Twenty Years as a Guardian ad Litem

Twenty years ago, I stood in a courtroom and took an oath for a volunteer job I had no idea I would fall so much in love with or do for 20 years.  I was sworn in as North Carolina Guardian ad Litem and was handed my first case with two boys under five.  That has led to 67 children, 33 different cases, 13 children were adopted, 11 were reunited with their parents, and seven aged out of foster care.  Those children varied in age from newborns to aging out of foster care at the age of 18.  I currently have 11 children I am advocating ranging from the age of three to 17.  There is no telling how miles I’ve driven as kids get placed all over the state of North Carolina.  For those that know, a GAL is a court appointed advocate for foster children that looks out for their best interests.  In North Carolina, they are a trained volunteer, in other states they might be paid attorneys.  I have written about this before here in a T-SQL Tuesday post.  The state program and national programs in the United States you can find by clicking on the logos at the bottom of the article.

I didn’t start paying attention to anniversaries for this until I hit year 18, the office sent the flowers on the right on year 10 and didn’t even know year 15 went by.  But I seen the flower post on Facebook on year 18 and was like I should make note of when year 20 is going to get here.  Year 18 left me contemplating priorities with my time as I was giving so much to so many things.  One of my friends compared my volunteerism to a gambling habit.  That they would have not been wrong on.  With the amount of Data Platform community involvement, I was going at the time and other volunteer work, and I was stretching myself really thin and causing myself to struggle at different times.  So, I cut back on things and reprioritized my time to make sure I was doing more self-care, and it has been amazing to do so.  At first, I felt more like I was letting people down, but really no one noticed I was doing less and got to reap the benefits of doing a job I enjoy better, being a voice for abused and neglected children.

This weekend I spent all weekend visiting four of my kids.  A couple placed three hours away but these are some of the highlights form the visit.  Waking up a teenager at 10 AM on a Saturday but her being very happy to see me.  We discussed all kinds of important and nonimportant things as we played Animal Crossing on our switches.  Two hours away I go visit another child and we do the same thing but the whole time I’m there I keep telling this child how amazing she is for making eight, count that, eight, 100s for the year on her report card.  You got that right not just straight As, but straight 100s on her report card.  How amazing and I made sure she felt amazing!  She is very shy and quiet and kept blushing Next day visiting a young gentleman who finds it hard to set still, but as always very happy to see me. He once told I was like a mom to him, some of these teens if you show enough and spend time with them and show you care they want to from those relationships.  Fourth child, preteen tells me how she caught a bouquet at a wedding and had been to the beach in the last month since I seen her, while playing in slime and putting it all over my hands.  I spent about two hours with each kid, my normal.  I invest time with each kid and get to know them and share life with them to the extent I can.

I have tons of little moments stored away from probably at this point 1000s of visits with children.  A child that was adopted two years ago and his brother still ask about me and his birthday party is next Monday and I’m going to it.  After cases close I generally don’t see kids again, I may have their adoptive parents on Facebook as friends or if a relative gets custody they my friend on Facebook so I might occasionally get to see them.  But pretty much as far memories they are just in my head with a list of names in a word doc with the outcome of the case: reunified, adopted, etc.  I wish I had been wise enough to know I would be doing this 20 year later I would have kept a photo of each kid.

One thing that has struck with me recently is the lack of foster homes, especially for teenagers.  I’ve had a few teenagers recently displaced with group homes staying at DSS during the day and various foster homes at night until a more permanent placement can be found.  Two such foster children actually ended up finding them a foster home out of the deal versus a group one because the foster parents liked them.  It’s just a said state of affairs when a kid is at DSS rather than in school or in a home.  Group homes are not a home for a kid to grow up in and far to often teens come into foster care and end up them for the duration of their stay in foster care and we wonder why they age out and don’t how to copy with the real world.  There is a need for foster parents everywhere even just the ones that take them in for a night or two. There is a need for Guardian ad Litems.  I ask if you have the time and heart and desire to help foster kids to find a way to do so.  If I can be of any assistance let me know, drop me a line on Twitter.

Here is to 30 more years!  Yes, we want a 50-year anniversary!