INSIGHT WITH SYLVIA MAUS 120323 DAUPHIN COUNTY CASA

"It's a story of tragedy to triumph for one foster child but, it doesn't always end that way for the hundreds of kids in Dauphin County foster care. Find out how you can help during this season of giving."

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, I'm Sylvia Austin. Thisis Insight, a presentation of iHeartMedia where
we really do care about our localcommunities and all our listeners who live here.
Here. We are in the midstof what's known as the holiest and
most generous time of the year,and yet there are hundreds of children in
our area that'll go through another yearnot knowing about love and kindness. That

(00:21):
is, unless you hear this programand you tell everyone you know about them.
I'm talking about the many children infoster care, children who have been
taken from their homes because they've beenabused and neglected. What we'll talk about
today is how a certain organization hasalways stepped up to the plate over and
over again to provide advocates for thesekids. And if you think that those

(00:43):
in the public eye or their familiesdon't face these situations, well we're gonna
We're here to tell you that theyabsolutely do. Sad situations like these happen
to all of us. I'd likeyou to meet Will Foster. Hey,
Well, how are you doing overthere? He's the executive director of Dauphin
count KASA, which stands for CourtAppointed Children's Advocates and Susan ewing wrapped on

(01:04):
missus Pennsylvania American. I love that. I love our sash. Well,
now we are going to get ourown crowns and sashes later. Well,
can't wait. Okay, Will andSusan, thank you so much for coming
in. I want to start withWill because because of people like Nel McCormack,
Avon and a lot of people inthis area who have done their best

(01:26):
to get the word out about you. I've never heard so much about Costa
in the last couple of views.But for those who haven't, tell us
what KASSA does. So. KASAis a program where five oh one c
three nonprofit and our mission is torecruit, train and educate volunteers that will
go in and advocate for children andthe foster care system. How do the

(01:49):
kids come into the foster care system? Uh? Maybe what happens? They're
taken from their parents because they're beingabused. Abused and neglect is the is
the tagline that we often have tosay. Unfortunately, can you tell us
a little bit about the process tosomeone reported? How do the kids come
to you? So, when kidsgo into care, there is often a
children and Youth report made many peoplecan make that report as child mandated reporters.

(02:15):
Teachers are often ones I have tomake those reports. Okay, you'll
see a lot of spike in thosereports when school starts back up after summer.
But I mean, anyone who hascontact with children is legally bound to
be a child mandated reporter, Sothose reports to be made by anybody.
How old are the kids to bein the foster care system. You can

(02:36):
be as young as birth and allthe way up through twenty one. Oh
my goodness. Well, your focusabsolutely continues to provide the advocates for children.
What do these advocates do? Wheredid they come from? They're not
They're not like caseworkers, are they? No? No? I mean sometimes
it kind of feels like they doa little bit of case work, but

(02:58):
that's not their intention at all.Our advocates come from any background. They
don't have to have a social workbackground, but they have to be willing
to be committed and good hearted.Well, you know, when I first
I first started talking to you afew years ago, you were you mostly
had older folks. But things havechanged, right, And I'm so happy

(03:21):
to say over the last couple ofmonths it picked up some more advocates and
that takes a lot of heart,That takes a lot of commitment. Tell
us why it changed and who's opento it now? Well, I mean
our area, a lot of peoplefind it challenging to do with a full
time job, and and to befair, it is sometimes a challenge with
the amount of things that are volunteersto be above and beyond to be really

(03:43):
effective, need to do. Butfor the most part, it's our volunteers
can do things outside of work hours, which for them, most of them
work, you know, a typicalday job. But the only caveat is
court is during the day unfortunately,so they might have to take time from
work if they don't have which isusually a barrier for people. And then

(04:04):
the other thing is occasionally there arethe other professionals around the table do work
typically nine to five, so theirmeeting times are also during the day,
So just finding those are two hangups for a lot of people at work
full time. But you pretty muchwork through all this with them, don't
you. Absolutely. I mean myselfand my program supervisor, Kim. I

(04:25):
mean, if one of our volunteerscan't make it, we cover for them,
just to make sure that everything isstill going the way it needs to
go. Do you do background checks? Some people background checks. We do
all the major background checks, andthen we also check with children and youth
and make sure that they don't haveany concerns either. There isn't a typical
advocate then, is there. Itcould be anyone anywhere with whatever time you

(04:47):
need to give. But it's notlike big brothers and big sisters of some
of those where you're a mentor,you get more involved with the child's life,
don't you. Yeah. Absolutely,Our volunteers have access to very private
information. They are appointed by ajudge, so they have the judge's authority
to operate and get information which willthen be compiled into our report and given

(05:10):
back to the judge so that theyknow what's really going on in this child's
life. I would imagine some parentswhen the children are taken, they're like,
they're a Paul, they got Ididn't do that to my kid.
Do they have anybody representing them whenthey go to court? They can if
the parents so choose, and theycan't have their own lawyer. The county
does have parent attorneys that can beappointed to them. So you're telling me

(05:33):
the county will pay for an attorney, and yet if a child's being abused,
you or whoever's representing a child haveto get your own attorney. Yeah,
and I think that is an unfortunatething. Is a sin? Yeah,
my god. So when this isgoing on with these children, they're
working with these wonderful advocates, whatare the parents doing. Well, hopefully

(05:58):
the parents are getting their resources thatthey need in order to either get the
children back or they come to therealization that maybe they aren't the best fit
and they will rave their rights totheir child and that will then allow the
child to be adopted to a familythat wants well. First of all,
with all the background checks that aredon the application, the interviews that these

(06:18):
advocates go through, they've got tobe committed with their hearts or they wouldn't
be there. I mean, it'ssomeone else's child. But there is training
involved, and that's why you guysare always out there trying to raise money
because the training is expensive. Tellus about the training, so our volunteers.
At this point, I think we'recloser to forty hours of what we

(06:40):
call pre service training. National standardsis thirty hours, but Dauphin County we
spend about forty what is it training? Like? What do they learn?
So they will learn anything and everythingabout the court system that our court system
with dependency care. They will alsolearn about mental health, poverty, LGBTQA,
plus they will learn substance use disordersand everything that goes along with that.

(07:05):
And then they will also underst getan understanding of why these children are
here and how we can be abig difference. And I mean a lot
of that is helping them build resiliencyso that they can be able to get
through their tough situations and then befunctional adults when they grow up. I'm

(07:26):
glad you brought that up. Giveus some idea how some of these I
mean, you've been doing this fora while, and this is before you
did this. You were involved instuff like this too, damn with children.
But tell me the difference you've seenin a lot of these foster care
kids. Oh my goodness, wehave. In the last year or two,
we've had a lot of great successes, one of which I'm really proud

(07:46):
of. We've a seventeen year oldchild, he was getting to turn eighteen,
and we got them. We hadthree months to work with them and
in that three months, my volunteerwas above and beyond. She met with
him at school during a break,and she somehow managed to get him motivated
to have his own plan to graduatehigh school, to get a license,

(08:09):
to get a job, and likebefore that, and he was going to
school every day. Before that,he was not going to school every day,
and he's kind of going through themotions and she somehow managed to help
build a little bit up in himsure for him to be more functional.
And I mean she's still at hisrequest, stays in touch with him even
though his case officially closed. Butshe does really really good with them.

(08:33):
Do most of the kids go backto the parents? I would say we're
probably about an even split. Okay, Well, of the cases that we
work with, I mean, DauphinCounty is a family first county, so
the county has to work with familiesto try to get them reunified. But
you know, on the unfortunate casesthat that can't happen, you know,

(08:54):
we work on adoption and other optionsfor them. Yeah, that's what's going
to ask about foster care because youhear stories about kids bouncing back and forth
between one foster care home to anotherand that can't be healthy either. No.
I mean they say every time achild moves from one location to the
next, they are getting more andmore traumatized. It's it's literally putting them
red through the traumatization process every timethey have to move. What about adoption,

(09:18):
how often does that happen. It'stough. It's a tough number to
hit. And people want babies,right, they want them younger. Typically,
that doesn't say that older kids can'tbe adopted. I mean, we
have a couple that are in theprocess right now, and that's very great
to hear, but typically the youngerones go a little quicker. You've been

(09:41):
doing this in this particular, you'vebeen ahead about a year now on two
years, a year and a half, a year and a half. Yeah,
because you're relatively new to this,are you surprised, and tell me
about your challenges in this position thewell. As an executive director, my
challenge is trying to get more vulnertears through the door. So if there's

(10:01):
anyone out there listening, please considerit. But realistically, a lot of
the challenges are just the system itself, and it's not all the time.
It's not anyone's fault. It's justthe way things have to go in order
to be you know, right.So it's often very slow and encumbersome.
But I mean, we have greatpeople working at Children in Youth. We

(10:22):
have great partnerships with them, andeveryone is just trying their best to make
sure that the right things are happeningfor these games stuff. And you get
to meet these kids pretty often,don't you now That I'm not as much
in a direct supervision mode, Idon't usually see them as much. And

(10:43):
in theory, the more confident myvolunteers are coming out of training, the
less likely I am to meet thesechildren unless we're at court. So yeah,
I mean there's one or two casesthat I work with pretty closely.
You know, I'd be remiss ifI didn't mention the head of your board
who started the whole thing and allthat she went through. I mean,

(11:03):
it took years for this staff.And tell us about lori uh, former
Judge Lourie Sir Telly. She's aremarkable woman. She is she was a
remarkable woman candidate of last year andshe's phenomenal. She's the heart and blood
of our system. She does allof our grant writing. I mean,

(11:24):
she's a full time attorney still andshe's almost taking on a full time role
just to help support the program.And I can't ever say enough good things
about her. She's been phenomenal.And not all the counties in Pennsylvania have
this programer this do they? Imean alive? From what I understand,
some county share it. Yeah,there are twenty one programs serving sixty seven

(11:48):
counties. Out of that are servingtwenty seven counties out of sixty seven.
Yeah, wow, I see thatshould be a well that's another story,
Pisica. Go ahead. Yeah,well, so some counties actually supported so
much that they're actually departments of thecounty, so they're not they're government agencies
versus being a five to one Cthree. But the majority of us are.

(12:09):
Okay, we'll get back to youin a second, but I wonder
to mention, like I said atthe top of the program, about this
can happen to anyone. And myother guest today is with us this way
to hear her story. She's remarkable. Her name is Susan Ewing Rathbond.
She's missus Pennsylvania, American twenty twentythree. So as you grew up in
Harrisburg, you have a successful business. You were on your way. You

(12:31):
were one of those my generation wouldcall them yuppies, but you were like
pushing forward. Take it from thereand tell us what happened to you.
Yes, as you mentioned, Ihad, I was in my late my
late twenties, and as you said, I was very career driven. Some
would say I was a workaholic.And I unfortunately had lost my sister to

(12:54):
substance use disorder, an overdose,and seven years prior to that, I
had lost my father to the sameAnd when I lost my sister, she
unfortunately had left my niece who wasthree going on your three years old,
three going on four years old atthe time, and it created an opportunity,

(13:15):
a need for someone to step upand take care of my niece.
And so at that time I workedtowards guardianship of my niece, who's now
proudly my daughter. And it wasn'ta picnic either, wasn't no. And
as will mentioned, you know,we had quite a lot of experience working

(13:37):
with children and youth throughout the yearsleading up to my sister's passing, and
then you know, had to gothrough the court system and it was quite
an ordeal that lasted several years untilwe finally had a plan in place through
the court system. As I mentioned, you are twenty twenty three Missus Pennsylvania

(14:01):
American. This has been your platform, you lived it. I mean,
why shouldn't it be your platform?What is your message should people out there
who are what's the word I'm lookingfor. I don't want to say they're
involved in Well, they're involved insubstance abuse and they don't want it to
be because they see it. Ittears your life apart and everybody around you.

(14:24):
What would you tell them? Yeah, So my platform is titled Tragedy
to Triumph and with that I getto travel across the state of Pennsylvania and
speak to those that are in recoveryand to their families. I hope to
be an ambassador of hope to theirfamilies, to those that are left behind.
And another aspect and duty of myposition is I get to go into

(14:45):
schools across the state and for them, my message is that we're not defined
by choices that our family has made, that we are the writers of our
stories, that we can make positivedecisions, and that we can be successful.
Absolutely absolutely, And I love speakingwith these children. I have a
heart for children. Obviously my storythat is personal to me with my niece

(15:09):
who's now my daughter, which ledto me being very passionate about Dauphin County
CASA, their mission, the volunteers, their need for both funding and also
from a recruitment capacity volunteers as Willhad detailed, and so anyway that I
can support them and help further theirmessage, bring attention and awareness to their

(15:30):
message is something that I'm passionate about. Now, your reign is a year.
When does it end. It willend at the beginning of May four,
So you're going to continue to dothis after it's over, Yes,
Yes, I will. This issome community service and children specifically is something
that I've been long passionate about.I was doing volunteer work long before re
entering pageantry, and it's just somethingthat is very important to me. Cerferent

(15:56):
leadership. You got Bailey winterb isthree, she's what now sixteen? Sixteen?
Yeah, there's three going on fourand she is sixteen at the end
of May of this year. Noteverybody, you know, there's no Bailey
went through a lot, even fora three year old child, and she
lost your mom and her grandfather,but you have this closeness with her,

(16:18):
and she's doing good, and youfeel safe because you know how it is
no matter if we bitch at ourkids, if we don't tell them anything,
it just seems. My son saidto me one time, I said,
why didn't you ever get involved indrug use? He said, you
and my dad scared the crap outof me. Yeah. So what do

(16:41):
you do with Bailey in that situation. Well, we've honesty is the best
policy. We've been very honest withher because we do have a family history
of substance use disorder, and it'ssomething that we want her to be aware
of, and especially in these teenageyears when her peers are maybe experimenting with
alcohol or not, it's something thatwe want her to be aware of that

(17:02):
we may be more susceptible to following, prey to addiction, and it's something
we want her to be aware of. We honor her first mother, her
biological mother, my sister, ofcourse. But something I want to say
is Bailey's world changed when she finallycame and lived with me and became under
my guardianship and my husband as well. Now and she's thriving, and she's

(17:29):
excelling in school, and she's inso many extracurriculars and she's so happy.
And this is what we want forthe three hundred and fifty children that are
in Dauphin County who are in thesystem, who are needing to find permanent
placement, consistency in their life.This is what we want for them because
we see how their life is trulytransformed. And so we need to do

(17:51):
what we can to bring in morefunding for Dauphin County Castle so we can
touch the lives, change the livesof the three hundred and fifty children that
are eating to find these homes.And it's good because you're stopping it.
You know. It's like people alwaysspoke about well my dad I did that,
or my mom or whatever. Ican't. Yeah, well you're gonna
end up like that. Typically it'sa generation. We all know. It's

(18:14):
a generational thing, no matter whatis it gonna be any kind of like
sexual abuse anything, and it is. I think a lot of times that
we were talking off their about mentalillness and drug and alcohol abuse go hand
in hand, and a lot oftimes they address them apart. Yes,
talk to us about that. Whythat's so important for people to realize that.

(18:34):
Yes, I do think that peoplemay not be aware that those that
are becoming addicted, that it goesfar beyond just kind of having fun and
dabbling in drugs and alcohol. Rather, they are looking for a way of
coping with their anguish, the mentalillness, perhaps anxiety, depression, whatever

(18:55):
it is. They are finding away to cope and deal with their everyday
life. And that is why they'returning to substances to kind of numb and
cope. And unfortunately then that leadsto possible, you know, addiction and
death, and death it does.And as you had said, you know,
my message is I champion the messagethat we are more than our circumstances.

(19:19):
And with me statistically having a fatherand a sister that passed away my
potential future when it looked good onpaper statistically, and I'm just a strong
advocate to champion the message that weremore than our circumstances and that we can
make positive decisions. We don't haveto go down that same path that our
family members took. That's right,and I a grieve that and you see

(19:41):
that in every family. But whydo you think that is? Why did
you decide to sign where I went. I just recall when I was a
little girl, recognizing that things weren'tright or maybe as good as they could
be, and wanting more, wantingsomething different from a young age, I
do recall thinking that way, andI think that that just drove me,

(20:03):
knowing that if I made positive decisions, that I could find myself hopefully in
a better place and a better situationthan that which I was. And part
of your message is there's a wayout. Yes, there is another life.
Yes, and the health Thank God, organizations like Will's and yours is
a perfect partnership. Right. Yes, I want to talk to Uncle Will

(20:26):
again and ask him about your Susan. I had mentioned raising some money.
A lot of it goes towards towardsthe training, which is so expensive for
for these adverts advocates who are goingto be hopefully changing the lives of so
many kids who had horrible lives.You have a big fundraiser coming out now.

(20:48):
This is good. This program AIRRS. We're taping now at a lair
next Sunday. But this week youhave something going on which is really cool.
Yeah, we have the Giving Tree. This is the one fundraiser that
we have had since the start ofour program. So this is our fourth
annual Giving Tree. It kicks offTuesday, November twenty eighth at one pm

(21:10):
at the American Legion Post two sevento two in Linglestown, and we will
have some great speakers. Susan willbe one of them, and it'll be
we'll have cookies and cocoa and it'llbe it's a great time for everyone to
kind of see and hear what weexperience as an advocate program. Talk about

(21:32):
these beautiful ornaments that you've given outthat Lori Surry Kelly is sponsoring them,
tell them, tell us what they'reabout. So on our ornaments, we
have taken on a new tradition ofhaving our kiddos that we serve draw the
and design the ornament. And Ihad identified one young lady who's roughly twelve

(21:53):
years old and she as a tremendousartist. I have some of the stuff
that she's drawn for like for me, I have hanging in my office.
It's phenomenal. So I had askedher and she was like, oh,
yeah, sure, and she didthat, and she did it like that.
In ten minutes, she had thiswonderful picture drawn up, but on
the ornament itself she wrote the wordstried my best and I love that,

(22:18):
and I kept it on there.I was wondering what that said. I'm
looking at it closely, and that'swhat Oh God love you, that's what
it says. It does. Itsays tried my best. And the treatment
program she's going through right now thatI guess they do daily group goal setting
and kids can actually call other kidsout in the circle and ask them to
help them meet their goal for theday, and their response, if they

(22:40):
choose to accept to help, isI'll try my best. Because then that
way the onus isn't on the kidif the goal isn't met, right,
and they don't have to feel badabout it. Just the fact that they
tried is I mean a big pieceof that. So when she told me
that and she wrote that down,I'm like, oh, this has got
to stay. This is such aI mean, I wish we would do
this as adults, like I'll helpyou, I'll do everything I can to

(23:03):
help you. I can't. I'msorry if it doesn't work out. But
you know that was that hit mehard in the heart. We know,
I got to mention I keep callingI call him Uncle Bill all the time.
Bill Horning. He is an angel. He had he and his wife
had adopted twenty five foster kids,raised their own kids. These are the
kind of angels we have here incentral Pennsylvania. And Beginning Tree is right

(23:26):
across the street from Horney's Hardware onMountain Road in Harrisburg. And if I
go in there from time to time, right at the counter, there's a
thing to donate to Cassa. Thereyou go. That's Bill. So I
want to put a thank you intoBill too. I also want to mention
that Susan is involved in another organization. I was going to tease it,
but I think we have enough timeto talk about it briefly. It's called

(23:48):
him twenty eight. What's that?Yes, I'm twenty eight. Ministry is
a local nonprofit, faith based whoworks with those who have successfully complete did
a rehabilitation program and are now onthat next step of re entering society,
if you will. So they offerthem around the clock counseling, home furnishings

(24:11):
for them and their families as theyare moving back into a home, an
apartment, and so on, food, pantry services, clothing, and many
many more. Offerings. I wantto also ask you what you is there
anything if you could go back.Let me put it this way, if

(24:32):
you could go back well to whenyou first started here. You know,
I tell my grandson this every day. Find out what you're good at,
what you like doing, and doit, because the worst thing in the
world is to go to a job. More than two thirds of your life
is spend at a job. Havewhat's the most the biggest thing that you've

(24:56):
gotten out of this? I mean, you're wonderful. I mean you're a
major, major cheerleader for Dolphin CountyCASA. What would you like to say
to people about it? The onething that I've always really enjoyed it,
it's the kids are great, Butthe volunteers, to me are what keep

(25:17):
my heart in the game, becausesurrounding myself with great people only makes you
better. And so I've always feltthe volunteers that I've worked with have are
tremendous hearts, tremendous people, andif I can help them remember that as
they're advocating for these children. Ithink that's being a cheerleaders. I mean

(25:37):
I've never been a fan of,yeah, being in a cheerleader outfit,
It's never been my thing, butyou know, I still like the cheerleader
for people. I like the helpbring down Susan. It's obvious. It's
obvious, and thanksuits people like you. What also remind people. At any
time you can donate to Douphin CountyCASA, give us your website and you

(25:59):
can pick up those beautiful ornaments.Also, where can we get that?
So our giving Tree fundraiser runs throughthe end of December, and it's a
virtual giving tree, So you cango to our website at www dot Dauphincountycosta
dot org slash tree to go rightto the donation page and for a thirty

(26:19):
dollars donation, you'll get an ornamenton our virtual tree. For fifty dollars
or more, you'll get the limitededition ornament about from the twelve year old
girl. It's beautiful. And thenfor one hundred dollars or more, you
can also have the current edition andlast year's edition ornament, which was created

(26:41):
by one of our eight year olds. We'll run out of time. I
hate it when we're running out oftime. When something moves my heart and
soul, but we have to closeit shortly and Susan. Thank you for
your remarkable Sree, thank you forcontinuing. You know, you're the kind
of person I can tell or I'msitting here saying thank you to you that
it's that I'm saying thank you,But you would have done this anyway.

(27:03):
This is part of who you are. This is the direction of your life.
And thank you for educating, especiallythe young kids out there, that
being involved in substance abuse doesn't haveto be a permanent thing. Your life
can be totally different. I wantto thank you for that. And perhaps
you can come in talk about AMtwenty eight sometime and uncle will always,
always, always wonderful hearing you again. Give us that website address www dot

(27:27):
Dauphin COUNTYCASA dot org. Okay,awesome, And to my listeners, here's
your chance to remember what you heardtoday. Also your chance to support abuse
and neglected kids in the Dauphin Countyfoster care system. And remember to catch
Insight when it is on one ofour ten Ihearts stations or on your favorite
podcast staff. I'm Sylvia Moss.This has been Insight. Thank you so

(27:49):
much for listening. See you nextweek.