The latest podcast topics include:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder:  “Stacy Shook, a board certified behavior analyst and the director of Northwest Behavioral Associates in Seattle, WA, discusses autism spectrum disorder, how it may be treated, and possible services for children and their caregivers.”

• Psychotropic Medication in Foster Care: “Stephen McCrea, CASA Supervisor with CASA for Children in Portland, OR, talks about the history of mental health treatment of foster youth, including the introduction of psychotropic medications, their use now and what a CASA/GAL volunteer should know when working with medicated youth. Before working with the CASA program, McCrea was a crisis counselor and a residential counselor for youth.”

• Effects of Bullying in Children: “In this podcast we talk about bullying with Tracy Flynn, a trainer and consultant. She describes signs a child might show, the long-term effects of bullying and how you can help children who are experiencing bullying.”

Go forth and learn!

My answer, of course, depends upon the situation and who the CASA-to-be is speaking with.  However, in general, here are some ideas of what to say when you don’t know what to say:

• “Tell me more about (fill in the blank).” Usually you can fill in the blank with what the person was just talking about.  If you are talking to a parent, a question that always seems to break this ice is “Tell me more about your (son, daughter, children).”

• “Tell me about a time (or the last time) you (fill in the blank).” The possibilities are endless with this one.  The key is to not turn this into a leading question.  A leading question is one that supplies the answer for the person being asked the question.  Keep it connotation-free.  For example, a leading question would be “Tell about the last time you saw your grandma selling heroin to your neighbor John.”  A non-leading question would be, “Tell me about the last time you saw John.”  See the difference?

• “Can you walk me through (fill in the blank) step by step?  I  want to understand your (view,  feelings, concerns, etc).” This is a good way to probe for specifics in a non-aggressive, yet assertive manner.  It’s also a good way to help someone who is becoming upset by a conversation to calm down.

• How can (we, the team, someone) be helpful to you (in this situation, to get your GED, to find housing, etc)? The key to this one is to stay away from the word “I”.  You want to make sure you have boundaries, but you want to be helpful and keep the conversation going as well.  If you get a response that is not possible, probable or appropriate (i.e. “buy me a house” or “give me $20″), don’t judge the response, just redirect with, “What else would be helpful?”

• Nothing. Sometimes, silence is golden.  It takes practice to become comfortable with silence.  Try this: practice role playing with another CASA and have him or her play the role of one of the people involved in a child welfare case.  Take a normal, un-exaggerated and complete breath in and out prior to responding to what the person says.  It feels weird at first.  Before you know it, your brief silence may prompt the person you’re speaking with to begin speaking again, and give you more information you need on the case.

Any other ideas?  I know there are CASAs out there that are Chatty Cathies, just like me.  Please share your suggestions in the comments section.

Guess what?  I got it.

I attended the conference in late April.  It was four days chock full of national and international expert speakers and tons of information.  Most of the attendees were in law enforcement, corrections or suspect prosecution (read: a lot of people with guns).  There was a good amount of social and human service providers there as well.  People came from as far away as Guam to attend this conference.  I heard someone say there were about 800 attendees this year.  In economic times such as these, having 800 people show up at a conference is pretty impressive, if you ask me.

There were a variety of keynote speeches and workshops to choose from.  Here are the ones I found the most informative:

• Bumps & Bruises 101: Investigating and Documenting “Seemingly Minor” Allegations of Physical Abuse by Susan Samuel
• Interviewing Children Who Have Witnessed a Violent Crime by Jennifer Anderson
• Deception Detection by Dr. Jim Tanner
• Inside the Minds of Child Sex Offenders by Dr. Joe Sullivan
• Unto the Third Generation: A Call to End Child Abuse in Three Generations by Victor Veith

Some of these speakers were so amazing, that I was quite literally in awe at the end of their sessions.  Some of the workshops were so full of useful information, I felt like I was sitting in a classroom at a top tier graduate school.  This was one heck of a conference.

Now, here is the bad news: I walked away from the conference better informed, but also with a reusable shopping bag full of vicarious trauma.

Well, that’s what I’m calling it anyway.  I don’t know if it’s the technically correct term.

You see, this conference was designed for and attended by (mostly) first responders.  As a CASA, I’m not a first responder.  I come in after the children have been taken to a safe place.  I don’t physically take them out of an unsafe place or from unsafe parents.

Intellectually, I have always known the difference between a first responder (law enforcement, child protection service workers, paramedics, etc) and a CASA.  But the conference showed me how big that difference really is.  While both have the same goal – to keep children safe – they work in very different worlds.

The other part of the pie is that as a CASA, I typically work with parents who did not intend to hurt their children.  It’s never ok to hurt a child, but if someone does so unintentionally due to substance abuse or untreated mental illness, that is a bit of a different story than intentionally hurting them.  Don’t get me wrong, neither situation is acceptable.  But substance abuse and mental illness can be treated and those who suffer from them can recover.  They can become safe parents again.  Those who hurt children intentionally…I don’t know if they can ever recover.  Or, if they can, I don’t know if they can ever be trusted by society, or the child they hurt, to safely parent again.  The conference contained a lot of material on intentional abusers.  When I say a lot, I mean A LOT.  Everything from videos of abusers in police custody admitting their crimes to videos of abusers reenacting physical abuse.  These videos were not gratuitous,  they were shown to teach attendees various concepts.  But that didn’t make them any less chilling.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from becoming a first responder or a CASA.  I don’t want to discourage anyone from attending a conference they think may help them in their work.  I’m just here to be honest about *my* experiences as a CASA.  And you know what?  This one was a doozy.  This one was tough.  There were some tears, some bad dreams and some things I just couldn’t get out of my head for a few weeks.  But I got through it and am still working through the last bit of it.  Writing this post helps.  Thanks for reading.

Ok, maybe not famous, but I am going to be on TV.

I had the opportunity today to speak publicly about volunteer recruitment for my local CASA agency in Clark County, Washington.  The event was called the Forgotten Children Event.

National CASA created the Forgotten Children Campaign because, “For too many Americans, children in foster care are all but forgotten.”

At our event today, there were pictures of children holding signs with statements on them such as, “8 foster homes”.  The pictures were blown up to almost life size and printed on cardboard cut outs.  In a room full of these cut outs, it appears you are standing in a crowd of foster children, and all of them have something to tell you.

Click here for the link to the video of the event.  My part of the presentation is at 12:29 or so.  I have no idea how long the video will be up on the CCTV site.  Watch it now, so you can say you saw me when!

Aging out occurs when a youth in foster care reaches the age of 18 and is, on paper, released from the foster care system.  To put it bluntly, these youth are taken from their parents due to abuse and/or neglect, wallow in foster care without any permanent resolution (for whatever reason), and then on their 18th birthday are dropped off and told “good luck”.

Of course, it doesn’t always happen that way.  Some youths are fortunate enough to find a wonderful foster family that is willing to care for them and help them transition into adulthood regardless of the loss of foster care funds, health care and services.  But too many are not.

Country artist Jimmy Wayne is a foster care alumni who aged out of the system.  His site, Meet Me Halfway, describes his experiences:

Jimmy Wayne survived a turbulent, abusive childhood.  He was shuttled to a series of foster homes.  He was a homeless teen, living by his wits on the street until a North Carolina couple named Russell and Beatrice Costner took him in and gave him a family.  Before Russell and Bea, Jimmy was homeless and close to hopeless.  He remembers the feeling of being without a family, without a home.

Jimmy has embarked on a journey to raise awareness about the threat of homelessness that foster children face, especially those who have or will age out of the system.  He is walking halfway across America – from  Nashville to Phoenix – to educate the public and urge them to get involved.  Along the way he is video blogging, tweeting and facebooking his experiences.

ProjectMMH.org was developed by volunteers who support Jimmy’s Meet Me Halfway project.  Their goal is,

To further awareness of the Meet Me Halfway project and the issues faced by youth aging out of foster care.

Their website provides:

Information on Project Meet Me Halfway and Jimmy Wayne

Discussion on the issue of youth “aging out” of the foster care system and what our nation is doing to address this issue

An outline of the key changes that we and Jimmy Wayne believe need to be made to help foster care and at-risk youth

Links to articles published on the web and websites of organizations who help foster care and at-risk youth

Stories of volunteer efforts nationwide in support of Jimmy Wayne and Project Meet Me Halfway

Guidance for people who want to become involved in helping kids via Project Meet Me Halfway or in their own communities

I support and applaud ProjectMMH’s work.  I will be writing a “Q and A from the CASA trenches” for their site so that people who want to get involved in helping foster children can learn about this particular avenue.

The good news is, there is more than one way to help foster children.  One man is putting one foot in front of the other to show us all just that.

In LT’s blog’s About Me section she tells us,

I am a product of the foster care system and it will become clear that ‘the system’ both saved me and failed me.

When you read LT’s posts, you will find raw descriptions of what her life was like in foster care, aging out of the system, and what life is like for her now as a young adult.

A warning for those easily offended: LT doesn’t mince words.   She is brutally honest about an often brutal subject.  I encourage readers to honor LT’s courage in telling her story by taking the time to read it.

LT is real.  The experiences she had are experiences children in your community are having right now.  The system may have changed somewhat over the past few years. The system may be different in different areas of our country.  But one thing stays the same: children experience trauma by the actions or omissions of their caregivers and sometimes the solution can be as heinous as the problem.

Could a CASA have solved all of LT’s problems?  No.  But a CASA could have helped stop some, prevented some and changed some of those problems.  A CASA could have made all the difference.

***

According to a recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26.8% of the US population volunteered between September 2008 and September 2009.  All we’re missing, is you.

Join us.  Connect with your local CASA or GAL program here.

From the Associated Press, Frank Bajak and Paisley Dodds

Baptists say they were trying to do good in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten U.S. Baptists arrested trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti say they were just trying to do the right thing, applying Christian principles to save Haitian children.

Wait, what?

The orphanage where the children were later taken said at least some of the kids have living parents, who were apparently told that the children were going on an extended holiday from the post-quake misery.

The church group’s own mission statement said it planned to spend only hours in the devastated capital, quickly identifying children without immediate families and busing them to a rented hotel in the Dominican Republic without bothering to get permission from the Haitian government.

Illegal adoptions aren’t good.  In fact, that is why we call them by another name: human trafficking.

The children, ages 2 months to 12 years old, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived “very hungry, very thirsty.”

“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Willeit said.

The good news:

The orphanage was working to reunite the children with their families, joining a concerted effort by the Haitian government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other NGOs.

But,

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were only trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children.

And,

“In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told the AP at Haiti’s judicial police headquarters, where she and others were taken after their arrest Friday night trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in a bus.

Silsby, 40, admitted she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children, whose names were written on pink tape on their shirts.

Doing the right thing by traumatizing them further?  This is a classic “two wrongs don’t make a right” situation.

Children need their parents.  As long as parents can and will safely parent their children (i.e. not neglect or abuse them), their children need THEM.  Not just any parents, THEIR parents.  If the family is in a disaster zone, they need aid, not people to steal them from their family.

Put it this way:

You’re 8 years old.  You, your mom and dad and siblings just went through an earthquake of epic proportions.  Your house, school and entire city is destroyed.  You are hungry, thirsty, need clean clothes and a place to sleep.  Some of your friends and relatives are dead.  You can see dead bodies in the street.  One of your family members, or even you, is wounded.  You are terrified.  Which scenario sounds better to you:

A) Drop this like it’s hot and go live in another country with a bunch of strangers.  Oh, and you’ll never see your family again.  Ever.

B) Get some help for you and your family and hang in there.

……..

An aside:

The definition “Christian principles” depend upon one’s definition of Christian.  I offer that the principles of which this article speaks are human principles born in the minds of misguided and privileged Americans.

The Idaho Baptists probably really did have good intentions.  It’s too bad they didn’t take the time to step out of their bubble to become educated on the issues at hand and be a part of the solution, instead of part of the problem.

Oh CASA Gal, what is this self-care of which you speak???!!!

Self-care is taking care of yourself.  I know many of us think we have it “all together”.  After all, not only do we work, go to school, take care of our families, maintain hobbies and a social network…we volunteer!  We pat ourselves on the back for being so “with it”.

But guess what?  If we don’t actively practice self-care, we can and do burn out very quickly.  This can leave a volunteer feeling pretty awful.  This can leave a program with one less volunteer.  And in the case of a CASA, this can leave a neglected and abused child without an advocate.

Let’s face it: we as CASAs and other types of volunteers often deal with the aftermath of trauma that has occurred in someone else’s life.  Simply by talking to those who have experience trauma, we can become a bit traumatized ourselves.

I’m not a psychologist.  I can’t give you statistics, the results of studies or diagnostic information.  However, I can tell you that in my experience, listening to a parent struggling with addiction and/or mental health concerns tell me their family’s child abuse and neglect story can get into your gut and marinate there for a long time.  One has to have a plan to actively take care of themselves so they can remove that story from their gut and live their own life, while still providing help and support to the child for whom they advocate.

Here is how I do it:

First, I keep meetings to 2 hours or less. I have found that talking to anyone involved in a child abuse or neglect case for more than that is too much for me.  This means parents, social workers, relatives of the child, the child him or herself, the family’s landlord, the child’s teacher, etc.

Second, I strive to not judge people. I don’t know the person, but I’m getting to know them.  They deserve an open mind from me.  The child needs me to fully understand their situation and help the family move towards positive solutions.  They don’t need my prejudices clouding my judgment and neither do I.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t make deductions from my findings once I’ve investigated the situation.  For example, if the child’s aunt and uncle lie to me repeatedly, I will note it as a concern.  But I will not think in my head or say to someone else, “Geez that aunt and uncle sure are bad people.”  I don’t invite bad feelings in, so they can’t stew inside of me.  I can and will most likely tell the social worker, “I’m concerned about the aunt and uncle’s reports about x, y and z as I have found them to be untrue.”  The truth is out, communication happens, and I feel good about how I handled something.

Third, I take a lot of breaks. For example, if I’m going to do an initial interview with a parent that has been accused of abusing or neglecting their child, I generally don’t do any other CASA work for the rest of the day after that.  I go home, drink some tea, play a computer game, watch a funny movie or hit the gym.  I get the story out of my system for at least 24 hours.  This way, I don’t carry it into my own life

I’m not perfect – sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night and think something like, “I hope little Johnny is doing ok in his new foster home.”  But those incidents went down drastically when I started practicing good self-care.

Fourth, I approach every interaction with a spirit of openness and a positive attitude. While I’m still in my early 30′s, I have lived long enough to know that everything can be “gotten through”.  Everything has the possibility of working out well.

The funny thing is, this concept was solidified for me by working in human resources for nine years.  Human resource personnel often have to give people very bad news: you’re fired, you’ve been laid off, you’re benefits won’t cover your surgery, you’re not getting a raise.  If one doesn’t find a way to be straight-forward but kind during these types of conversations, one cannot survive or thrive in their career.

Again, I’m not perfect.  For example, if I have to tell a social worker I disagree with their stance on a child’s needs, I don’t jump for joy.  I do thoughtfully consider our differences of opinion and how I can word what I want to communicate so that it is not only professional and non-adversarial, but meaningful and will help get the child the results he or she needs.  I try to keep in mind this is not about ME.  This is about the child I advocate for, period.

While those four are my main self-care tactics, here are some other ideas that also work well:

• Start a CASA to CASA group where CASAs get together to discuss cases and help each other with strategies and resources.  This is a great way to “vent” and still keep confidentiality intact.
• Talk to your program supervisor, if you have one, or CASA mentor.  They’ve seen and heard it all.
• Exercise – I hate to admit it sometimes, but it’s true: it makes you feel better physically and mentally.
• Do something just for you, everyday.  It can be as little as having a yummy latte or peice of dark chocolate.
• Practice progressive muscle relaxation.  It really works!
• Don’t overload yourself.  It’s better to have one case that you are fully focused on than two you can only focus on halfway.

Remember, by taking care of yourself, you are taking care of the child you advocate for.

All around the blogosphere, people are writing about Thanksgiving.

To me, Thanksgiving is not a historical holiday.  It’s not about “pilgrims and indians.”  It’s not about inaccurate history or revisionist history or lies my teachers may have told me.

It may sound obvious, but to me Thanksgiving is about giving thanks.  Giving thanks for everything, everyone and every “every” that I have had, have now and will have.  Most of these “haves” are intangible.  And that brings me to what I am specifically thankful for this Thanksgiving:

I am thankful that I have the ability to give thanks.

No, I’m not trying to be esoteric or existential (although I am a Gen Xer…so some would say I am prone to both!).  Allow me to explain…

The fact is, I live a life of extreme privilege.  I always have.  As a child and as an adult, I have never, ever wanted for anything.  And I mean ANYTHING with a capital A.  I could easily have turned out to be a spoiled brat (and maybe I have – a little).

For all my upper-class-upbringing faults, I do have some redeeming qualities.  Those qualities were passed down from my self-made parents, especially my mother, who introduced me to faith and hope.

Faith and hope are these amazing things.  For me, they are like breathing.  They are always around, but I don’t always think about them.  They buoy me, they nudge me forward, they open my mouth to say words I might otherwise be hesitant to say.

Not everyone has faith and hope in their life.  Not everyone “knows” everything will turn out fine.  Not everyone sees most outcomes as something they can deal with, work through and find the other side of.

So, I’m thankful.  I’m thankful for faith and hope.  I’m thankful that I’m thankful for faith and hope.  And I’m thankful that I realize not everyone has these these concepts and beliefs in their lives.

My friend Pedro used to say to me, “Qué mas?” which he told me means, “What more?”  That’s exactly how I feel about faith and hope this Thanksgiving.

What more?

As Toni Lodge said at the WA CASA Conference, “We don’t have a Child Welfare System.  We have a Foster Care System.”

Why this surprises anyone, even in “model” counties like the one I live in (Clark), is anyone’s guess.  People are inherently imperfect.  Heck, that is why we need a System.  But it also means the people who run the System are imperfect as well.

Tragedy can and does occur every single day, all across the world.  It absolutely matters that we have a System in place to:

• Help prevent those tragedies
• Respond to those tragedies
• Mitigate further tragedies from spawning from the original tragedy
• Resolve those tragedies as best as possible and help people heal

The worst thing we could do, as a society and as a System, would be to turn our heads and not provide any services at all.

The second worst thing we could do, is harbor a pretext of services that are provided and then not provide them…or provide them in an inconsistent and low quality way.  This is often what some people think the System is doing in some or even all areas.

The logical response, in my mind, is for those with such extremely low faith in the System to get involved in a helpful way to create positive change.  Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with that idea, or sees “helpful” as a weak and ineffective adjective.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is perfectly acceptable to get angry.  But honor your feelings and make your anger count for something.  Funnel all of that rage into making changes to the status quo.

If you want to be heard, if you really want to be listened to, shouting will not bring you the results you desire.  In fact, shouting just makes you look like, well, a shouter.  A shouter is like a car alarm in a crowded parking lot – an annoyance that people want to get away from as fast as possible.

Creating change takes skills and perseverance.  These concepts can be learned, but must be applied in order to take root.  Seek out these ideas and realities in your community and get involved.  You will be amazed by how much you don’t know what you don’t know.

Ways to get involved:

• Educate others on the importance of Child Welfare through writing letters, sending emails and talking with stakeholders (which is everyone!).
• VOTE and encourage others to become educated voters.
• Volunteer with or donate to an organization that holds Child Welfare as one of its top priorities.
• Take a class about Child Welfare and issues that surround it such as poverty, disproportionality, domestic violence, educational advocacy, access to justice, pre-natal health, homelessness, Head Start, substance abuse, foster care, adoption, juvenile justice, and generational cycles.  Free and very low cost classes are often offered through community colleges, resource centers, non-profit organizations and government agencies.