Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Es su CASA mi CASA? I don't think so; at least it wasn't in our case.

Today I saw that  friend of mine had become a fan of the Facebook Cause that supports the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program.  On the National CASA web page I found this quote:  "The joy of being involved as a voice for a child needing a safe and permanent home or helping a family to regenerate and become parents  is like Christmas every time!"—CASA volunteer Freddy W. Baugh writing on National CASA’s Facebook page.  (Italics added)

As a parent who, to this day, still feels very victimized by my family's experience ten years ago in what I can only describe as the meatgrinder of the Child Protective Services - Dependency Court system in Orange County, California, I initially bristled at reading that information.  Not because my friend did anything to intentionally hurt me, because he certainly did not.  I am sure that he is just trying to do something positive for the world and for children. 

My reaction is partly frustration that I still do not know what more I can do other than drumming up support for a wonderfully effective organization, The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, http://www.nccpr.org/ , through my own Facebook Cause, "Getting Child Protection Right".  And it's also partly frustration and, yes, resentment, that despite the presence of a CASA volunteer in our courtroom, no one from CASA ever spoke to me or to my wife.  I wish they had.

Looking at the phrase above, "helping a family to regenerate and become parents", presupposes that a family has stopped being a family and parents have stopped being parents.  But how does that happen?  In our case, it happened because no one in the system bothered to investigate us in any depth prior to taking action to separate parents from children.  It happened becuase there is no CASA that is there for parents.  Oh, of course there is an attorney, but our attorney (or, in our case, attorneys, plural, because of a potential legal conflict of interest between my wife and myself, despite no REAL conflict) were not able to get the court to really see how unbelievably we parents were being mistreated by the system until a hearing that took place some nine months from the time our boys were taken into custody.  NINE MONTHS.  Do you know what effect nine months of nights away from our kids did to the course of my wife's multiple sclerosis?

I feel the pain of parents who write to me through "Getting Child Protection Right".  Their pain is my pain.  No doubt they could use a CASA, too.

I think I'll share this blog entry with my friend.  I think he'll understand.