The Advocate and the Fixer

Being a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for neglected and abused children in the foster care system is a hard job.

In fact, to clarify, it’s not even a job. It’s a volunteer gig. And one that comes with a lot of daily challenges.

Despite the extensive training (at least twice as much as is required to become a foster parent) and the unwavering support from our supervisors and program staff, this volunteer role is difficult.

We investigate circumstances, facilitate access to services and resources, advocate on behalf of the children’s best interest day to day and in the courtroom, and monitor all aspects of our children’s cases to ensure shit gets done.

But beyond all that… beyond the weekly visits, countless phone calls, emergency emails, late night updates, frustrating barriers, long-winded court reports, attorneys, judges, caseworkers, supervisors, service providers, medical professionals, the other 79 things we juggle on a weekly basis for our kiddos, we do our jobs in the midst of all things broken.

Broken parents.

Broken families.

Broken children.

Broken spirits.

Broken bones.

Broken promises.

Broken laws.

But the hardest part of this role, hands down, is facing the undeniably broken system.

You see, a lot of the folks drawn to become CASAs are fixers. We’re the serial problem solvers with a knack for repairing the broken. Not the savvy, diabolical politicos that cover up crimes and bury scandals. The fixers I’m talking about are quite the opposite.

We’re those friends you sometimes dread talking to when you’re feeling blue because we struggle to just listen. Instead we roll up our sleeves and start to fix. We offer suggestions and resources instead of just holding space. We recommend solutions instead of just letting you vent. We love hard and hate to see those around us suffering, but we sometimes fail to see that we can contribute in ways beyond “the fix”.

Being both a CASA and a fixer is excruciating at times because advocacy in the face of a broken system doesn’t feel or even look like fixing.

When bureaucratic red tape postpones a child from getting the services necessary to handle and heal from trauma, pestering those holding the tape does not feel like fixing.

When loving parents just can’t manage to keep their shit together because no one is helping them navigate their way back to their children, endless encouragement and accountability calls do not feel like fixing.

When your children are torn from what they’ve come to know as normal in the middle of the night and shipped off to somewhere new, simply showing up week after week to spend time with them does not feel like fixing.

When grown ups and even paid professionals drop the ball on your case or fail to serve your children, persistence and tenacity in getting everything back on track does not feel like fixing.

When children are measured in developmental milestones and parents in meaningless checklists, attending court hearings every 90 days does not feel like fixing.

When the problems these families face become so big, so complex, so tangled, so seemingly insurmountable, advocacy doesn’t feel like fixing.

And that’s infuriating for us fixers.

We feel inadequate. We tell ourselves we’re not doing enough. We toil over how we could have done things differently. We can’t sleep at night. We can’t focus. We start to lose confidence, to lose faith in ourselves, to lose the fire that led us to this work to begin with.

But, silently, at night, after everything is quiet and the phone has stopped ringing and the email notifications have stopped dinging and the stressors of the day have stopped singing… we remember.

We remember the way our children’s faces light up as if it were Christmas morning when they see us walk through the door every Wednesday at 630pm.

We remember the time that mom shared vital information with us and only us because we’re the only person she feels she can trust.

We remember all the small quiet moments of support we offered when tears began rolling, voices were raised, and circumstances were just too much to handle.

We remember that the feverish pursuit of truth we present in our court reports is possibly the only chance a judge will get to truly know the whole story when deciding the fate of these families.

We remember that advocacy isn’t just about fixing.

It’s about being the one constant in these children’s lives.

It’s about being the voice for these children in court.

It’s about fighting for their best interests despite the slow-moving tornado of shit following them from one day into the next.

And it’s about holding them in your heart as you jump over, climb under, and charge through the system’s maze of broken pieces and bright red tape.

Advocacy is about loving these children more than you ever thought possible. And using that love to overcome the hurdles on their behalf.

In those silent moments just before we fall asleep, as our eyelids begin to feel like anchors and we teeter between this world and the worlds we conjure in our dreams, we suddenly remember that advocacy is so much more than fixing.

And before long, we wake up to do it all again tomorrow.