Give Foster Children A Voice
I was nine, going on 10, when I was placed in the Texas foster care system. My mother abused drugs and alcohol and wound up in jail. Growing up we were so poor that I often had to wear the same clothes to school three days in a row and the other kids would make fun of me. There were times when I was so hungry that my throat burned when I finally got something to eat.
In the nine years that I lived in foster care before aging out of the system, I lived with at least six families across the state, not to mention a shelter and a residential treatment center. Although I lived with a really supportive foster family during my four years of high school, I once stayed with a foster parent who only viewed me as a paycheck and made it clear that I was ruining her social life. I lived with her for one long miserable year until I was able to persuade my caseworker and the judge to move me to another home.
I was one of the lucky foster kids. From age 13 on I was included in my court proceedings. I went in front of the judge, asked questions, and talked candidly about everything from my experiences in foster care to how I was doing in school. I also learned about such opportunities as tuition waivers, which now pay for my education at Texas State University, where I am a junior majoring in Social Work and minoring in Family and Child Development.
Because I was given a say about my future, I was able to make a future for myself.
Many of the 22,000 kids in Texas’ foster care system are not so lucky. Since I aged out of the foster care system, I have participated in many meetings and focus groups with foster care officials, foster youth, and foster care alumni. I have found that far too often, foster youth in Texas and across the nation are excluded from court or are voiceless in their hearings.
These hearings are critical for foster children and their families. After all, it’s at these proceedings where judges and lawyers answer questions with lifelong implications for foster kids. Can the foster child go home or is he safer in foster care? When and how should he leave the system and where should he go? Should he be allowed to visit his parents or siblings? What education and health care should he receive?
Unfortunately, far too many youth, including my own sister, never went to court while they were in foster care. Others didn’t know they were allowed. These kids were deprived of the choice to weigh in on their future.
I can’t even imagine how different my experiences would have been if I hadn’t been allowed in court. Although I don’t remember ever meeting the attorney appointed to represent my interests, it was in court, before the judge, where I learned that I had rights and that I could stand up for myself. It was in court where I learned that I had a say about where I lived and what I did with my life.
While many child welfare professionals, including judges, lawyers, social workers, and the nonpartisan Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, believe that youth should have the right to be in court, others think that children’s wishes shouldn’t be considered. I believe that most kids who are able to speak for themselves should be talking to the judge. After all, it’s the child’s future that is at stake.
Of course, it doesn’t always make sense for foster children to go to court. Some kids are emotionally unstable. Others are too young or immature. But in all other cases, I encourage Texas’ child welfare professionals to work to ensure that foster kids have a voice.
On November 10-12, 2006, current and former foster youth from across Texas converged on Austin for a three-day leadership summit. At the summit, youth learned how to use their voices to improve the foster care system and ensure that foster kids are given a say in their future. Hopefully the summit will build momentum for the creation of a nonprofit dedicated to this cause. After all, if you don’t ask a foster kid what he wants, how can you make an informed decision about his life?
For more information about the leadership summit, email Cathy Cockerham at ccockerham@texascasa.org.
Veronica Lockett, a former foster child, is an Austin resident and a 25-year-old junior at Texas State University. Texas CASA was proud to be a sponsor of the leadership summit. By all accounts, it was a great success.
