Seasons come and go, always moving life forward. With fall comes a feeling of excitement for outdoor activities and reflection on the season passed. Transitional times are energizing but can also be unsettling, especially for youth who are not in a permanent home.
CASA volunteers build trusted relationships so they can help the child navigate the many transitions in their young life. As the leaves fall, this lifts us up and gives us hope for their future.
Reflections on Dependency Case Dismissal
CASA Volunteers are excited when first appointed to a child dependency case. They study the various case notes and then meet the child. CASAs commit to staying with that child until they are permanently placed in a home and the dependency case is dismissed. CASAs may feel a sense of accomplishment knowing the impact they made on those involved in the case. However, the transition can also be bittersweet because these youth have made a forever impact on the volunteers.
Voices of CASA Children and CASA of Maricopa County are proud to host gatherings where CASA volunteers with cases that have closed can come together to connect, engage, share, and reflect on their experiences. While each case – each child – is different, there is a profound recognition that regardless of the outcome, the CASA brought light, a voice, and hope to a child.
As one CASA volunteer shared, “Attending the Reflections event was a wonderful opportunity to share with my fellow CASA’s the experience of our journey as advocates. The good, the bad, and how we feel about our kiddos moving forward. It was comforting to me to be able to share this bittersweet time and to feel hope for the future of kiddos in foster care. It is easy to see the true impact CASA’s have made on the foster care community.”
If you would like more information on becoming a CASA volunteer, please join us for an upcoming Information Session.
My CASA Journey – Creating a Connection
CASA volunteers provide a voice during sometimes scary and complex moments in a foster child’s life experience. Creating a new connection with a child or teen isn’t always easy. Experiences such as going for ice cream, flying a kite, or choosing a movie help a CASA volunteer and youth talk, share, and connect.
VOICES offers activities from toddlers to teens in locations throughout Maricopa County. Simply being present and giving the child something to look forward to is an important part of building that connection.
Said one CASA volunteer: “My CASA child loves going to the movies. One of our best bonding experiences. I really appreciate these tickets”. Another exclaimed of an indoor museum: “Great way to help beat the heat during summer and get siblings together! The kids loved it!”
Sometimes the activities are things that you often do with your child but might be the CASA child’s first experience: “I got the kite for my youth and he was so DELIGHTED, we had a great day flying it and he was really happy to have it so he could also enjoy it with friends,” said one CASA Volunteer”.
Need some Fall Fun with your family?
Fall fun means hay rides, pumpkin patches and petting zoos at Pumpkin Farms all over the Valley, such as: Vertuccio Farms in Mesa, MacDonalds Ranch in Scottsdale, Tolmachoff Farms in Glendale or Mother Nature’s Farm in Gilbert and more! Don’t forget the caramel apples or pumpkin spice anything!
Community & Youth Connections – Paul Revere Academy, EVIT
Teens in foster care face unique challenges with completing high school, preparing for college or gaining skills to use in the workplace. A new partnership is focusing on directly addressing these teens’ need to catch up despite changing schools, to learn despite serious trauma, and to believe they too can be a high school graduate, attend college or find employment in meaningful work.
East Valley Institute of Technology and the Heritage Academy created the Paul Revere Academy in Mesa to provide academic, career technical education (CTE) and other services supporting the unique needs of foster youth.
Stephanie Lund, Principal at Paul Revere Academy, shared students enrolled in a CTE concentrator program achieve higher graduation rate while also equipping youth with practical, relevant occupational skills and experience. Students at Paul Revere Academy explore different career and technical programs with caregivers, mentors, or counselors, and can choose a program where the youth can feel successful with the group learning environments and academic/skill level.
Equally as important, this program surrounds and supports the foster youth with trauma-informed teachers, small class sizes, transportation, dual enrollment options, and the ability to be workforce-ready upon graduation. To address the housing needs (especially for teens who age out of foster care) is a new dormitory under construction now.
Check out the Paul Revere Academy to learn more!
In Focus: AZ Department of Child Safety
Why it matters: CASA volunteers must remain politically neutral when executing their CASA duties. They are appointed by Juvenile Court Judges and bound by Judicial protocols. However, they need to be aware and understand how changes in judicial policy and/or legislative actions may impact their day-to-day advocacy and how they engage with others involved in a child’s dependency.
VOICES maintains collaborative relationships with child welfare partners and stays abreast of key issues and outcomes. This insight helps us identify new areas of education or support for CASA volunteers. This also includes societal issues that impact the environment in which we all live. We will feature key themes here.
In the News: The Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) issued a press release announcing that the number of Arizona children in out of home dependency dropped below 10,000 for the first time since July 2008. https://dcs.az.gov/news/dcs-reaches-milestone-not-seen-2008
They also issued their FY2024 Strategic Plan. You can see the full two-page summary here: https://dcs.az.gov/about/strategic-plan
Strengthening Advocacy Through Education – Supporting Youth in Times of Transition
Many schools are out for Fall break and families in the valley are adjusting their schedules as the holidays are just around the corner. For youth in foster care, this time of the year can be especially challenging. As Bruce Perry stated, “The capacity to successfully transition from one place to another, one activity to another, one internal state to another is fundamentally related to the capacity to self-regulate.
And this, of course, is one of the main areas of difficulty with children and youth who have been exposed to developmental chaos, threat and trauma.”
For the adults who surround these youth, it’s important to anticipate when transitions are coming and to equip youth with the skills and support they need to stay regulated. In the next few weeks, VOICES will continue to provide CASA’s with educational webinars encompassing this topic of regulation and de-escalation. Participants will gain practical tools and expand their knowledge on trauma and how it can show up in times of transition. We are bringing back some well-received speakers such as Dr. Kevin Powell and Molly Strothkamp, as well as welcoming new faces such as Noelle Hause from Zero to Three. We look forward to connecting with CASA’s as they tune in to our upcoming training opportunities!
To learn more about mastering transitions, check out the following episode of the Empowered to Connect Podcast.
(This was the Voices of Hope Newsletter, October 2023. Subscribe to receive more newsletters.)
