When I retired from my 35 year long career as a kindergarten teacher, I knew I had to develop and maintain some purposeful relationships with children.  CASA fit the bill. 

While I am retired now, I became a CASA while I was still working.  I have found that I am responsible for scheduling all of my CASA commitments and I can fit them into my life easily, if I am organized!  

One of my CASA kids, a little girl of age 6, had to move from one foster placement to another.  I was there to help her move.  After she and I and her new foster mom put her things into her bedroom, I was preparing to leave.  This little girl looked at me and said, "When will you come back?"  She and I had a little need for each other.  

Go ahead and do it!  I had so many questions when I began my training process.  I found that I was given time, attention and assistance whenever I needed it to feel successful.  The rewards far out weigh the work.  You learn as you go and that's what is exciting.  

I became a CASA because the job description seemed written for me. I taught for 20 years, have two kids of my own and enjoy being with children, I like to write, I am semi-retired and have time to help. Also, it sounded like real opportunity to help make a difference in someone’s life. 

 I am a semi-retired artist and have a fairly flexible schedule, so it’s not an issue for me.

The moment for me came after a court hearing when I was talking to my case  manager. The CASA kids’ father, who had had drug and parenting issues but had started to pull himself together at the last minute, approached us and asked me if I would continue to be a part of his kids’ lives once the case was closed. 

Remember, as another CASA told me when I was first starting out, that this may well be the most heart-breaking and the most rewarding work you’ll ever do.  At the beginning, in spite of everything you hear during your training, it’s hard to believe that we as CASAs really do make a difference, but as time goes on, I see more and more evidence that we do. 

In 1964, when I was 11 years old, my mother died suddenly and I was placed in foster homes. I lived in several foster homes throughout the Los Angeles area until I turned 18 years old and aged-out of the system. When I left, I had nothing but a bag of clothes. My life was difficult. I went to a city college and had to work two jobs, just to survive. In my 30’s, I married, but my husband didn’t want any children, I did. I had to choose between children or marriage. I stayed married because I felt loved. But I was not happy. We divorced after 20 years. Finally when I retired, I wanted my “new life” to include children. I had a desire to ‘give-back’ to kids like me. Kids who really needed someone who knew what they were going through. I remembered the feeling of being alone and unwanted. If I became a CASA, maybe I could help a child who may be going through some of the same issues. I could be there to show that someone really cares about them, someone who stays with them throughout the changes that happen to them and someone who really know who they are and how they feel. So I became a CASA and I love it!

I’m retired now, so I have time to give. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it is a commitment. The longer I know my CASA kid, the more time I want to spend with him. It fills my heart

When my CASA child was suddenly transferred to a new home, I immediately went to see him. When I drove up, he came out to my car and said “I knew YOU would come find me”, he felt alone because of this sudden change. He didn’t know anyone in the new environment. People in the system change and move on to other opportunities, the CASA is consistent in the child’s life. I’M HIS TEAM! I go where he goes. I’m there for HIM, always.

You will make a difference in someone’s life. You are important to a child who doesn’t even know that they need you. It’s a job for your heart and it’s worth it.

Both my wife and I have spent our careers in service of children; she as a child welfare attorney and I was a juvenile ombudsman for naughty and wayward court-involved youth.  I honored marital vows and followed my bride to Washoe County when a career advancing opportunity arose and was offered to her.  Finding myself in a new community and a desire to become a contributing member, I jumped in feet first to certify as a CASA Advocate.  Through my role as ombudsman, I had frequent contact with CASAs involved with youth who had become entangled in both the child welfare/foster care system and the juvenile delinquency system.  Their roles were invaluable and I witnessed first hand the significance CASAs played in these young lives. So becoming a CASA was borne in selfish reasons.  I had time, energy and a limited skill set I could apply to help a child during what under even normal circumstances could be a stressful and challenging period in their young life.  And learning how a community responds to its more vulnerable citizens would help offer me insights into this foreign land we now call home.  Most importantly, I would have opportunity to help bond with a child and become a part of a safety net while adults navigate strategies for the child to continue to be a child and hopefully craft a more stable home for her/him to return.

We can't help others without first helping ourselves.  Ensuring our own priorities are being met is essential to our own mental, physical and fiscal well-being.  The most important time spent as a CASA Advocate is the time spent in communication with one's CASA kid.  Thanks to PCs, smartphones and tablets, opportunities to participate in conference calls with other team members can be readily juggled.  In these pandemic-fueled times, that is also the only platform made available, including for court hearings.  In "The Before" scheduling time to engage with my CASA kids could be determined by mutually available times and opportunities.  Now in the "New Normal" my two teenaged CASA siblings and I are able to text and Facetime. 

By design, I was appointed as CASA Advocate for two teenaged brothers.  Fortunately, they have been able to remain housed together in a therapeutic group home while they undergo the trials and tribulations of sibling rivalry, adolescence AND being housemates with two other adolescent males.  The first significant milestone I believe I made as their CASA was convincing the other team members that we hold separate case conferences for each brother.  Attempting to discuss steps forward and address other presenting issues, the conversations would often devolve into granting slings and arrows to both brothers to use when inevitable arguments and conflict would arise between the two.  Although bonded by blood, they both needed to have a safer space to discuss each one's response to stressors and opportunities in their individual lives.  Secondly, the older brother has a long history of academic underachievement.  Engaging the system to attach an educational advocate accompanied by a tutor for him, in addition to securing testing and conferencing with his educators, he now has a 504 Plan to better accommodate his learning style and pace.  For the first time since 6th grade, he passed ALL his classes in this past semester of his sophomore year!

Know that you are never alone in your role as a CASA and change is slow and incremental.  Our CASA kids do not choose to become a part of the foster care system.  There are numerous moving cogs and wheels helping advance or retreat from returning a child to his/her home/family.   Our role as a CASA is to ensure that while these issues are sorted, our CASA kids continue to grow and develop and gain opportunities to be a kid.  Our role is not to change them, but meet them where they are and use our life's experiences to help them gain greater understanding of their world and their role in it.  You become not only a part of Washoe County CASA, but also Washoe County Human Services Agency, the foster care system, the educational system and the community as a whole in helping protect a child.  By developing a bond and rapport with our CASA kids, we have opportunity to be a significant voice on their behalf while helping them find their own voice.