You began your career in advocacy at the Mental Health Association in New York State, working with the Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities Project and then the Sexual Assault and Mental Health Project. What drew you to this work initially, and how did those early experiences shape the trajectory of your career?
I was fortunate to be hired by someone who also had a master’s degree in community psychology, and to be able to apply that systemic perspective at the state level. MHANYS does amazing work to this day.
When I began working with parents, I quickly saw unaddressed underlying issues of sexual assault, domestic violence, and poverty. We began to explore more deeply the impact of trauma and to raise awareness of that across systems. So many of the parents were also involved in family court cases, which led us to develop a publication to assist parents in understanding that process. We also were able to participate in mental health and trauma education for the courts. This all piqued my interest in working more with the courts and led to my positions at CASANYS and then the Unified Court System.
As a professional, an adoptive mother, and a foster grandmother, how has your personal experience shaped the way you approached your work or vice versa?
My daughter remains my greatest teacher. Watching her approach to foster care has been an entirely new level of understanding of our systems. Permanency of any kind, whether reunification or adoption, is a celebration but also can be a loss, and it’s important to honor both. Early in my career, I worked in journalism, and that taught me how to step back and neutrally observe. Emotions run high in this work, and that has proven a very useful skill.
You spent 20 years overseeing grant funding, training, and technical assistance, first as the Executive Director of CASA of New York State, and then as part of the CASA Assistance Program through the NYS Office of Court Administration. Why is sustained funding for CASA programs so critical, and what impact have you seen when communities have, or lose, CASA advocates for children?
CASA volunteers provide a vital service, and like other vital services, should have dedicated funding. So much of the local energy of CASA programs is spent on keeping the doors open. Sustained, reliable funding is critical to allow the programs to focus on meeting the needs of the children in their areas. Without CASA, it is too easy for the foster care system to become invisible to the community at large, and for the needs of those children for a single, consistent support to go unmet.
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