CASAs: Racism and White Supremacy Within Our Child Welfare System
Anyone who is at all familiar with DHS and/or the child welfare system are aware of these supposedly “selfless” and benevolent Court Appointed Special Advocates, also known as CASAs. CASA’s are unpaid volunteers appointed by the Court — a juvenile court judge or magistrate — in DHS (dependency/abuse/neglect) cases whose sole responsibility is to represent the “best interests” of the child or children involved in the case; however, the reality is quite the opposite.
The Court bestows upon CASA’s enormous — and almost completely unchecked — power and decision-making ability and often times simply rubber-stamps all their recommendations without question. I myself have firsthand experience with CASA’s during my own battles with DHS — as a child when I was unjustly and unnecessarily taken from my mother and as a mother when several of my children were unjustly and unnecessarily taken from me.
God help the parent, if — for whatever reason, many of which I will be discussing below — the CASA doesn't care for them and recommends removal or termination of parental rights; more than likely, and no matter how hard the parent fights, that will be the outcome of the case. I have had firsthand experience with CASA’s during my own battles with DHS — both as a child when I was unjustly and unnecessarily taken from my mother and as a mother when several of my children were unjustly and unnecessarily taken me. Unsurprisingly, the results were disastrous for my family.
That said, there are several reasons why CASA’s have come to represent and imbody white supremacy — and as such are a major cause — along with incompetent and timid parental attorneys, GALs, DHS caseworkers, and judges/magistrates — of the cultural genocide and legally sanctioned destruction of the black family within the child welfare system. Many of these reasons are summed up matter-of-factly by noted child welfare reformer and advocate, Richard Wexler, when he says the following:
“CASA is a program in which minimally trained volunteers, overwhelmingly white and middle-class, are assigned to families who are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately nonwhite. Then they tell judges if the children should be taken from those families, sometimes forever. That, of course, raises problems of inherent bias.”
Most of these CASA’s — like most child welfare personnel— have little to no oversight or accountability. Often CASA’s develop blatant conflicts of interests and rarely, if ever, go against DHS recommendations regardless of the family’s circumstances. Throughout my many experiences with DHS — both personally and professionally — I have yet to come across a single CASA who was black or even shared a similar socio-economic background as the families they worked with or the children whose “best interests” they were responsible for. I’m sure that there must be, those that are, however, are the exception not the rule.
Don’t believe me? Try this simple experiment, Google “CASA” and note the results that you get. I did, and the results were an eye-opener — given that around 30 percent of all children in state care nationwide are black and universally poor — even for me, a social justice and parental rights advocate. More than likely, you will find — what I found — that the vast majority of the results for “CASA” are white people like those pictured below.
Worse still, not only is bias — almost entirely against poor black families — built into the CASA program by way of the purposeful and excessive lack of diversity; I have witnessed many CASA’s actively sabotage reunifications — especially if the families/children are black and foster parents are white — and perjure themselves in court. Both of which are common occurrences. One disturbing example that clearly demonstrates the racism and white supremacy within the CASA program — and within the child welfare system as a whole — involves Merlin Sprague, a former CASA of 20 years for Snohomish County in Washington state.
Mr. Sprague, a white man, was rejected from volunteering in the Big Brother program due to his failing a psychological examination — which is why I am a strong proponent of mandatory psychological evaluations/testing for CASA’s, DHS employees, and anyone who works directly with families within the child welfare system — and was encouraged to become a CASA instead. Despite Mr. Sprague’s psychological issues, he was approved as a CASA by the Court. After serving as a CASA for 20 years, Mr. Sprague said the following via his blog about the many families — overwhelmingly poor and black — he worked with during his time as a CASA:
All of us in programs like the Guardians ad Litem see that:
The vast preponderance of children who are abused and neglected come from impoverished parents.
The parents are unschooled and ignorant and are satisfied with the situation. This, of course, explains the poverty.
Many parents are of low IQ. Like one of my colleagues said, “They’re as dumb as dirt”.
Over 50% of the parents are felons and junkies who are incapable of looking after their own selves, let alone their children. Of the remaining 50%, most are simply felons and junkies who haven’t yet been caught. This includes booze and tobacco.
And if you believe that Mr. Speuge is simply one bad apple, you would sadly be mistaken. In fact, a recent CUNY Law Review article, titled However Kindly Intentioned: Structural Racism and Volunteer CASA Programs noted the following:
“However kindly intentioned their work may be, this paper posits that CASAs essentially give voice to white supremacy — the same white supremacy that permeates the system as a whole and that allows us to so easily accept the idea that children in the child welfare system actually require the “gift” of a CASA, and do not already have an abundance of “important people” in their lives.”
But wait there’s more; according to a recent study — the most comprehensive ever done of the CASA program and a study commissioned by the National CASA Association itself — The CASA programs’ only real “accomplishment” was that it significantly prolongs the amount of time that children languish in foster case and significantly reduces the chances of children being placed with family members — also known as Kinship care. The study also concluded that CASA volunteers spend significantly less time on a case if the child to whom they are assigned is black and that having a CASA on the case does nothing to improve child safety.
Youth Today Columnist, Karen Pittman, summed up the study findings/research when she said, “The more rigorous evaluation, however, not only challenged the effectiveness of the court volunteers’ services, but suggested that they spend little time on cases, particularly those of black children, and are associated with more removals from the home and fewer efforts to reunite children with parents or relatives.”
In conclusion:
Clearly, the CASA program needs to be done away with and replaced with something that works. But, I know that won’t be happening anytime soon. I also know that there will be no real and robust efforts to diversify the CASA program. That said, and more importantly, the CASA program further demonstrates the need for protective federal legislation, specifically the African American Child Welfare Act, that will significantly reduce the gross overrepresentation of black families — and increased positive case outcomes — within the system.
A Call to Action…
I’m calling upon social justice and parental rights advocates, families/parents at-risk, and woke child welfare professionals everywhere — those who are really ready to make a positive difference and combat the cultural genocide of African American families, and indeed all families, all across the country — to call and write the appropriate committees and/or legislators and tell them that you will not stand for this injustice. Please call or write your representatives and request that the African American Child Welfare Act, or one similar, be introduced in YOUR state.
#NAFPAorg #CASASoWhite #AfricanAmericanChildWelfareAct #BlackFamilyMatters #BlackLoveMatters #BlackLivesMatter #BlackFamiliesBelongTogether #KeepBlackFamiliesTogether
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Latagia Copeland-Tyronce, MSW, CADAS, is a longtime parental rights and social justice advocate, child welfare reform activist, writer/blogger, and journalist whose work has been featured in BlackMattersUs and Rise Magazine. She is the founder, president, and executive director of the National African American Families First and Preservation Association (NAFPA) a groundbreaking 501c4 nonprofit origination, the first of its kind, devoted exclusively to the protection and preservation of the African American (Black) Family though policy and legislative advocacy.
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