I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (3 page)

Yes, this power does create enemies. Emotions surrounding custody and family issues are sometimes explosive. In order to protect themselves, guardians are urged to preserve privacy by not revealing their home addresses, phone numbers, or involving their guardian families in their personal lives.

Privileged information is both a blessing and a curse. When it is used to protect the fragile rights of individuals and the anonymity of innocent victims, it is well employed. But often confidentiality is used as a veil to protect those who failed to serve a child in a proper or timely manner. New administrators of the state social service department are beginning to question the confidentiality of their cases because sealed files shield incompetent workers from inspection and accountability.

Still, I have sworn an oath to guard the secrets of my cases. Great care has been taken to camouflage the identities of the children in this book. Their names and ages and locations and almost every identifying fact about their families and backgrounds has been altered. Professions and histories of their relatives are as different as they can be while still reflecting the emotional truths of the stories. Despite these adjustments, I have tried to portray honestly and factually my involvement in the Guardian ad Litem program from the training phases through the various court hearings and decisions. The legal groundwork and placement situations have not been changed nor have the specific crimes against the children. Every professional person and foster family has been made into a fictional character, again with distinctive changes. Because there were often several social workers managing a case over time, different judges on the bench, various lawyers representing the parties (and because portraying all of these people would probably confuse the reader), some of these characters actually are composites. Of course I cannot recall every word of a conversation that may have happened many years ago. I never taped interviews (except in one case mentioned in the book), nor did I attempt to take verbatim notes. I did keep extensive field notes and jotted down phrases from pertinent telephone conversations, which were then typed into my journals and handed in monthly to my supervisor. Nevertheless, I sometimes quote actual dialogue to the best of my recollection. If the words are not precise, the meaning and the results are as accurate as possible. Other times I use the device of dialogue to tell the story more as it was lived, recreating only those scenes in which I participated. Some of the events are rather preposterous with strange coincidences, bizarre decisions and outcomes—the whole “truth is stranger than fiction” phenomenon. Many of the cases have convolutions, surprises, and legal maneuvers that cannot be eliminated if the impact on a child’s life is to be understood. Though I have been tempted to modify the truth so it will seem more “real,” I have adhered to the actual flow of events as much as possible, changing only a few situations, usually by leaving out extraneous incidents and characters, to make them comprehensible. But the girl’s love of Robert Frost, the search for a missing mother, the child’s marriage, and the swift appearance of adoptive parents are stunningly true.

As part of the record keeping required of a guardian, I kept daily time logs of every phone call (even those unanswered), every meeting, and every hour volunteered. Most guardians in our district volunteer ten to twenty hours per month on an average of two active cases. One full-time volunteer carries nine cases and donates two hundred hours per month. I typically spend twenty to forty hours each month, which I juggle between my writing, film work, and family life. My written logs have been invaluable in recreating events. Looking back after many months on a case, I have a very different perception than I did as the situation unfolded. As much as possible, I have attempted to tell the stories in chronological order forward in each case so a reader can follow my path as I waded through reams of perplexing material, made complex decisions, and lived through the consequences of my actions. The locations cover a wide geographical area in Florida, but no county or city is correctly identified, and the circuit court districts and other pertinent places have not been specified. Any town mentioned is definitely not the one involved. Much of the procedure for Guardians ad Litem is specific to Florida and does not apply in other parts of the country, where the roles and rules governing the conduct, responsibility, and power of advocates vary considerably.

Child rights cases have exploded in the media in the past few years, and several of these celebrated cases have impacted on me directly as well as the work of advocates everywhere. For a while I wrestled with whether or not to respect the confidentiality of these children and have decided that—for better or worse—they have become public record. Since those charged with protecting their confidentiality have chosen to break that silence, I do not feel obligated to protect it either. Only those families whose names and stories have been splashed across headlines and whose legal battles have made case law or serve as historical landmarks (such as Gregory K., Baby Jessica, and Kimberly Mays) are identified correctly. Also, the names of the members of my immediate family and associates have not been altered, since it would be illogical to do so.

Despite these restrictions, my guardian children are real, their chronicles are true. They need not only to be told, but also to be heard. Since I am a writer, I have decided that I must continue to speak for them through the medium I know best. “I want people to know what happened to me” was one girl’s response when I asked if she wanted me to tell her story. Another said, “Maybe my story will make someone else’s life better.” I asked those children whom I could still locate to select their own pseudonyms for this book, and these are the names I have used. In some cases the real adults have also picked their aliases as a way of actively participating in the process of revealing the complex world of troubled families. These very private lives become the backdrop for a courtroom struggle to fortify children from violence and neglect as well as to provide them with what they are entitled to have under our Constitution: a permanent, safe place where they can not only survive, but thrive.

1
The Girl Who Loved Robert Frost
Lydia’s Story

When will justice come? When those who are not injured become as indignant as those who are.

—
LEO TOLSTOY

I
HAVE A FILE HERE WITH YOUR NAME ON IT
,” said Lillian Elliott, the district Guardian ad Litem case coordinator, in response to my call. “ Saw this young woman in court and knew she needed a special friend. I’ve been holding it open just for you,” she added warmly.

Whether or not this was true, I wasn’t sure, but Lillian did have a way of selling a case. “Tell me more about her,” I prompted. “Where is she living?”

“Very near you,” she said to interest me further.

“Is she in a safe place?” I wondered, because sometimes a child remained in a potentially dangerous home if there had not been enough evidence to remove her.

“Yes, very, and she’s not going anywhere for a while.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s been ordered there by the court. You see, this case is a bit different from the usual: the child is also the perpetrator.” Lillian paused for me to absorb her meaning.

The children assigned to volunteers were almost always the victims, not the accused. “Why does the girl need a guardian?”

“The court has determined she’s a CINS kid herself, a child in need of services”—Lillian hesitated for a moment—”because she put her baby sister in a microwave oven.”

“Is that the horrendous case that was in the newspaper?”

“Yes, but why don’t you read the file and then decide?” Lillian suggested. “In fact, maybe before you agree to take her on, you should meet her. If you don’t feel comfortable with her, I’ll find someone else.”

“I told you I’d take anything you thought I could handle.”

Already during my first year as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem, I had been through a complicated case and a criminal trial, so I was fairly confident that I could manage most situations, but I had been putting off accepting responsibility for a new child because I was completing a book. Finally, though, my desk was clear. I had delivered my latest novel and had many weeks to wait before I received the revisions from my editor. Our two sons were back in school. The bills were paid, the accounting files organized, so I had picked up the phone and called Lillian.

There is no traditional way a Guardian ad Litem receives a new case. There are always more children needing guardians than there are volunteers, and when an urgent one comes along, the coordinators will initially attempt to match a particular guardian with a child. When necessary, though, they parcel out a file to whoever will agree to accept it. Or, if a volunteer has time for a new case, there is almost always one ready and waiting.

“Let me send you the file,” Lillian said. “We’ll talk again after you’ve read it.”

When I became a guardian in October 1989, our circuit court district—one of twenty in Florida—consisted of a central Guardian ad Litem program office with a small, dynamic professional staff that included Nancy Hastedt, the circuit director; Lillian Elliott, the administrative assistant who coordinated the volunteers; and Helen Bonito, the office manager. An attorney worked on a contract basis to advise the approximately forty volunteers responsible for a five-county district covering 4,231 square miles with a population of 573,144. Only 8.9 percent of the district’s population is classified as people of color. With an average of 135 people per square mile, this is a sparsely settled area with one major urban center, a few medium-size towns, and much land given over to citrus groves, vegetable farming, cattle and goat ranching, horse raising, forests, recreational centers along rivers and seacoast, planned housing developments, and retirement communities. People over sixty-five make up 26.5 percent of the population, the largest group, while 17.3 percent are children under fifteen and 10.1 percent range from age fifteen to twenty-four.

Although guardians are supposed to be appointed for every child in the dependency court system, only 16 percent of the cases were covered at that time. When I finished training, I was the eleventh guardian in my county. In the beginning most of the people I met in the community had never heard of the program, and the initial part of every conversation was relegated to explaining what a Guardian ad Litem was. Four years later, as of September 1994, the paid staff had increased by three full-time case coordinator positions and we had opened two additional satellite offices. A half-time attorney was available to consult with 196 Guardians ad Litem, who were covering 409 active cases, which represented 57 percent of the children in the court system. Now most of the people I meet have at least heard about our work.

There has also been parallel growth in child advocacy throughout the United States. In 1977 Judge David Soukup of King County, Washington, was kept up at night by the Solomon-like decisions he had to hand down in family court without really knowing what was best for the child in question. Frustrated, he asked his bailiff to round up some volunteers who might help gather information for him about the status of these abused and neglected children. When fifty people showed up for his first informal brown bag lunch to discuss the issue, he knew he was on to a workable idea. Sixteen years later, this one judge’s concept has spread nationwide and now there are approximately 37,000 people in all fifty states, including the District of Columbia, representing more than 116,000 children in court, in this the fastest-growing movement for their protection. Florida, where I live, has a model statewide program and representation available to children in every circuit court district.

A few days later the packet containing my next case arrived. I opened the legal folder and saw my guardian appointment papers with the name Lydia Ryan and her date of birth next to my name. Lydia was sixteen. I almost signed the acceptance papers at once, but considering the seriousness of the crime, I decided that it would be prudent to read the file first.

The most recent document was from the division of Children, Youth and Families stating that Lydia had been detained in the juvenile jail until the judge ordered her release, but her parents had refused to allow her to return home. One long sheet was filled in with the attempts made to contact Lydia’s family, her parents’ adamant refusal to take her in, as well as the investigator’s attempts to find Lydia a bed for the night. This “lockout” constituted parental neglect. The next pages were computer printouts from the Florida protective services abuse hotline reporting system. All calls to this central registry were filed in this computer. An abuse complaint on Lydia’s lockout had been entered against the parents. On it were listed two other children in the Ryan home: a ten-year-old sister, Audrey, and a seven-year-old brother, Mark.

Also attached was the shelter petition saying that there was no available parent, legal custodian, or responsible adult relative to provide supervision and care because “to wit: It has been alleged that Lydia’s parents are refusing to pick her up from the detention center. The parents are also refusing to make any plans for Lydia’s care.” This document helped make Lydia a dependent of the state and was the reason why a guardian had been appointed. At the bottom it stated that “Lydia was charged with aggravated battery on her sister in May.”

Her sister.
I rechecked the official printout. Only two children were mentioned. The sister was ten. How could you put a ten-year-old in a microwave oven? Maybe there was a stepsister or the relationship was wrong. With multiple marriages and partners as well as children from various alliances, family kinships were sometimes confusing. Nothing in the file clarified this for me, nor did it explain where Lydia was presently living.

Our training had emphasized that the first chore of the Guardian ad Litem was to become a skilled investigator. We were not supposed to rely on—or duplicate—the previous work of caseworkers or law enforcement but rather locate and examine every relevant fact in the case. By applying creative insights we hope to evaluate and integrate our data with that of others to determine what action might be best for the child. Working back from the immediate crisis, we were to scrutinize other major turning points in that child’s background, delve into the family circumstances as well as what had influenced the parents to make the decisions they had, also to analyze community and extended family resources.

Essential to this duty was the ability of the guardian not to jump to conclusions about the innocence or guilt of the perpetrator in cases of abuse. Actually the guardian was advised not to interview the child about the immediate incidents leading to the case because this was to be left to professionals, who understood how to minimize damage to the child as she relived the event. This policy also avoided having the guardian called as a witness. We had been told that if we used good listening skills the child would eventually tell most of the relevant details without being quizzed, but I wondered if this might be the case if Lydia had something to hide.

Anxious to locate the child herself, I contacted Mona Archibald, the HRS protective investigator assigned to the case. “Where is Lydia now?” I asked after the usual introductions.

“She was placed by her parents, with the approval of the agency and the court, at the Tabernacle Home for Girls,” Mona said. “Have you heard of it?”

“Actually, I have,” I replied. Knowing that I was the guardian of several teen girls, a friend in the community had given me their brochure.

“Then you know it has a religious orientation.”

“Yes, but a sheltered environment might be better than a foster care home for a hostile and confused young woman. What I don’t understand, though, is why she can’t go home again?”

“Her parents believe she poses a risk to their other children.”

“Do you think she’ll be there for a while?”

“The judge ordered her not to run from this placement or she will be returned to juvenile detention.”

“Then I guess I’d better see her there,” I said, and thanked Mona Archibald for her help.

“Tabernacle Home,” said the sunny voice on the phone when I called for an appointment to visit Lydia. I introduced myself and was told I was speaking with Marjorie Hoffman, one of the counselors. I explained that I had been assigned as Lydia’s Guardian ad Litem and wished to meet her as soon as possible.

“Are you a Christian?” Marjorie asked.

After a pause, I decided to be utterly frank. “No, I am Jewish.”

“Well,” Marjorie said with exaggerated politeness, “we really cannot permit a non-Christian person to interfere with Lydia’s program. She is a very vulnerable child, and until she is stabilized, we must be selective about who influences her.”

“I understand that,” I replied coolly, “however, I have been asked by the court to monitor this placement. I would be happy to come to discuss my role with you, and I believe you will find that we should not be in conflict, since we both have Lydia’s best interests at heart.”

“Any policy change would have to be approved by the directors of our program, Pastor and Mrs. Shaw.”

“Fine. When might they meet with me?”

“They’re unavailable until next Wednesday.” Reluctantly I had to agree to wait until then.

I immediately contacted Lillian and explained my predicament. “Perhaps you would prefer another volunteer, one more acceptable in terms of religion.”

“Never!” Lillian huffed. “What about separation of church and state?”

“What if they won’t permit a non-Christian to visit her?”

“You are her court-appointed guardian and nobody can prevent you from seeing her.”

“Shall I tell them that?”

“It shouldn’t be necessary,” Lillian said with conviction.

The Guardian ad Litem training classes compressed a mini-course in child welfare and legal issues into a three-day class for volunteers from other fields. Before being accepted for the program, our applications were vetted, thorough background checks were made, and references were carefully checked. But there were no special requirements. We were a diverse group of professionals, blue-collar workers, homemakers, retired people, students, teachers, nurses, and even writers. We came from a wide range of ages, races, backgrounds, and interests. Some were single, some were parents and grandparents, some were childless. Our reasons for wanting to volunteer were equally complex. A few had been from or knew of abusive families. Others, like me, had been galvanized by the Bradley McGee case and other horrifying press reports. Many worked in fields like education or medicine and saw the results of injury to children. Frustrated, they believed they could make a difference with their guardian work, if only to one child at a time.

When I completed the classes, I felt that I had neither absorbed the complex material nor was even remotely ready for any case, but in retrospect, I see that the preparation was much better than I realized. Nancy Hastedt, the circuit director, gave an excellent overview of the program, while Lillian Elliott, the case coordinator, instructed us on the rights and responsibilities of being an advocate. The staff attorney delivered a concise, yet thorough, outline of dependency law. A psychologist discussed milestones of child development, the cycles of abuse that permeate dysfunctional families, and the essential issues of attachment, separation, loss, and permanency. An unflinching presenter, who had slides and films to introduce the revolting ways children are injured by their disturbed caretakers, covered sexual and physical abuse. There were also lessons in communications, interviewing, and writing reports for both the program office and the court. A staff member of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services explained their rules, regulations, and partnership with guardians. A seasoned guardian offered vivid examples of what the volunteer job entailed from her personal experience.