A few years ago, after deciding it was time to realign the priorities in my life, I decided to research options to do some volunteer work.  Early in my adult life, I found volunteering on a regular basis to be both challenging and rewarding.  Since then, focusing primarily on building my career, and supporting and caring for my family, I occasionally would do some volunteer work in the community, especially around the holidays, but mostly I found it easier simply to write some checks to make donations to worthy causes and then move on and forget about it.  After working many years as a business executive and then becoming an empty-nester, one of the things I resolved to change was to find a volunteer organization where I could contribute something of myself and also challenge myself perhaps in a different way.  I did quite a bit of research into many groups and causes but the one that resonated with me the most was CASA.

 

When I first discovered and looked into the prospect of getting involved with CASA, what impressed me most, in addition to the mission, were the people and the overall organization.  The staff and case supervisors at Bergen CASA are really quality people and they also work great together as a team.  The inspiring, progressive, positive leadership spirit that comes from our Bergen CASA executive director, Theresa Drennan, has been something I've rarely seen during my over forty years working in the private corporate for-profit business sector.  That positive spirit extends to all the volunteers as well, many of whom have been incredibly helpful sharing their own experiences, ideas, and suggestions with me.  It's very reassuring to have a support network I can go to when I need some help or feel a bit stuck with a case, and there's an array of different people with different perspectives.  The women and men involved with CASA, as well as some of the DCP&P caseworkers, court-appointed law guardians, and judges, have helped me learn by setting examples and giving me feedback and they've really made a positive difference for me, especially at this stage of my life.

The CASA training is intensive.  There is so much information to absorb about child development, social services, abuse, neglect, the law, child protection and the court system, health and educational resources, cultural sensitivity, conflict management, and identifying, monitoring and reporting on the unmet needs of each individual child.

  

 

One thing that stands out for me is that advocacy is not about rescue, not about feeling good about doing good, not about the comfort of compassion. It is first and foremost about hard work. And if you have any expectation or vision of being some kind of knight riding in on a white charger to save people, then, think again...maybe this work is not really for you.

CASA advocacy is most certainly hard work. Part of it is the challenge of navigating the overburdened and slow-moving court and social services system just to make simple things happen for the benefit of the child or family.  This can be extremely frustrating and exasperating at times.  Then there is learning to be an effective advocate while maintaining an arm's-length, dispassionate objectivity.  As a CASA, you become an evident part of this one child's world and it is impossible to not have any affect or be affected by that child's life and the realities and events occurring within his or her life and family.  It's all about relationships and whether addressed directly or not, emotions abound and create a complex reality for all involved. So, there's that ultimate Zen challenge of balancing objectivity with the subjective experience and keeping it all real and genuine in the process.

 

I am not a patient person, as the people in my family have learned and know only too well. Working as a CASA, sometimes that works for me and sometimes it works against me.  The DCP&P staff and many of the hard-working people in the system are overloaded with cases.  With all good intentions, they often fail to return phone calls or follow up on important matters.  The same is true for teachers and school officials, law guardians, and other people whose decisions and actions, or inaction, can affect the lives and welfare of the children who need our help.  That can become very frustrating and wearing, especially for an impatient person like me who is accustomed in business to having people respond quickly.  That's not necessarily the case in these family court cases where most things are more complex than they seem and take a lot of effort, processing, documentation, and official approvals to get things accomplished.

I have learned so much from the young people whose cases I work on. More often than not I think they are helping me more than I could ever help them. They truly are relationships of give-and-take. Each child's unique personality, resilience, and hopefulness speak loudly. Perhaps I've just been lucky but each of the boys whose cases I've worked have had an amazing ability to articulate the narrative of their life, their family, their disappointments, and their hopes. For me that is at least half the job. And it's a special gift for me because it helps me realize all humans are essentially the same - our strengths, vulnerability, emotions, needs, and hopes - the shapes and colors just change. They teach me in ways I could never have imagined. Plus, they help me appreciate more my own family members and how I can do a better job being there for them, listening, being patient and, yes, relaxing.