Our Stories

Volunteer Spotlight

By Zach Reichard

Mission (im)Possible?

When Court Appointed Special Advocate Sara Burns met her most recent teen, the pressure was on.

Judge Jane Carroll was concerned that 17-year-old CASA Volunteer Sara Burns"Alexis" would be turning 18 and leaving foster care in a month. Alexis had been in 17 treatment foster care placements, one for 4 years. Now she was living in a group home. Alexis' court order was about to expire and she needed to leave her group home as soon as she turned 18. Judge Carroll appointed Sara to help Alexis with her transition to independent living.

"I've had three CASA cases since starting as a volunteer. This felt more high stakes," said Sara, Operations and Communication Coordinator of Admission Possible in Milwaukee.

In addition to having only a limited amount of time to find services, Sara discovered at their first visit that Alexis was five months pregnant.

"When I was appointed to help Alexis, I went to the group home to meet with her for the first time. I was surprised when I showed up and she had a solid baby bump," Sara said.

Kids Matter Executive Director Susan Conwell said this is not a typical CASA assignment. For teens aging out of foster care, having a CASA volunteer assigned works better when teens are 15 or 16. This affords a CASA volunteer an opportunity to get to know the teen while helping them plan their future. "Transitional planning for teens should not be a list minute effort. Sara really showed what a volunteer can do when the pressure is on," says Conwell.

Struggling to find help

Sara began to work with Alexis immediately, helping her sign up for a variety of services, including housing, W-2 and Wisconsin Foodshare. Most of Alexis's prenatal care was covered by her group home. Despite only knowing Sara for a few weeks, Alexis opened up to Sara because Alexis was motivated. She knew that if she wasn't willing to work with Sara, she would have no place to live after her court order expired.

"Alexis opened up to me because she saw me as someone coming in to get something done and get her housing, so she was receptive to that," Sara said. But while Alexis opened up, Sara found it difficult to get other organizations to cooperate.

Sara said the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare case manager didn't realize that Alexis refused to move in with her father. The permanency plan said that Alexis could live with her father, but Alexis said that she did not want to end up like her father and sister. Alexis said neither her father nor her sister have a job or any money. The house that they live in is without electricity, and Alexis said she did not want to follow in those footsteps. If the CASA volunteer had not told the judge this, Alexis would have ended up homeless.

When Sara looked at other possible housing, most agencies couldn't start the application process until Alexis aged out or when her court order closed.

"There wasn't a lot of sympathy for this child, who was aging out of the system. Some places would say that once she was out of the system, we could start the application process," Sara said.

But the application processes took time, and there was no overlap of services for Alexis when she was in foster care and when she exited foster care. "If someone had been thinking ahead, they could have put her in a placement where she wouldn't have been booted out the door once she aged out. There are a lot of programs for those out of the system and those in the system but there is no overlap."

Sara was surprised by how callous some organizations were about putting Alexis out on the street.

"Some people didn't really care about Alexis's housing situation. We would say, 'you don't understand, she will be homeless,'" Sara said. Alexis needed to move because once her court order expired; the group home stopped receiving money from the state. Some suggested homeless shelters, but to Sara, putting Alexis in a homeless shelter felt like failure. To Sara, asking Alexis to go into a homeless shelter after 12 years in care was impossible. It would be like saying, "we've known you for 12 years, but, whoops, sorry, we forgot to plan." "I just think people aren't just as sensitive and conscious of the issues as much as they should be," says Sara.

Catching a break

After struggling to find a place for Alexis to live, Sara, Alexis and Megan found a saving grace. Another CASA volunteer, Diane Duhig, is Housing Director at St. Catherine Residence, which provides housing for women on a limited income. She was able to provide Alexis with a place to live after she moved out of her group home.

One problem still remained: paying for housing at St. Catherine's. Kids Matter was able to work with Children's Service Society of Wisconsin to help Alexis afford the rent.

The day of the move was one of the rainiest days in Milwaukee history. Roads were flooded, people were stranded at home and work and many homes lost power. However, thanks to Sara's hard work, Alexis had a place to live at the end of the day.

Sara remembers going to pick Alexis up to move her to St. Catherine's and seeing that all of Alexis' possessions were stuffed into a few garbage bags. She said at that moment, she realized how little Alexis had.

Learning lessons

Sara said that it was eye-opening to experience some of the gaps that need to be addressed in foster care.

"You don't understand the emotional impact of being in foster care this long and how it affects you until you are working with a teen," Sara said.

There is hope on the horizon for Alexis. Alexis completed high school. She has support from Sara and St. Catherine's. She has applied to Milwaukee Area Technical College and hopes to enroll in the nursing program.  

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Volunteer Spotlight

By Zach Reichard

 

When Shoshannah Pass started volunteering as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, she was assigned to a young group of siblings. They were living in chaos.

All four children were all under the age of six and in out-of-home care for the second time. Their mother had struggled with addiction, and was in drug treatment facility. The children were placed with a young aunt who had two children of her own -- also under the age of six. The children didn’t have car seats, beds or blankets and slept on the floor. The children had behavioral problems. The older children struggled in school.

That was three and a half years ago.

Shoshannah started visiting the kids on a weekly basis. She made sure they had beds and car seats. She read with the children and played games. She helped the children have special opportunities to go to the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum and attend community events. She visited the kids at home and in school.

Getting to know the family presented a few challenges. The children’s aunt was a loving caregiver. However, there were always other adults in and out of the house. One day when Shoshannah came on a scheduled visit, she found a relative smoking marijuana around the children.

During another visit, the children told her that they were being physically and verbally abused by another adult relative. They showed her their cuts and bruises. Shoshannah kept a cool head, and reported the abuse. She was shocked, but knew that if she didn’t speak up for the children, no one was going to. The children were moved to a new placement.

“I really got to know all of the kids, and they trust me. If I wasn’t there, a lot of the situations that occurred may not have ever been seen,” Shoshannah said.

Today, the children are in stable homes. Three of the children have the same father, and they are now living with him. The fourth child is living with a relative who has become his guardian. They are doing well in school.

Shoshannah is really proud of all the kids have accomplished during the three and a half years.

“I’m happy that the kids are in a stable environment. The kids have done a 180 in their behavior,” Shoshannah said. “They are well-adjusted, happy, and learning. This was not the case before. All the work put in by everyone involved has been helping.”

Now, with the children finding stability, Shoshannah reflects on how close she is to the children.

“I wasn’t expecting to feel like the kids are part of my family, but that’s what happened,” Shoshannah said. Like many volunteers, Shoshannah also reports learning a lot about herself and her community.

Her advice to other volunteers? “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, but think before you speak. Understand the chain of command. Don’t just view things from your personal experience.”

Don’t worry about having all the answers. “I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Shoshannah said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen until you are involved, and that isn’t a bad thing. Like a lot of things in life, you learn by doing.”

Shoshannah calls CASA “a really valuable program.” “There are a lot of ways people can get involved and be the positive change for children of Milwaukee. It is really wonderful to see such great change for kids.”

Volunteer Spotlight

Association for Women Lawyers (AWL) Members: Leaders in Law, Leaders in Service.

By Hon Mary M. Kuhnmuench

When AWL member Caroline Spongberg first learned of the Kids Matter CASA Volunteer Program, she was an 18-year-old college freshman at the University of Minnesota. And while the program struck an emotional chord with her, as a full-time student she knew she wouldn't be able to commit the time required of a volunteer. Fast forward to the Spring of 2003, when the newly minted lawyer and associate with Cook and Franke took an oath to become a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer.

Over the years, Kids Matter CASA has trained over 100 volunteers like Caroline, and serves over 150 children. Advocates serve in the best interest of children caught in the foster care system because of abuse or neglect. The volunteers work with Child Protective Services, the legal system and community resources to help ensure that children in need of protective services don’t fall thorough the cracks. Although volunteers come from all walks of life and professional experiences, they each desire to make a difference in a child’s life.

For Caroline, the opportunity to build a meaningful relationship with the child that she is paired with was particularly attractive to her. “Just seeing the progress my child has made and all that she has accomplished is pretty special,” Spongberg said.

Circuit Judge Mary Triggiano is the former Presiding Judge in Children’s Court and has sworn in many CASA volunteers. From her perspective, the volunteers are absolutely essential because they can focus more intensely on a family and provide the court with a better understanding of the complex issues in a child’s life. “I just wish we had more of them,” she says.

Caroline currently serves as in-house counsel for the Marcus Corporation and sits on the Board of Directors of the YMCA. She has also served as a CASA volunteer for the past six years, and plans to continue. “It helps that I’ve always had very supportive employers because they have allowed me the flexibility to make my commitments as a volunteer,” she explains.

The CASA Volunteer Program is always looking for more volunteers and Caroline encourages others to consider this service opportunity, as well as many other service opportunities in our community.

Advocates are voice for foster kids Court-appointed volunteers serve children's best interest

Faces of Hope by Felicia Thomas-Lynn of the Journal Sentinel, posted May 25, 2008.

Picture by Tom Lynn Felicia Miller, a new court-appointed special advocate for children in the foster care system, stands on playground equipment outside the CASA office on N. King Drive.

Felicia Miller didn't grow up in an abusive home. She doesn't know what it's like to go hungry or be without a roof or a bed.

She does know, however, that there are countless children out there who struggle with these life challenges every day.

"Many kids have to deal with issues that even an adult would be ill-equipped to handle," Miller said.

That's why Miller wants to speak on their behalf.

The Marquette University assistant professor of marketing recently took an oath, along with 13 others, to become a court-appointed special advocate. She joins the ranks of CASA's more than 75 volunteers in Milwaukee County.

Although they come from all walks of life and professional and educational backgrounds, they each have the common desire to make a difference in a child's life.

Advocates serve in the best interest of children caught in the foster care system because of abuse or neglect. They stand between the attorneys, representing the best interests of their clients, and the state Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, which by law must protect children living in unsafe homes.

One of eight CASA programs in the state, Milwaukee County swore in its first class in 2002.

The program has its origins in Seattle. A judge there in the late 1970s who was faced with making decisions for abused and neglected children without enough information, later created the idea of having volunteers be dedicated to a case and speak for children's best interests.

From there, the movement to provide better representation for foster care children in court swelled from 50 volunteers to more than 70,000 throughout the nation today.

"They're very essential," said Circuit Judge Mary Triggiano, who serves in Children's Court and has sworn in several CASA volunteers.

"Often there are complex issues in a child's family. The volunteers are just phenomenal. They can focus more intensely on a family," she said. "We look forward to hearing there are more volunteers. They are usually used up pretty quickly."

Advocates gather information by talking to the child, family, case managers, teachers, attorneys and others who are involved in the child's life and make written recommendations to the court prior to each court hearing.

Often, they are the only familiar faces in the lives of foster children, who can move from home to home and get new case managers and even new judges.

"We are the one constant in the case," said Sharon DePue, who volunteers along with her husband, Rod, both retirees.

The two have been CASA volunteers for more than five years.

"We nudge the system along," said Rod DePue. "Once a month we meet with the case managers and others involved in a child's case. When we raise questions, we get respect."

And that respect is evident.

"The Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare views the CASA volunteers as one of our many vital community partners," said Rea Holmes, of the state Department of Health and Family Services. "The extensive training CASA volunteers receive helps them understand our mission and how it is met. The bureau continually emphasizes that it cannot do the important work of keeping children safe alone, but needs the help of the community."

Because of the constant movement of children coming into the foster care system, often with myriad individual concerns, from being woefully behind in school to having psychological problems, the need for more CASA volunteers is always present, said Lance Jones, program manager for CASA, which is hosted by Kids Matter Inc., a child advocacy group.

There are currently 120 children who have CASA representation, but there are hundreds more who could benefit from the program, he said.

The shortage is further exacerbated by the huge need for more African-American volunteers.

Miller is one of five African-American CASA volunteers. The majority of the children in the foster care system, however, are African-American.

CASA volunteers are required to go through 30 hours of training over the course of one month.

Making a Difference

 

 

 

“These little people just want someone to love them, care for them, teach   them, and protect them.  The look on my child’s face when he sees  
me come to the door is inspiring in an amazing way.”  
Joan Mueller  

 

 

Joan Mueller made a huge difference in the life of one young boy and his father as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA).  The little boy Joan advocated for was physically abused by his mother’s boyfriend and spent significant time in the hospital healing from his injuries.

When the little boy was released from the hospital, he moved from foster home to foster home.  Sadly, the little boy’s mother stayed with the boyfriend and the child could not be kept safe in her care.  Joan got in touch with the boy’s biological father, who had relocated to California long before the abuse started.  When he learned of the boy’s injuries, he moved back to Wisconsin and took a new job here in order to have his son returned to him from foster care.

It took two years to move from supervised visits, to unsupervised visits, to having his child placed with him full-time and the case closed.

Joan advocated for the child the entire time.  Even after the child was returned to his father, the father asked Joan to stay involved.  She was part of the boy’s life.

Joan was selected M & I Bank’s National Volunteer of the Year in 2005.  The most important thing to Joan is that her CASA child has a home, and a father has a son that he describes as “the light of my life.”

 

Making a Commitment to ‘Invisible Kids”

By Sharon M. Keigher, PhD
(An Excerpt out of our Fall 2006 Newsletter)

Kids Matter Inc. is a magnet for passionate grown-ups with big ideas about helping Milwaukee’s children.  We want to encourage these farsighted dreamers!  Volunteer Profile will feature one of them each issue to share their passion and stimulate others to think big as well.

“Family Preservation” is more than an obscure clause in the Wisconsin Children’s Code to Tiffany Roberts.  Tiffany has known about the needs of children with a parent in prison or jail ever since she was in grammar school and her father disappeared from her life.  She was 27 before he was released from prison and she began to know him.  But, she says, “I was very blessed.  My mom was strong, she worked hard, and now I’m an ‘intergenerational success.’” 

Tiffany’s passion for children led her to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate through the Kids Matter CASA program.  Like many volunteers, she also shares her expertise with the program and works to make the child welfare system more responsive to the needs of children.

Tiffany is a wife and a mother of 5 lively boys, aged 5 to 15.  A Criminal Justice student at UWM, she also works full-time in the criminal justice field.  She sees up close children’s heartbreak when a parent is arrested.  “Way too often they become ‘lost in the (child welfare) system,’ invisible children, never to see that parent again.”

Tiffany is a strong believer that the community needs specialized social services to actively intervene immediately when a parent is arrested.  With growing numbers of women being arrested, more and more children are left to the care of neighbors, grandparents or the child welfare system.  Child welfare is mandated to intervene only when children have suffered “abuse or neglect.”  Yet, the children are often placed in foster care when a parent is arrested because a relative cannot be located, or caregiver cannot be found on short notice.

Four years ago, Tiffany began plans to aid children who have an incarcerated parent.  She had her first training August 2006.  “The biggest fear in the black family is that ‘the system’ will get my kids,” Tiffany says… “And the worst thing to tell a child with a parent in jail is ‘You just like yo ‘Daddy.’ Such comments cultivate low self-esteem in the children who feel they are, indeed, destined to the same demise of intergenerational incarceration as that parent.  You see it in their eyes, in 14-year-old drug dealers.  Yet, with the right help these families could learn to support each other, to not run down the absent parent.  This could motivate both parents to improve, keep working, to be real role models for their kids.”

To learn more about children of incarcerated parents in the child welfare system call Kids Matter to get Tiffany’s contact information.  To help a foster child or become a CASA volunteer, contact our offices.

Volunteer Voice

by Sharon and Rod DePue
Volunteers, Kids Matter CASA
Milwaukee, WI

We are retirees who started volunteering with CASA two years ago after reading an article in the Sunday paper written by a children’s court judge. It inspired us to contact Kids Matter CASA to ask more about their work.

Both of us had been active volunteers in our community, Sharon with the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin and Rod with the Mental Health Association. Together we were active with the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee, where we set up a volunteer coordination program. Now that we were retired, we were looking for another volunteer opportunity that would be at least as rewarding. We found it at Kids Matter CASA.

We work as a team, so our first case after training was a family of four siblings, ages 1 to 9, who were split up in several foster and kinship homes. We learned that as CASA volunteers, we must be the “nudges” who push to see that services ordered for the children are, in fact, delivered in a timely manner.

About six months into this case, the biological mother with whom we were working to achieve reunification told us a troubling story. A psychiatrist to whom she had taken her 3-year-old had prescribed Ritalin for his behavioral symptoms after a very short interview and no evaluation. (The drug is not approved for children under 6 years of age.) We brought this to the attention of the case manager, who was familiar with this doctor and confirmed his unorthodox prescribing techniques.
After further investigation—and guidance from our CASA program—we decided to file a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing, only to learn that six other complaints had been filed. One of these involved the death of an 18-year-old. Further, the doctor was not board-certified. This case is still pending, and his license to practice has been indefinitely suspended.

But the best news is that these four siblings have been reunited with their mother, the family is doing well, and the case is closed. Our main work in this case was helping the mother to keep her eye on the goals she had agreed to. She was willing but often became frustrated and discouraged. This was a young, single mom with a lot of responsibility—and without much of a support system. Being careful not to compromise the well-being of the children as our first priority, we were able to offer support to this mother as well.

There are many advantages to volunteering as a couple. We can bounce ideas off each other, which helps us to clarify our thinking. Sharon has a more cautious, by-the-book personality, while Rod is more aggressive and likely to follow his instincts. This is a good balance to have. A drawback might be that we have to make an effort to not let our CASA work encompass all our conversations at home.
Our current case is a family of four boys, 2 to 9 years old. These young children have been in and out of multiple foster homes in the past year and a half. It now appears they are settled in good foster homes and starting to do better in school. In less than a year, we have already seen positive change in their lives.

There are many ways that CASA volunteers work to help protect children and parents caught up in the child welfare system. This is the most rewarding volunteer work we have ever done, and we think you will agree if you become an advocate in your community.

 

CASA Volunteer Spotlight: Gail Hilton

CASA volunteers come from all walks of life, including some for whom walking itself is not easy.

Gail Hilton is a woman very aware of life’s blessings. Prior to becoming a CASA volunteer, she had a successful 28 year career performing microsurgery for biomedical research.

With her children grown up and out of the house, Gail pursued a lifelong dream of helping children in need. Gail enrolled in the Masters Degree program in Social Work at UW-Milwaukee, and joined the staff of Milwaukee CASA as an intern. She trained as a CASA volunteer, and stayed with CASA after receiving her MSW. Gail picked CASA because she likes having the legal support of being court appointed. She also likes the idea of being able to turn troubled parents around, if possible, and playing a positive role in troubled families.

Gail was appointed to advocate for an eight month old baby boy “Jay”* who had just been placed in foster care. His mother was incarcerated without hope of coming back to parent him. Jay lived with his father until his father was also arrested. Within weeks, eight month old Jay had been placed in three different foster homes. Gail explains, “Being a baby, there was a lot of pressure to quickly terminate the parents’ rights and have him adopted. But he didn’t end up in a stable placement.” Originally, Gail thought that advocating for a baby would be easy, but she found that it took extra work to make sure that a baby’s needs were met. After all, “a baby can’t tell you what he needs. You have to be very observant.”

Just as Gail was graduating with her Masters Degree and just a few months into her CASA appointment, she had her own health crisis. Gail had been bothered by leg pains, fatigue and headaches for over a year. Suddenly, she could barely move. She had to be hospitalized. The diagnosis? Multiple Sclerosis. Looking back, Gail says, “I was so weak and depressed, there were days I didn’t want to get out of bed. But I just couldn’t give up on that little boy. I couldn’t stand the thought of him being in so many foster homes. Sometimes I think he saved my life because I just had to get better for him.”

“I began noticing things he needed like more help with motor skills. He was very active, but he was falling a lot--at the foster home and at the family day care. I thought he might do better in place with room to exercise and with a focus on developmental skills. So, I hunted around and and got him into an excellent day care center. They sent home a slip each day with a report of his activities. He began developing very nicely.”

“Watching Jay carefully, I saw such sadness in his eyes. His foster parent didn’t have much time for him. But when he was with his grandmother, he was just so happy. I never saw a child’s eyes shine so much as when he was with her. Seeing that, I became convinced that his grandmother should have a chance to get to keep him, to be his guardian. And, that’s what we did. I helped get the court order to make Jay’s grandmother his legal guardian. He is two and a half now, and doing very well. I really love this little boy. I have big hopes for him, and this family. Even his father is making strides now after making bad choices.”

“Now that the CASA case is closed, and Jay is not on a child protection order anymore, I am still close to the family. Now instead of being a CASA volunteer, I am “Auntie Gail.” His grandmother still calls to let me know how he is doing. It is great to see how well he is doing and how loved he is.”

Gail recently decided to retire from her job at the VA Hospital as the MS prevents her from doing experimental microsurgeries. Gail is hoping for an active retirement as she is taking her child advocacy skills to a new level. According to Gail, “You just forget your own problems when you have to focus on a vulnerable child. It helps me to think clearly when I am putting all my attention on a wonderful little person, or thinking of the kids who need me.”