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Submitted by CASA volunteer Mike Tikkanen
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Recently, I asked a friend (Ann) if she would consider volunteering as a CASA volunteer guardian ad Litem. Ann did not know what a guardian ad litems was or how they helped save children from violence, neglect and trauma.
Most people don’t know much about childhood abuse or child protective services, or the violence done to children in toxic homes. Only the worst cases make the news and it’s a painful topic that people avoid.
Kids stuck in abusive homes live with repeated violence, rape and neglect often for many years. They need the help of the community to escape and discover the skills to manage their traumas to lead normal lives.
The CASA volunteer guardian ad litem program provides a voice for a frightened child in the child protection system. Children removed from their homes become Wards of the State. Through the eyes of a child being in child protection is like being a cog in the wheel of a big machine. Delivered from one provider to another, many foster children them have multiple foster homes because of unaddressed (under-addressed) mental health and behavior problems.
It’s traumatizing to be removed from the only home you have ever known. Imagine what’s it like waking up in a group home or a foster home not knowing the people in the house you live in – when you are five, ten or twelve years old?
Children caught up in the system are smarter than we give them credit for.
Their reality is clear; they don’t have a voice in what happens them –
money and the judge make the decisions that rule their lives.
Think about becoming a child advocate for an abused child
That a volunteer from the community
is willing to help them
means something.
CASA PROGRAM
Child protection sadness and failure are not the fault of the people doing the work. It is a systemic problem with how a community deals with thousands of traumatized children whose needs are greater than the institution is able to provide.
As a long time CASA GAL, I was the only adult that consistently remained in the lives of several of the 50 children (over 12 years) in my caseload. One boy was with me for 14 years, another girl for 11 years. I saw these children at least monthly for many years and worked with them as they lost their parents, came and went through multiple foster homes / group homes (often 100+ miles from their birth home) and witnessed the impact of trauma & psychotropic medications on far too many of them.
The sadness, terror and dejection suffered by abused & neglected sate ward children requires a greater commitment to training, resources and approach than our society is willing to provide.
It’s us. Our community has an inadequate understanding of the depth and scope of child abuse and trauma and to low a regard for the people doing the work of helping them.
Abused children need our help to be protected and have what it takes to lead a normal life.
Support the people, programs and policies that improve the lives of at risk children.
That a volunteer from the community
is willing to help them
means something.
CASA PROGRAM
All Adults Are The Protectors of All Children
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#childwelfare
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#kidsatrisk
#childadvocate