholarship programs. So it was more than emotional support.
Laura:
I think that's a really important point. Sometimes the advocate is actually supporting the parenting work that a parent may be unable to do and that matters. And sometimes, the emotional stuff won't resonate. I know as a high ACE kid I now look back on teachers who were reaching out (or trying) and at the time I thought they were strange and intrusive because my way wasn't to talk about stuff. So, though they gave me some space to share or open up I was miles away from knowing how to do that, and still wonder if it even would have been helpful had reality not changed at home. Don't want to mess with those protective superpowers that make life tolerable. I think we have to be careful to assume what support looks like as though that's always the same for all kids in all situations. But helping manage through systems, maneuver and having an advocate who knows how the system works and is at least somewhat trusted - IS huge!
Cis