What is a Children's Attorney?

 

I've been meaning to write a blog about my job for awhile now and May is Foster Care Awareness month, so this seems like a perfect time. My job is representing children in foster care as their attorney, so I will tell you more about that and then add some ways you can get involved at the end.

Why would a child in foster care need an attorney?

When a family is involved in the foster care system, the whole situation is actively monitored by the court, starting with the initial removal and then continuing with review hearings until the case ends, which often takes years. The court monitors and makes orders on all kinds of issues. 

The most common issues related to the child in particular look like: 

• How is the child's current placement going? 
• Are there relatives or close family friends they would rather be living with? 
• Are they living with siblings, and if not, why not?
• Is this the appropriate level of care, or do they need something less restrictive?
• Are there any concerns about the placement that need to be raised?
• If they are going to be moved to a new placement, how do they feel about this and is this situation likely to work better?
• Are there items important to them that didn't make it through a move (such as clothes, stuffed animals, glasses)?
• How is visitation going?
• Are they getting to have in person visits as well as the option of phone / Facetime visits with important people in their life, particularly parents?
• Are they getting to have regular sibling visits?
• Do they feel comfortable with having visits, with the type of visits, and with all the people included as part of the visit?
• If case is going well, how can we increase hours of visitation?
• What should be the permanent plan for the child (reunification, guardianship, adoption, or aging out)? Should parental rights be terminated? 
• Is the child getting the support they need as far as therapy, developmental services, and school services? Is the child on psychiatric medication and who is making decisions regarding this medicine? 
• Should the child be involuntarily committed to a locked facility? 
• If the child is aging out, do they have the information and support they need for independent living and know their rights related to Extended Foster Care?

All the parties get their own attorneys - so each parent has an attorney, CPS has an attorney, and the children have an attorney. Each party gets to state their opinion on the issues above (as well as issues relating more specifically to the parents) and then the judge makes orders. So my job in court is to make sure the judge knows the child's opinion on the issues before the court, and my job in between court hearings is to stay up to date on what's going on with the child and to advocate more informally for anything they need.

How is representing a child different from representing an adult?

It's actually probably much more alike than people would guess. The  job is to stay up to date on what is happening in the case, explain that to the client in a way that they can understand, get their opinion on issues being decided by the court and others in charge, and then advocate for them in and out of court. We have all the same tools as regular attorneys - speaking in court, filing motions and oppositions, calling witnesses, filing appeals, etc.

Having said that, there are some things that make the job very different. Some examples:

• The methods we use to gain trust and build rapport - if you have a young client, this might look like building blocks together, crashing cars, coloring, hunting for bugs. With school age clients, let me just say that I know a lot more now about video games and YouTube videos. 
• Judgment calls on what the client is able to understand and discuss - you're going to have different conversations with a 3-year-old than with an 8-year-old; and with an 8-year-old than with a 16-year-old. We convey as much information as possible and do our best to gather the child's perspective, but exactly what that looks like varies wildly by age.
• Part of the job is explaining the basics so it's a more comfortable experience for them - like, what is an attorney? what is a judge? what exactly happens in court and do they want to be a part of it? will they have to talk if they don't want to?

What are the best things about the job?

There are several great things about the job: it's amazing getting to form relationships over time with our clients and to watch their growth. It's a privilege to try to help guide a case towards the most positive outcomes possible for the youth (and sometimes to help finalize their adoption). It's inspiring to work with other professionals, both my colleagues and others in the system, who care so deeply about the kids. And there's never a boring day. There are definitely some really hard things about the job as well, but even with the hard things, it's a privilege to be one of the adults entrusted with helping a young person navigate through challenges.

So that's my job in a nutshell! If hearing more about the concerns of foster youth makes you want to get involved, there are a bunch of ways...

How can others get involved?

• If you are an attorney in Northern Nevada, there is always a need for pro bono attorneys to help with these cases. You can talk to me or check out the Northern Nevada Legal Aid website.
• CASA volunteers form relationships with foster children, learn about the situation, and report to the court their opinion about what would be in the best interests of the children.
• There is always a need for more foster families!
• There is also always a need for mentors.

"Everything Is Never Enough" Review

 I just read a great book called "Everything is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes' Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness" by Bobby Jamieson. Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books of the Bible so I was excited to read a book about it, and this one did not disappoint.

Jamieson starts this book with the question, "Shouldn't you be happier?" and goes into all the ways we are the most prosperous society that has ever existed on the face of the earth - and yet, happiness is still elusive. Why? And what do we need to do differently? This is the topic of Ecclesiastes, and this book applies the categories of Ecclesiastes to modern American life very effectively. 

First, he goes through the difficulties of life, which he labels as "the absurd" - some of these things would not necessarily need to be difficult (and in fact, by label seem like they should be the exact oppposite of difficult), but because of the broken world in which we live, they are. The topics in this category include gain, work, knowledge, pleasure, money, time, power, and death. This is a part where I think almost everyone will find themselves nodding along, feeling very familiar with what he is saying. A couple example quotes:

• "Pleasure's goalposts always move. You think that this relationship or that new food or this much money will finally make you happy, but then you get it, and it doesn't...Having everything you could possibly enjoy does not mean you will enjoy any of it. Like having pine needles, twigs, and crisp logs but nothing to light them, you could have a perfect house, piles of money, and impeccable prestige but get no warmth from any of it."
• "This clocked, contracted time constantly presses us, leaving even the most successful feeling time-poor. Many surveys indicate that present-day Americans, for instance, feel more harried, anxious and time squeezed than they used to. On average, Americans have at least as much leisure time as ever, yet feel more harried than ever."

Next, he goes through some of the things that are the gifts of this life, that can bring us happiness if we can receive the good things with a heart of gratitude. Some of the categories he covers in this section include Eat and Drink, Toil, Enjoy, Wealth, Marriage, and Resonance. Here are a couple example quotes from this section:

"Resonance occurs when some aspect of the world moves you, reaches you, touches you, or calls to you. In resonance, the wire connecting you to the world starts to hum. Resonance also involves the response of reaching out toward that which moves us: It happens when you are in some way able to move toward, reach in response, touch what touches you, and call back to what calls to you."

"To receive your lot rightly is to get to work planting, cultivating, tending, and harvesting. And your lot bears within itself the potential to yield joy: joy in the work, joy in its fruits, and joy in discovering the goodness and wholeness that come from adapting to your limits rather than trying, godlike, to bend the world to your will."

Finally, he covers thing that will bring the most ultimate, deep, satisfying, long-lasting happiness, and that is looking to God, understanding your place in relationship to Him, and then trusting and following Him. Here are a couple example quotes from this section:

"When you glimpse a humbling sight of God's hugeness or holiness, questions fall away. Though you cannot know his design, you do know it is vast. The more acutely you sense him, the more complete the silence that blankets your soul. You feel not merely honored but stunned to be loved and looked after by the same love that looks after a star twenty-eight billion light years away." 

"Everything is never enough, but Jesus is. Jesus is enough to satisfy God's judgment on your behalf. And Jesus is enough to satisfy your soul forever. Jesus alone is God's answer to your life's absurdity."

This books is well written, both philosophical and practical, funny, wise, and so spot on for the application of Ecclesiastes to modern American life. I felt understood, encouraged, and pointed in the right direction by reading it, and I think many of you would share these feelings if you read it. 

Engagement Farming

I haven't had a good social media rant post for awhile, but there is just endless fodder as the Internet evolves. I will say, I continue to actively participate in both Facebook and Instagram and I still very much enjoy these things about them. And I've written here, here, here, and here with social media critiques, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much.

My issue du jour is engagement farming. Doesn't it seem like you see less and less posts of people you know in real life, and more and more of these random posts and reels that end up in your feed due to the mysteries of the algorithm? And even that wouldn't be so bad if these posts were all entertaining / informative / helpful, but instead don't a lot of them feel like they are way off in some way? 

The cause of this is engagement farming, which is using fake and manipulative strategies to try to get more people to comment and like so that you earn more money; particularly problematic is the rage-bating version, where people share an extreme (and usually fake) opinion about a topic to try to engage an emotional reaction. I understand why people do it - it's a way to earn a living (a very good living if you're skilled at it). 

Why do I have a problem with engagement farming?

- I can't tell what's real and what's not. And I mean this both in terms of the truthfulness of the facts put out there and the genuineness of the person giving their facts and opinions. This makes me feel on a very micro level like I'm losing my mind.

- For all of us as individuals:

    - We are needlessly wasting our emotional energy, our brain space, and our time on something that isn't even real. We waste time fuming or crafting a long comment to someone who doesn't even mean what they posted, or who may not be a person at all but rather a bot / AI.

    -On a long-term basis, seeing a bunch of fake posts designed to incite rage - we either get dumber in believing all these posts, or we get more cynical in not believing anything we see.

- For us as a society:

    - It makes us more tribalistic and encourages us to have worse and worse views of those who differ from us on a basis that isn't even true.

    - It erodes our ability to find truth or to to believe anyone about anything.

What to do about it:

- For your own individual consumption, the best solution is probably spending less time on social media and spend more time with the real people in your real life. (Easier said than done, right? For me too.)

 - Followed by, root out the sources of the rage bait as much as possible - unlike, unfollow. Don't click on things that seem too outrageous to be true - they probably are, and not only will all the comments waste your time and spike your blood pressure, but clicking on one causes more to come your way.

- Be aware that posts from people you don't know are probably appearing in your feed in an attempt to earn money, so approach whatever that content is with emotional caution - don't let it get to you too much, as it's probably not real.

- For society: change the way social media content is monetized. I don't know enough about how this works to say much beyond that, but as long as this kind of content pays, it will continue to multiply.

Anybody else have thoughts on this? Am I just turning into a middle-aged "get off my lawn" person?

What Is Love?

 

It's almost Valentine's Day! I was thinking about all the things that our culture makes love to be, especially on a holiday like this. Flowers and chocolates. A fancy date at a nice restaurant. A good looking, well dressed, young and vibrant couple. The stage of infatuation where you think about that other person all the time and have to try to think about anything else. The happily-ever-after that ends fairy tales. No shade on any of that - I'm happy whenever I get to experience moments like these -- but they don't really encompass most of what life is like.

And then I was thinking about how love is described in I Corinthians 13. Not focused on these highlight moments. Much harder. Not just for romantic love. It doesn't talk about how happy you will be and how much you will enjoy every moment and how Instagrammable all of it will be. It talks about being patient and kind; not arrogant, boastful, or rude; doesn't insist on its own way; and is not irritable or resentful. In other words, love is not only about me and how do I feel at this second and am I living my best life now. It's about, how am I treating this other person, the object of my love, and am I thinking of them and treating them at LEAST as well as I'm thinking about / treating myself?

I'm struck especially by these last verses that are in the picture - love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Who can meet that standard? Only Jesus is the one who fully embodied bearing every hard thing the world can throw your way and responding in the deepest, truest love the world has ever seen. Thanks be to God that we can all benefit not just from that beautiful example, but from the salvation offered in that love.

But the words in I Corinthians 13 also give me a good target to aim towards. I WANT to be the spouse, the parent, the friend who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I want my love to look more and more like this standard, and to care less and less about what Hallmark makes love to be. 

Sending love to all of you this Valentine's week!

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(A caveat I always try to give in this type of post -- this is not meant to heap shame on anyone who's gone through divorce, or to tell people who are in awful situations such as abuse that you need to stick it out through anything. That is NOT what I want people to get from this post. This is just meant to be some thoughts that advertisers and the Internet don't always throw our way about how we should approach our currently existing relationships.)