FAYETTEVILLE - Many children live in households where they are trapped in neglect and abuse.
CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates, works to identify these households and to identify the best home placement for each child.
Husband and wife team Jerry and Julie Moody have volunteered as Court Appointed Special Advocates for three and 10 years, respectively. Their experiences as superintendent, English teacher and counselor opened their eyes tothe world of hurt that some of their students were living through, so once a church member told them about CASA, Julie dove in head first.
“I saw so many children who were abused because they’d come and report it to me [as a counselor], and we’d have to help them go through that process,” Julie Moody said. “That’s what drew me to CASA initially, and knowing that there are so many children who are so vulnerable and needed help.”
As advocates, volunteers are expected to review a child’s case from all angles, to familiarize themselves with the experiences they’ve lived through, and to interview the people in the child’s life, including parents, foster parents, social workers, lawyers and doctors. Once they have an intimate understanding of the child’s day-to-day existence, they’re encouraged to ask questions of local experts and prepare for each court hearing the child attends. The advocates’ final responsibility is to make a formal recommendation for a permanent housing situa-tion through a report that is reviewed by a judge.
The process takes 18 months on average, and the recommendation means that sometimes the child will not return to the family, but instead will be placed in foster care or with a trusted relative.
“When I was trained [to be an advocate], my expectation was reunification,” Julie Moody said. “And you try and try and try, but it doesn’t always turn out. That’s a challenge and that’s a frustration sometimes because you really want the parents to step up and get it together and be able to get their child back.”
Advocates meet with the child many times to get a sense of his personality, typical behavior, and reactions,especially when parents are nearby.
Establishing a personal relationship with the child makes it easier to file those tough recommendations that sometimes keep them away from their biological family, because volunteers advocatewhat will be best for the child in the long run.
“We’re told that we’re advocates for the child,” Jerry Moody said. “Really, we are working in the best interest of the child, not in the best interest of the birth parents or foster parents or anybody else.
“But the bottom line, we have to say what we think is best for this child right now.”
The Moodys say children 3 years old and younger pose special problems because they haven’t learned to communicate for themselves in a clear way.
“In that case, you talk to the foster families and day care workers and observe behaviors more than anything,” Julie Moody said. “Even interaction with other children and the [social] worker, the family members, how they interact with them.”
But once in a while, the combination of professionals working to help the family is just right, and reunification with the family works in favor of the child.
“I had a case where the [parents] didn’t know anything about parenting, and as a result, their infant wasabused,” Jerry Moody said. “DHS took the child into care … the parents went to intensive counseling and training over the period of a year, and they wound up getting their kid back. This is the way it’s supposed to be.”
The Moodys and othervolunteers like them will continue to be advocates because “seeing that the child is where you think is the best place for them is really rewarding,” Julie Moody said.
Light of Hope, a free breakfast event focused on the mission of the CASAorganization, will begin at 7 a.m. Nov. 19 at the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers, and a luncheon with featured guest speaker Elise Mitchell is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Nov. 19 at the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center in Springdale.
Northwest Profile, Pages 35 on 11/10/2013