CHRIS SEGAL
Perspectives Editor
A Wisconsin woman, Lorinda Hawkins, was like any other 27-year-old out for a night of fun drinking with her friends. On Feb. 23, she returned home and began breast-feeding her four-month-old daughter. After about 15 minutes, she passed out and when she woke up an hour later, her baby wasn’t breathing.
Hawkins was charged Friday with one count of child neglect causing a death. The mother of four was already on probation for child neglect when she decided to go out to a local bowling alley with her baby and consume six double-shots of alcohol, according to the police.
As if that wasn’t a sad enough indicator of the Hawkins family, the husband picked up the mother and child, dropped them off at home and then went out drinking with his friends.
The father returned an hour later to wake his wife and found an unresponsive daughter. Hawkins had allegedly passed out and smothered the baby with her body. The entire Hawkins family is no doubt suffering from the death of the child, but this raises the question of whether they were fit parents. Obviously not.
Child neglect is a problem that extends further than a drunken 27-year-old. In Los Angeles County, more than 40,000 children enter the court system each year because of unfit parents. The children are put under the jurisdiction of the court system. The court system has four levels of protection available to the most severe cases.
Social workers are the first step in the court system — these over worked and under paid employees manage multiple cases and work with the parents and children to help resolve problems. If the parents are deemed unable to care for their children, the next step is a foster home.
Foster parents are paid for their services and can be just as bad as the parents, but more likely they are good parents just dealing with life.
The next level of protection for the most severe cases is a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or a CASA. The social worker, foster parents and CASA all work with a Judge to determine what the best course of action is for these neglected children ranging from infancy to 18 years old.
This is relevant because more CASAs are desperately needed and most Pepperdine students qualify to become a CASA. The requirements to become a CASA in Los Angeles are access to an insured car and being 21 years old. CASAs undergo 36 intense hours of training. After all the training members are sworn in and they work with the social workers, judge and foster parents to assure that the child is being taken care of by the system.
Why is a CASA any different than a social worker or foster parent? A CASA is assigned one child and is committed to him or her for a year in Los Angeles. In other counties, it is up to two years of service. The CASA has full access to the child’s personal information including medical, criminal and school records. Foster parents and social works often are dealing with multiple neglected children and are operating in a vast bureaucracy. A CASA’s job is to help one child at a time by being a mentor and an impartial advocate.
Most Pepperdine students have notions of helping the world and joining Teach for America or the Peace Corps, which are great organizations, but let’s face it, only a few will be able or willing to dedicate two years of their lives to those endeavors.
Students who want to have some effect on the world we live in and also start their careers or are attached to a particular location can look up the CASA group in whatever city they are in and spend five to six hours a week making a difference for one child.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best selling author Anna Quindlen said on the CBS “The Early Show.” “You go into a courtroom and you will see lawyers who know the law and have dozens of kids’ files, or you have social workers who know the regulations and have dozens of kids’ files. But if a CASA volunteer is in the room, you will see they have just one file, and what they know is that one child. And that can make all the difference to a judge’s decision regarding how the rest of that child’s life is going to go.”
Don’t think that the Peace Corp is the only way to dedicate yourself to a worthwhile cause. If the Hawkins baby girl had been assigned a CASA, there is no telling what would have happened, but at least there are more than 900 CASA groups in the nation trying to do right one child at a time.
11-17-2005