(Adapted from The Connection Summer 2011, National CASA Association, authored by Charles Lerner)
1. Keep children with their families whenever possible. Easier said than done, but hundreds of thousands of young people are away from their families for causes that are not being adequately addressed in our society. They include poverty, marginalization and resulting factors such as substance abuse and mental illness. Until we more successfully address social conditions that are hurtful to all of us, children will be living out the consequences.
2. Be compassionate with parents. What does it take for you to accept help from others? Most of us would agree that we must trust someone before we are able to accept their help. Change takes time, and delays are not always due to a lack of desire. Our biases can inhibit our empathy for parents and the challenges they face, but it helps to think of the difficulties we ourselves face when trying to make changes in our own lives.
3. Research existing relationships to get children out of foster care as quickly as possible. We want children to return to their families as soon as possible. If they cannot return home, we want to move them out of limbo and into relational, physical and legal permanency. In other words, we want them to have someone they can count on, a place to call home and people they can claim—and who claim them—as family. Experience shows us that people who are known to our children are often the people who will provide them with permanency.
4. Meet children where they are. Some young people are angry with their parents and the world in general. They have not been protected and cared for the way children are entitled to be. That is why taking a “no-fault” approach is essential. Most youth experience sadness, despair and anger. Youth express these emotions through tantrums, school difficulties, running away, getting involved with gangs or using drugs. These are fairly normative responses to what they have gone through. Their behaviors may leave us feeling frustrated and hopeless about their futures. But we must maintain hope—because many of our children have lost it.
5. Make decisions and implement them as though the child were a member of your own family. Time does not move quickly for children when they are away from their families and living in a state of uncertainty. High caseloads and the bureaucracy of the system make it difficult to make things happen as quickly as we would hope. We will not always be able to address the needs of the children we serve as quickly as we want. That is why CASA programs are critical and influential assets in the child welfare system. Magical things happen for children when someone gives them a voice.
