Volunteers Give Children--and Courts--a Lift

Fred and Linda Port have spent some of the most rewarding moments of their lives at flea markets, air shows and neighborhood ballparks, providing a 6-year-old boy with the kind of love and affection he has never known before.

“Ten days ago, we spent the day together,” Port said of the child, who is in foster care. “And after knowing him for a year, it was the first time he felt comfortable enough that he ran and jumped into my arms and hugged me.”

That kind of demonstrative love is what proves most rewarding to the Ports, of Laguna Beach, and more than 100 other specially trained volunteers participating in the Court Appointed Special Advocate program, one of 17 in the state and 366 nationwide.

By providing volunteers who act as special friends and advocates of children from group or foster homes, the programs have revolutionized part of the judicial system by allowing private citizens to participate in previously closed juvenile courts.

In a system in which social workers carry oppressively heavy caseloads, the child advocates have come to be relied on to provide the kind of loving one-to-one contact that caseworkers often cannot.

“These are kids who have no one outside of the system who cares about them and are often moved constantly from foster home to group home to emergency shelter,” said Susan Leibel, director of the Orange County CASA program. “We provide some stability for them, a continuing presence they can count on.”

Experts in the social service field say there is a growing concern among private citizens and professionals that many children in the child welfare system are not receiving the care they need.

“They feel that children are not being adequately represented, that some circumstances are not being brought before the court and that judges are not given enough options,” said Beth Waid, director of the national CASA program, based in Seattle.

Preliminary studies from around the country indicate that the CASA programs have been effective in providing better representation for children.

In Florida, where counties are required by law to have CASA programs, there has been a saving of nearly $300,000 a year in foster care costs because the burden on caseworkers has been lessened, officials said.

California recently passed legislation establishing a state-assisted CASA program in which counties that join will be eligible for matching state funds. However, money for the program has yet to be appropriated.

The state program is also developing guidelines for local CASA organizations that will achieve minimal standards for recruitment, training and supervision of volunteers.

“A program like this is critically necessary because there is no money in the state for new welfare programs,” said J. Michael Hughes, an attorney who help found the Orange County CASA program. “Hopefully, through the overall process, the consciousness of the community is raised.”

The Orange County program was begun four years ago as a project of an Orange County community service group and Hughes, a family law attorney.

Now an independent nonprofit organization with offices supplied by the county, the program has trained more than 190 volunteers who come from all walks of life.

The volunteers go through a 20-hour course in which they learn about courtroom procedures from judges, lawyers and other court personnel and attend seminars on topics ranging from sexual abuse of children to early childhood development and adolescent behavior.

After the training, they are sworn in by a juvenile court judge as officers of the court and take an oath of confidentiality to gain access to juvenile court files.

To prepare court reports, CASA volunteers talk to the child, parents, other relatives, social workers, school officials, doctors and anyone else knowledgeable about the child’s history to determine if it would be better for the child to remain with parents or guardians, be placed in foster care or be freed for permanent adoption.

Likened to a Jurors

“It’s sometimes hard, because while the court and caseworkers are obligated by law to work to reunite children with their families, the volunteers don’t always see that family as worthy of getting the child back,” CASA’s Leibel said.

Supporters of the CASA programs liken the concept to lay people on a jury and argue that they can apply common sense and community standards to sometimes wrenchingly impersonal judicial proceedings that determine the fates of families.

“That is one key,” said Hughes, also a CASA board member. “The juvenile court process had always been closed; there was no way for the public to see or learn about what happens to children or about problems in the system.

“There have been subtle changes as a result of CASA. You now have an independent group giving input to the court and often being critical of the social services agency on cases.”

C. Robert Jamieson, presiding judge of the Orange County Juvenile Court, said the CASA program has proved a “tremendous help.”

“They are probably the one common denominator in the system who can talk to all the parties involved,” Jamieson said. “I view their reports very favorably because most other people who provide input have a bias.”

The unique role of CASA volunteers has provoked some opposition to their presence. As lay people who act independently of social workers and attorneys, they are often called upon to make recommendations that conflict with the advice of professionals.

“Some support us and want to work with us, others do not,” Leibel said. “There is definitely room for more growth if we got more cooperation.”

Social service officials say that as social workers, in particular, have learned more about what the child advocates can contribute, their services have become more accepted.

“It is a function that has not been in existence very long, and some social workers are not sure what they (volunteers) are going to mean and how they will affect a case,” said Gene Howard, director of the county Children’s Services Department. “But I have seen tremendous progress in the area, and I’m finding very little resistance now.”

Willing to Listen

Lila Blackstone, a social worker for 21 years, said any apprehension she had about the role of the volunteers was dispelled after she began working with one.

“I felt here was another human being who knows this case who can help in the decision-making process,” Blackstone said. “It is a very positive thing. . . . And if somebody else has input, I am willing to listen.”

Although social workers are supposed to represent a child’s best interests in court, most are swamped. Blackstone recently has had to work with caseloads of 60 to 70 children at a time, which is typical of other social workers in the county, she said.

Working with one or two children at the most, CASA volunteers can thoroughly examine a case and provide emotional and practical support.

“I have had volunteers take kids to the hospital and to medical appointments when a social worker couldn’t go,” Blackstone said. “In one case, they were able to assign a CASA volunteer who was medically knowledgeable and was able to ask questions of the doctor and read blood tests and so on. You see a substantial difference in the children when they have somebody there for them.”

Warned in Training

Maureen Buck, a CASA volunteer for six months, has not yet had to make any weighty decisions about the 10-year-old boy she has come to know and love. But that time may come.

“That is one thing they warned us about constantly in training: that we may have to make a decision that we don’t want to make because we get emotionally involved with the child. So I am constantly questioning my (motives) when I speak out.”

The boy, who has been in foster care since he was 18 months old and now lives in a Costa Mesa group home, has some severe medical problems, said Buck, an administrative assistant who has grown children of her own.

“My role is to make sure he is getting proper medical checks and that he is monitored at all times,” she said.

“And it’s important that he has some idea of family life. He needs to know that he is special and that he has a future.”