Community Corner

Call for Volunteers: Court Appointed Advocates for Foster Care Youth

Train to be an advocate for abused or neglected youth in the courts through a training session between July 11-21 with Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, headquartered in Milpitas.

NOTE: The names of children in this article have been changed for their protection.

The system was literally forcing him to live on the streets.

As a young boy, Mario’s parents, who were from another country, abandoned him in the United States. For years, Mario had no idea who he was, or where he was from. He bounced from one friend’s couch to another, and sometimes, lived on the streets. Because he was underage and had no identification, he had no money to support himself. Eventually, he hooked up with other kids on the streets and started selling drugs, just to survive.

Find out what's happening in Milpitaswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

It wasn’t long before he was arrested, at age 11, which actually ended up being the best thing that ever could have happened to him. Juvenile Hall put a roof over his head, and meals on his plate. Once he was finished with juvenile hall, Mario was put into the foster care system.

“There was no one to return him to,” said Claudia Ramos of Child Advocates Silicon Valley. “Legally, he should have been deported, but because no one could prove what country he had come from, there was nowhere to deport him to.”

Find out what's happening in Milpitaswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

However, when Mario turned 18, he “aged out” of the foster system, yet still had nowhere to go. With no identification, he couldn’t get a job, so he had no money to support himself. Without a foster family to help care for him, his only choice was to go back to living on the streets.

That’s where Child Advocates Silicon Valley came in.

Claudia Ramos is a Child Advocate, which is a responsible and caring adult that has been trained to help advocate for the well-being of children like Mario who are placed in the foster care system. Claudia and Mario’s social worker pressed the courts to allow Mario to remain in the foster system, even though he was over 18, until immigration came through with identification for him so that he could get a job and start providing for himself.

“I told the judge—I would much rather my taxpayer dollars go toward him remaining in [the foster system], than go to keeping him in jail, because that’s where he would be without it,” Ramos said.

The Frightening Statistics

Mario is just one example of a child that has been helped by Child Advocates Silicon Valley (CASV), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and calls Milpitas its home. However, there is a drastic shortage of willing, caring and responsible adults like Claudia Ramos, who are willing to give their time to help foster children who desperately need an advocate to make sure they get the help they need when entering the foster care system.

Samantha Hamilton, a marketing and recruitment associate for CASV, says the statistics of foster children in the Silicon Valley are heartbreaking.

The average number of children in the Silicon Valley that are in the foster care system ranges from 1,600 to 1,800 at any given time.

“However, there were times when I would see as many as 2,700 at once,” Hamilton said.

Nationally, the average is around half a million.

“So sometimes people wonder what kind of impact they’re having [by volunteering to serve as a Child Advocate]—well, half a million kids nationally, that’s a huge impact on our society,” she said.

“The system is just overburdened. In our county, there’s just not enough social workers and lawyers to get these kids the help they need. And there’s just not enough foster homes nationally to take in all these kids. So there’s gaps. Child Advocates can help fill those gaps.”

Even in the foster care system, the outlook is not a rosy one for a child. Hamilton says, a child in the foster system has only a 50/50 chance of graduating high school, and of those that do manage to graduate, they have less than a 4 percent chance of going to college.

Even more frightening, girls in the foster system are six times more likely to have a baby before the age of 21.

Forty percent of the county’s homeless people were in the foster system at some point.

“Foster care isn’t the ultimate fix,” Hamilton explained. “These kids have been through a lot, and they’re entering a system that is inundated with other kids that need help too.”

Help the Children by Being a Child Advocate

Hamilton says, there are so many children in the Silicon Valley that need help, and not enough Child Advocates. Therefore, the program is desperate for more volunteers.

CASV will give interested volunteers all the training they need to be able to be there for a child, to be their friend and give them the emotional support they need to make it through a tough situation, and to make sure the courts don’t forget about them, and get them the care they need.

“Advocates help make sure no more damage is done, than has already been done in their life,” Hamilton explained. “And, give them a friend. They know if they’re scared or upset or in trouble, they can go to this person.”

What kind of person makes a good Advocate? Someone who cares about children, Hamilton says.

In order to sign up to be a Child Advocate, one must go through an interview, and a screening process that includes a background check and fingerprinting. Then, the commitment requirements are explained.

Basically, an Advocate must complete 30 hours of training, then be sworn in by a judge as an official Child Advocate. Then, Advocates agree to give a minimum of 12 hours of service over the period of a year.

Hamilton says, all of this is explained in great detail in an Advocate’s initial interview, so everyone knows exactly what they are getting into before they sign up.

“We want to make sure they’re ready to go, they’re committed, and they understand,” she said. “We don’t want them to come in and get sideswiped with what it is to be an Advocate. We want them to know up front.”

CASV holds many different training sessions each year, both in condensed format for those with no other schedule restraints and who want to get their training out of the way quickly, and a more drawn-out schedule that is easier for those with jobs or other commitments.

CASV is currently signing up interested volunteers for its condensed July training session, which takes place for three hours a day, four days a week, for 10 days, equaling the required 30 hours, plus a two-hour graduation. The sessions take place between July 11-21. A longer training session is also coming up, beginning Sept. 6. The session is two or three days a week for one month and includes evenings and Saturdays for those with daytime commitments.

Hamilton says, training sessions are very informative, and give Advocates a real feel for what it is like to interact with troubled children, social workers, judges and lawyers, because they will be taught by people who actually work in those fields.

“It really is a training; it’s not like a class. You won’t just be sitting listening to someone at the front of the room droning on and on,” she said with a laugh. “It’s very interesting.”

Once someone has completed their Advocate training, they are sworn in by a judge. This allows the Advocates to start taking cases, and also opens doors for them to gain legal access to information about the children they’re working with, such as medical and school records, and allows them legal visitation rights to children in the foster care system.

“You will be helping to keep a close eye on these children and really see what their lives are like in the system,” Hamilton said. “So we want you to have all the information you need.”

Hamilton said, even after graduation, CASV works closely with each Advocate, supporting them in their position and even maintaining a 24/7 hotline for Advocates to be able to ask for help from supervisors.

“It’s a tough job, but it’s so rewarding,” Ramos said, of her work as an Advocate.

CASV receives case files for children who need Advocates all the time. Because there are not enough Advocates for all the children whose cases they receive, Hamilton said, they have to prioritize and accept the children they think are in the most desperate and immediate need. Social workers help to make those decisions.

“It’s heartbreaking to have to have waitlists for kids who need Advocates, but that’s the reality of it,” she said. “So we need to get our name out there more and find more people who want to be involved, in order to be able to shrink our waitlist.”

Anyone who cares for children can be an Advocate if they’re willing to put in the time, Hamilton said.

“Some people worry that they won’t be good at it because they’ve never had children of their own, or even been around children very much,” Hamilton said. “But ultimately, we’re just looking or people who care, who want to make a difference in these kids’ lives. So if people can offer that, that’s a huge step in the right direction.”

For more information about what Child Advocates Silicon Valley does, or about volunteering to go through Child Advocate training, contact Samantha Hamilton at 408-573-5665 or Sam@caadvocates.org. Visit the website at www.bemyadvocate.org.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here