kids for children and let's find out about it why do children need special advocates why are children at risk and who are the people who want to help and do  help my absolute right is catherine carmichael she is the executive director for casa for children for mercer and burlington county now as many of you may know casa in spanish means home but it's actually an acronym it's a very interesting acronym because each of the for us led us this figures in court see a appointed special ad to kids or children talk about that sitting next to her is more itar look and more entire is the director of volunteer recruiting because a lot of what goes on there is working with volunteers and we're going to find out more about it do they train them how do they train them what do they want to train them for what are we hoping to do for the children so let's start with you how does it all started why did it will start so how did costs a start so casa is actually a national organization that was founded in one nine hundred seventy seven by a judge in seattle washington the judge's name is david over cases where children were removed from their parents due to abuse and neglect and he felt he needed more information to decide what would happen to these children so he came up with the idea to have volunteer advocates be the independent investigators on these cases of children who you know are out of out of whole in out of home placement in foster care and  these are advocates who are who are unbiased they have no interest except for the best interests of the children so they were assigned so he started this you know he started casa and other words and and and it took off it became an incredibly successful program where and it spread across the country it is in forty nine states and it had we have had advocates advocate for over two and two million children since one nine hundred seventy seven in new jersey there's a state casa organization and there are fourteen local programs so there is a casa program working with every family court in the state of new jersey in every county so people as we go through that procreate and people are interested they they can choose to be an advocate wherever they are in the state of new jersey  and should i should share that the courts as i've gotten to know and work with the courts in new jersey use many volunteers to do to help with the processes that take place with with the court to support the work that goes on there if i'm getting this right the initial interest susan finding out the course of the finding out how this happened in the first place because without knowing that how would you know how to help right how would you know what the needs were and how to help so this judge seemed to know what he was doing and you said nine hundred seventy nine nine hundred seventy seven well this is been going on a long time and these are some of the pictures of the training let's say you know someone is here and they want to be a volunteer what's what happens next well first up is to call us or gone the website and then come to an information session twice a month w offer a free no obligation so maybe forty five minute information session where you can learn more about it and find out if this is your cup of tea and we explain the training what goes into it what the work cost of actually does because it's not for everybody it can be a little daunting but for people who do choose it they make an incredible difference in children's lives they literally save lives and they find a great reward in that ok so what is it what are the qualities they need to have what is it that they need to do you know let's say this person a good support person sitting here says i want to become a volunteer a child well they need to be is over age twenty one that's easy care about children it's easy to have enough computer skills to be able to work email and stay in our system be able to communicate in and talk to people we train them how the child welfare system works how to read all the court files and after thirty six hours of training they would get a case they have to pass a few background checks along the way as you might imagine and then in the front end they do a lot of research they gather information they get to read the entire course court file any of the notes from the social worker or the child protection agencies they meet the teachers the foster parents and they meet a child twice a month and they found all this information gathering they then write a recommendation to the court ninety seven percent of the time our recommendations  accepted because they've been so well researched ok so what kind of recommendations were there mary oh it might be something like what one of those photos you just held up was a picture of a little girl in front of a school bus right there and so foster children get moved a lot and every time they get moved to get pulled to a different school well what if you missed fractions that day so the advocate might say needs meth tutoring or you know th kid might be dyslexic could we get him tested for that often special needs will have i e pee meetings they're called at the school where they try to make sure just to match up resources while there's not a parent to go so the  go and just represent for the child and try to get whatever services are needed to help get the child to a safe and permanent home you can you give some examples of individual cases that you think were particularly are our advocates are so important to the to the lives of the children they're advocating for so one of the reasons just to say why costs as were you know created was because children come into out of home placement because of abuse or neglect they are placed in a foster home with a foster family and our advocates once they have gone through all the training are appointed to a case to be that child advocate they are not mentors they are and their children are living with our advocates we are going in there as as investigators on the case like think we've talked about here a little bit so it's really so we are very important because we are there meeting with the foster parents the law guardian and all the different stakeholders the teachers all the different parties in that case making sure that while the children are moving towards permanency they're also getting all their educational health social emotional they are being needs met so a case that stands out to me is one that  we had a very disabled young girl so she came and so she was born with many disabilities some physical disabilities to a teenage mother who was cognitively delayed and could not take care of katie from the time she was born so from the time she was born she she came into foster care and went through many different homes finally ended up in a pre adoptive home so a family that wanted to adopt her that's when our advocate was placed on the case since she was ten years old and it looked like she was going to be adopted by this family but our advocate and our advocates visit with the children at least twice a month sometimes they meet with the children more the ad s started meeting with the with katie at the family's home and found out that katie was being emotionally and sexually abused in the foster in the foster home and this was she was able to report this to the judge to report it to the division of child protection and permanency which is the agency overseeing her care and also to the judge she was removed  and thankfully you know and placed into a institution institutional setting she went from and our advocate stayed with her all this time so in the course of three years she was moved ten times because they were trying to find the right placement for her to meet her needs it looked like she was never going to be adopted because at this point she's a  preteen with you know all these you know issues and challenges and so even in her record it was changed from pre adoption as the goal to you know to aging out of foster care which means that she'll probably bet that she would stay in character as she's twenty one so at some but so so here we have it she's been in all these different homes it does not look like a positive future because we always want our children to try to have it you know what we consider normal happy life with a family i mean that's our goal to be with a family so she ended up katie ended up in a what they call a respite home which means that somewhere along the way that she ended up in the care of a family again because of some services well let's just say she ended up in this in this family's home which is the good part of the story but the woman who is taking care of her did not have any interest in adopting her shared this with the advocate but the advocate felt that she saw something positive happening between this woman and katie as you know she went to visit because let's call her mrs p just didn't think she wanted to take on you know all the needs that she saw katie needed but are advocate really worked on on you know developing the relationship showing that there are resources and this story has a happy ending because that that it was you know through a lot of development and relationships katie into a school that was able to meet her needs so getting her to a place where there was normalcy in her life and back into a family and out of an institution and i could tell you know many stories where that's the reason why our advocates are important because there is able to really get to know these children and see opportunities  well there are you know on the case for things to happen that completely change the trajectory of these children's lives in a positive way so that they don't be asked you know in an institution and and i think for me i just want to share you know one of the things that really says days with me as i you know in this role we're responsible for all these children that we serve an organization is you know we just don't want we have so many children who have had so many losses and there are a lot you know the loss of their family moving from home to home trying to find somewhere where they fit in so much loneliness and so many children who end up in institutional settings because of  you know the lack of foster homes homes for you know children who have a lot of needs but there are still there are positive stories within all of all of this and costs you know our advocates truly make a difference and this is shown across the country and through our results that you know children with  casa find permanency faster and also don't really enter the foster care system so something that i learned that i didn't know this really before coming into this role  is that children who are in foster care in adopted are sometimes returned by their adoptive parents back to the system because of some because of behaviors because of some something that they said that they a parents didn't you know realize how much work that you know and i maybe didn't have the support but what casa does is our advocates make sure that you know they're making recommendations to the judge about the adoptive parents so that it's a solid you know secure bonding and relationship and you know that that that this is going to be a good match so long and focus on it a lot yeah you know and you express sense of joy when you realize that something was helped are two brothers in foster care and we start with the assumption that all the people in the social work system really do want the best for the children but the system is overburdened so they may not have as much time but it costs one volunteer for one one child or maybe a sibling group so maybe it would be a couple of children so the social worker has done what they can things aren't going that well for these little boys the little boys mentioned that they have an uncle somewhere well the casa has time to chase that down follow up all the paperwork make internet searches well they found him the uncle was not aware that his nephews had been in the system for so long and of course one of them immediately started the proceedings to get these children back to their blood family goodness that is a very positive story i know is different but the other side of the coin is that i had one time i had a job which i thought was going to be glamorous working as a writer and appetising on park avenue and it turned out to be very empty and vacant for me for what i wanted to do so to compensate i became a volunteer at bellevue hospital i live near believe hospital with the children in the psychiatric ward and i would go in and i would bring my hand puppets and talk and them stories and they were up all over me they were pulling my hair and there was one very sad little boy and one time when i was there his uncle came to visit him and i asked uncle please take  out of here bring him to your home don't leave him here he is very sad and the uncle became very sad but he said i can do it i cannot do it and i felt so defeated because that little boy  about i hand off from foster care and it's a write up about a program you recognized right away i didn't see when i shared it with you a program from west virginia college and it's they talk specifically about children from foster care and they say that children who have been in foster care only about half of foster care children graduate from high school very few earned a bachelor's degrees national figures are unavailable but estimates range from two to three percent only two to three percent yes so they say the reasons are not mysterious it's interrupted schooling which is what you've mentioned right interrupted schooling and a greater academic this trip so scripts which means that they need help with math and with reading my factory what you're talking about right and this is in yesterday's newspaper and so apparently in the line up of those who are vulnerable perhaps the foster care children become the most of all the more vulnerable what do you think about so they are the most voter bill children you know in our country in our community so we you know i think it's important for people to know that our organization serves foster care of children in foster care who come from mercer in burlington county so right here i mean these these are our children from our community that are you know struggling and don't have you know the family life to support them so so that's one thing that they are they are right here they are children from our own communities but you know to answer that yes three per cent of children in foster care go on to get a bachelor's degree you know thirty years ago it was two percent in that that where at three percent when there have been so many strides so many major you know moves forward in education for children from under served community is because my background i shared some of it with you was in school reform before coming to foster care and so there i've seen so many wonderful things with you know with education for children from under served communities but the children in foster care really need need are our you know focus and it's because like maureen described you know they are moving around so that their educational records are lost or they code into a new school and that new school covered fractions you know before they got you know arrived so they missed fractions for that year and so the adjustments stigma so they don't want to admit these things yeah there's a lot there's a lot to it and this was important because if we have to create a a line of where we need to give more of our attention we begin to understand if the child's been in foster care they're going to need more help just not at the others don't but they will need perhaps more help and attention in all these ways that we've talked about i think it's also interesting that i'm going to interject here that catherine  d carmichael and i went to the same graduate school of education we discovered in talking on the phone yesterday and this bank street college of education was always a school that wanted us to be out there in the world no i was placed at a very very well known private school but for children with language based learning differences and and i've been that of or many many different schools all over new york city since my bank street  you know i was in harlem i was in a program youth in the inner city in harlem and that was six months i had to get a leave of absence to attend that that was wonderfully interesting and of course is not sitting around thing although we talked bank street you're always talking right know if no lecturing were out there were out there and i was given a job with a brooklyn egg a school next to a brooklyn navy yard and i had to spend a couple of months to replacing a counsellor who had been out sick and all my goodness oh my goodness the stories the lives of people and how much we need humanity it's it's a credible the fact that you're there and i'm working in the areas i work in a school for the students with learning disabilities so i you know how we are drawn to this particular world and how we were so well trained to deal with it well what do we have record of coming to the closing of this particular session what would you like to share with people who are listening what would you want them to say to think about or know kasa and b difference this is in our volunteers tell us all the time this is a volunteer opportunity for someone who wants to make a difference you are court appointed you're just volunteer you advocate with a court order and you really protect a life or several lives if it's a sibling group of children on it that you that you really can make an impact so it's for people who are looking for that to make a difference in the life of a child  and they're just kids and they just didn't get a good start and through no fault of their own and there's still time to there's really a of them to reclaim them and get them on the path where ok you're doing beautiful work and others if you find more you mind humanity which is what we all think we need a lot more of these days when each one of those kids goes out in the world so every kid that you've shaped a little or given a chance they're going to make a bigger difference when they're  about that you know passes on they've been they've been given care to fail give care to others it's yeah that's the way it is well i catherine carmichael it's been a joy to meet you and to talk to you and to see how much we share in terms of our caring about young people and children and older people to raj and also morrie tyler who i knew and was with said senior center here the suzanne patterson senior center twelve years wow so when we've come together a frew our interests and our caring and it's beautiful when people can take their  joy and bring it to others and it's your work and you're doing it and it's because you work and loving what you do and caring about others and riches acis well i think we become kinder even if we