A Voice for Every Child: Inside Amarillo Area CASA with Jarah Mendoza

Matthew Darrah (00:01.987)

Hello and welcome to All Things Foster, a place for coffee, connection, and community. Today we have Jarah with us from the Amarillo CASA, and I'm super excited to talk to her. But before we get to that, our episode sponsor today is The ER on Soncy. Your number one choice in emergency room is the ER on Soncy. It's a local, freestanding emergency room located off I-40 on the northwest corner of Soncy and Legend.

We're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and our trained emergency room doctors are experienced in diagnosing and treating patients to provide urgent care they need. With short wait times, advanced imaging and radiology equipment, and an on-site lab, at The ER on Soncy, can expect exceptional emergency room care. So guys, thank you for your sponsorship today. It really helps us to get the word out to folks. So, Jarah.

How are you? I'm good. I'm so happy to be here today. Anytime that I can talk about CASA and foster care, I'm about it. Absolutely. So CASA provides such a critical voice in court. And so I want to talk about that, talk about how many CASA volunteers you have, how many you need, and all that kind of stuff. So talk to us, just kind of set the stage. What does a CASA do?

Okay, awesome. So CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates, right? So we're court appointed in the seven counties that we serve to serve children in foster care. That's the simple part of it. But our volunteers are everyday people from the community that care about kids. They don't have to necessarily have social work background. They just love kids and we bring them in and we train them. And then they are there to ensure that those children don't get

lost in the foster care system because they're often in care 12 to 18 months, maybe even longer. And so their volunteers stay with them the entire time and then are going back to court on a quarterly basis, roughly, and letting the judge know, hey, this is how that kid's doing. This is what they need. This is what they don't need. They're also building connections for those children, making sure that once they leave foster care, which is what we hope for, that they have a support system.

Matthew Darrah (02:26.17)

and are better in the long run. Yeah. I I love it because they're the one person in court that doesn't have skin in the game as far as, you know, these different things. Their job is to speak for the child. That's right. And they have no ulterior motives. They want to know, they want to see what's best for the kiddo. And you talked about how the CASA stays with that child.

I remember Kelsey, she tells that story about this young man that was 15 and had been in care for 10 years. And the one person, and he'd been all over the state, but the one person that had been with him the entire time was his CASA. I mean, I love that. In our case, our CASA worker was instrumental in speaking up for...

for what was best for the kids. So what does a CASA do? Kind of give the life cycle. How does it work? So we say a lot of times our marketing strategy is to tell people that it takes about eight to 10 hours a month. So it's not a full-time job, though sometimes it can feel like it.

But they're mainly there to chat with that child at least once a month Sometimes that's in person sometimes that's at zoom because if people don't know a lot of our kids that are from The Amarillo area are not placed here because there's not enough foster homes. There's no facilities for higher level needs kids And so they're going to Houston. They're going to Dallas. They're going to San Antonio. They're going to Michigan. They're going to Arkansas. They're going to Utah

to see our kids who are there. Visiting with them, it's relationship building. I think people hear court and they get, they're like, that sounds scary, right? It's not, it's relationship building with a child. And then it's reporting back to the judge. We don't make decisions, we don't remove kids, we don't transport kids, we don't find placement for kids. That is all somebody else's responsibility. But we do go in and tell the judge, know, like, hey, this child...

Matthew Darrah (04:38.786)

they're suffering at school, they're five grades behind because they've moved 15 times, here's what we think they need. Or parents are doing amazing, they're healthy, they have a home, we think little Johnny should go back home. The judge makes that decision, not us. And so we're really eyes and ears for the court, but just building relationships with those kids so they know that they're not just...

sent off to Houston and nobody cares about them, but also that somebody is speaking up for them and saying, hey, this is what Sally's telling me she's going through and what she needs and what she wants. You decide, judge what happens, but here's what we think and here's what she needs to make sure that we do get her caught up in school. She does get extra therapy. She gets to see her siblings that she's separated from, whatever the case may be.

It sounds like a lot, but it's so rewarding and just so needed. So talk about the need. How many CASA do you have versus how many...

Do you need where you guys at number wise? So a little history. There are 74 cost of programs in the state of Texas. So if you're listening and you're like, I'm not from Amarillo, that doesn't apply to me. Yes, it does. There are kids in foster care across the state, across the nation, causes a nationwide program. So there's causes in every state. But our program specifically cover seven counties here in the Panhandle. And in those seven counties, there's over 500 children in foster care. And we cover about 200 of them a year. So we say

that a volunteer can cover about three kids a piece. We have a lot of sibling groups, most are three or more kids, but some volunteers have one kid, two. We had a case with 11 children a couple of years ago. That takes a different type of volunteer, right? So we eight to 10 hours a month on their schedule.

Matthew Darrah (06:32.911)

But we have about 60 volunteers right now. We need about 100 more. Like I said, we do cover 200 kids roughly a year, but...

There's still like 350, 400 that we need to cover. So about 100 more volunteers, but we've really started to try to focus on like what that means, right? There's over 200,000 people in Amarillo. Think of the percentage of those that we need for 100 of people. I mean, you know, or there's hundreds of churches in Amarillo.

one person from every church, right? We just need people to step up and realize that there are kids in foster care here, in Borger, in Tulia, know, everywhere that we cover there are kids in foster care, and they need somebody to speak for them and to also break the cycle. We don't want kids in foster care. That's not what we want. We want families healed and we want kids safe.

Our staff of 11 can't do that alone. Our 50 volunteers can't do that alone. You know, we need more people to step in. So what brought you to CASA? How did you end up here? This is crazy. And it's nothing joyful at all or interesting. So I'm from a small town here in the Panhandle. I had no idea that child abuse existed. It's not something that was on my radar really that I thought about.

and I actually have a degree in criminal justice and forensic science. And I needed a job. I had a baby at 19. I needed a job when I graduated college, and a friend of mine was like, hey, my mom's the director at CASA. And I was like, what is CASA? I don't know what that is. But I walked in, had my interview, and got the job on that day. And I've been there 13 years. So yeah. Yeah, I love it. Love it. So.

Matthew Darrah (08:26.318)

Let me go down here. So you talked about the kiddos getting, the CASA volunteers getting to build that relationship. I know you said they meet with the kids once a but they can also go to school, they can go to doctor's appointments, they can go to virtually whatever the kiddo is doing to really find out, build that relationship, and really figure out what's best.

Yeah, so we have our volunteers talking to teachers, medical professionals, therapists checking in monthly. We're talking to bio-family. We want parents to recover. We want parents to heal. And so we're visiting with them as well. How's it going? know, what are you working your services? Are you working your service plan? Are you staying clean? We're talking to them. We're also one of our biggest initiatives is finding family to build those other connections. So once we're gone,

They have other people to lean on and so we're talking to grandparents, aunts, uncles, whoever's loves that child. We want to talk to them and hear what can be done to make this a shorter stay in foster care as successful as it can be for the whole family. We're talking to everybody and then again we take that information back to the judge and say, you know, we talked to this grandma. She can't take Sally, but she can have phone calls, you know, how does

as everybody feel about that. Those are the kinds of things that we're trying to dig up and share and learn. Yeah. I mean, so do you have a story of where a CASA volunteer just really made a big impact? Sure. So I actually have two, because I was thinking about this after you told me. So one in particular, and it's not always.

happy stories, but it still matters, right? So like I talked about, we have kids that are in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and unfortunately not everybody that's involved in the case. So parents, attorneys, they don't travel to Houston. They can't. It's nearly impossible, right? Where our volunteer who has one case and the funding from us, they can go. Right? Yes. So we're going to Houston. seeing these kids. anyways, we had a child. She's been in care over a decade, which isn't normal. Shouldn't happen, but it does.

Matthew Darrah (10:49.104)

And so we're going down to see her she's moved my gosh probably 30 times in her 10 years in foster care and she's very high level needs she's special needs And we get down there. talking to her and we noticed that she has like bloody spots

all on her shirt and we're like, what is going on? We'll come to find out she is just eaten alive with bed bugs at this facility that she's at. And so we get in the car and we call the judge's office and we're like, we need a hearing now. We are not leaving this child here. Not. And so we ended up.

making moves, she got moved, she's fine, but had nobody gone down there to see her, what would that turn into? How long would she suffer? So that's one situation. Another situation we have, like I was telling you, we're always looking for family. That's what we want to do. And we had a teen girl who was doing well. She was probably 16 at the time, 15 maybe, doing well, but just nowhere to go.

Mom, dad, they're out of the picture and no siblings. And so we were doing some family finding. Well, you you remember from long ago that maybe we could call and she found a grandma. And so we're like, let's call this grandma. And she's like, I want her. want her. But they turned me down, however many years ago, because of my criminal history. We'll come to find out. Now she works for the government. So background checks are fine. She has a full time job, a house. She lives in the same town as this child.

But because she had, it was like a, I don't know, some sort of nothing harmful charge from 25 years prior. They would not let this child go stay. So we go to court and we're like, hey, we found this grandma, this kid's 16, she needs to go with grandma. And sure enough, the judge ordered it.

Matthew Darrah (12:44.386)

The case was over. She stayed with grandma and was so successful. But had we not done any digging or found this grandma, this child would probably age out of foster care. And who knows what would have happened after that. So it's just those little extra things that CASA volunteers have time to do and are doing that makes a difference. Yeah. Like I say, I know in our case, our CASA

made a huge difference. I just, it's just a critical role. And man, those, you said two, no, 300 that don't. There's over 300. a CASA. Yeah. And think about like what happens when they don't. I mean, you I can't imagine what that experience is like. So.

It's very important, very important. need we need help. No doubt. No doubt. mean, yeah, it is. Golly. Two, three hundred kids. Yes. So what what what qualities do you think makes a great CASA volunteer? So somebody that's passionate about kids. That's it. That's it. We have retirees. A lot of our volunteers are full time employees. They work full time. Their moms, their dads. We have a W.T. professor, nurses, teachers.

All walks of life all walks of life and from all seven counties that we serve so we need people from Borger We want people from Borger to serve border kids Yeah, right. They know about their community more than an Amarillo volunteer might right? So we want people from each of those counties as well because we have kids in every single one of those counties But really just a passion about kids pass our background checks. They're pretty strenuous. They should be yeah

And then we're going to train you. We provide a 32-hour onboarding and then 12 hours yearly. So you don't have to know anything about child welfare, court procedures. We're going to teach you all of that. And then once they're trained, we pair them with a supervisor in our office. So they never go to court alone, because I know that's scary to a of people. They never, you know, when they have questions, they have somebody to go to. So there's...

Matthew Darrah (15:08.99)

We're gonna support you. We just want you to care about kids and want to make a difference Yeah, so is the training like online is it in person is it it's both so about ten hours is in person and the other 22 is online so yeah, and you said eight to ten hours a month is

about average. Yes, and that's on your own schedule. So once you're trained, you're going to be contacting foster parents and say, hey, what works best for you? I work Monday through Thursday. Can I come Friday evening? Right. So you're going to work with them to do what's best for both of your schedules. So the only thing that would be a little more difficult is court hearings. We have no power over when those are scheduled. Right. Yeah. And then they schedule it for nine o'clock and then they get to you when they get to you. I mean, you be there until three o'clock in the afternoon.

Also, since COVID, most of our hearings are on Zoom now. so that's made it easier for one, kids to be present. Volunteers, attorneys can zoom in from anywhere. And so they do go a little bit quicker, I'll tell you that. But I I just, I feel like we have our...

really good setup, make it really easy for volunteers to come through and get that training and then just get going. We also, at the end of training, we ask every potential volunteer, you know, what works best for you? We serve kids zero to 21. Some people want to work with teens, some want to work with littles, and so we try to match them based off of how much time they do have to give a month, if they can travel or if they can't, because that's not a requirement. We will travel to see kids, staff will, if volunteers can't.

So I feel like there's no excuse not to be a CASA. I agree. mean, yeah. OK, so you've been doing this 13 years. Right. And you've seen some really tough stuff. Really tough stuff. gives you hope?

Matthew Darrah (17:06.222)

So I'll give you a recent example. I had a kiddo walk in the front door of our office who hasn't been in care for over seven years. And she came in and I recognized her. And I said, oh my gosh. And she said, I just, walked by and I remembered this office. And she said, I wanted to come in see if I knew anybody that was still here. And she goes, and there you were. And I hugged her and she's like, I just wanted you to know that after I got adopted, I ended up going to nursing. I'm in nursing school.

And she was like and I'm back with my siblings. We're all living in the same house taking care of each other But we all have jobs We're all you know getting married or and taking care of our little brother who knows when we get paid He knows when our payday is he just but I just thought that's what? What like she's good, and that's what makes it Doable is when it's like that one good

outcome, it's like, okay, I can keep doing this. I can keep doing this. A couple of years ago, I ended up... One of my kiddos had gotten adopted and I ended up going to her high school graduation. Then about two years later, ended up going to her wedding. And so that's also... I'm not her CASA anymore, but she still hollers at me and I still know what she's doing. So things like that make it...

doable. and something I've really been trying to...

be clear about recently is these are our future community members. And I think about my kids, like, who do I want my kids around? Well, successful people, right? Good people that care about others. And so I think about that. If we don't change the cycle, these broken kiddos are going to be enmeshed with all of us. kids are grandkids, right? So it's our responsibility to make sure that the Amarillo community continues being the amazing community that it is. And we do that by ensuring that these kiddos

Matthew Darrah (19:00.144)

grow up with everything they need and have good examples and that their parents if possible can can get it together and break that cycle as well know what it is to be a good parent that's that's on us nobody else nobody else is gonna step up right we've got we've got to yeah yeah yeah yeah it's heavy it's heavy it's heavy it's so heavy I mean everything about

the system is heavy. I just, like I said, I know personally and I know so many families who will tell you that, you know, that their CASA made the difference in the situation. And so it's to me, that's why I wanted you to come on, I just, man, I just, I know, I know.

but it's heavy and CASA really does provide, I think, some hope. really do. So what's something you wish every person understood about foster care, about kiddos and care? That they're normal kids. My gosh, they're normal kids. And in the hardest time of their life, they just want some normalcy. They want people to listen to them, one. And they just want...

They just want to be normal. They want a normal Christmas. They want prom. They want shoes that every other kid has. They want all of those things. They're normal kids. feel like sometimes people are like, CPS, know, they're in foster care. We don't want anything to do with that because it's not our problem. No, they're normal kids just like all of our kids, and they deserve to be treated that way. Their parents, too, are normal people who have probably had a rough go or weren't taught themselves. It's a cycle. is a cycle.

So these are all just normal. We're human. have to treat humans like humans, right? People need help and that's okay. Yeah. don't know what the numbers are as far as how kids in care ending up with...

Matthew Darrah (21:10.222)

their kids in care, I know it's high. And it is, we did a five part series on trauma, we had Dr. Hambrick, we've had Robyn Gobbel, we've had all these people on to talk about trauma, and it is a cycle. so, one, honestly one person,

can break that cycle. mean, it's possible. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. yeah, it is. And so what do you think it speaks to a kiddo when they know somebody's there speaking up for them? I think it makes them feel...

heard and probably a little bit safer, I would hope. But again, also hope. Like, there is an end to this because I can't imagine being placed in Houston when I've lived here all my life, away from my siblings, away from my parents. I mean, even like me growing up, I hated being away from my parents. I didn't want to stay the night with anybody. didn't... I got so homesick at church camp, like, I can't imagine a situation like this, you know? And

They just want people to go, to know that, we're still here, even though I'm in Houston, I still wanna go home at some point. And I think sometimes they just want answers. They just wanna know what's coming next. They don't necessarily want...

anything crazy, but can you tell me just what's gonna happen or what's coming next or what this process looks like? Just somebody to walk them through like, this is what a court hearing, this is what a judge does. We're gonna move you here, we're gonna, just answers. They just wanna know what's going on with their life. They want some sort of control because in foster care, as a kid, you have no control whatsoever. No control over your parents, no control over where you live.

Matthew Darrah (23:13.808)

I can't imagine. I'm a control freak. So that would just not go well for me. Yeah. So other than being a CASA, what are other things that you guys need? Sure. I think a simple way to help us, right, is to look at our social media and share.

Just share the word that there is a need, because I know that it's not for everybody. I get that. Or maybe it will be later, or maybe you know of somebody, right? But just share the word. And also, we're willing to go talk to anybody that'll listen. So any church group, any sewing group, any business that will just listen, we know that it takes people seven times to hear about CASA before they'll commit to being a CASA. Right? So we just need to be talking to people. People need to hear us. I think a lot of times

And I use this example a lot my staff probably sick of hearing it but The block that I live on is two blocks long and I always say I feel like if I went door to door and said hey Do you know that there are kids in foster care in Amarillo? Do you know about CASA? Do you know about St. Francis? People wouldn't I feel like there's some sort of gap where people are not hearing Yeah, that there's an issue and maybe I get it if it doesn't touch you in some sort of way if you have an ever

known a kid in foster care or known parents that had their kids taken away or grandparents that took their grandkids in, right? You probably don't think about it often. That's their problem. We need to be foster care and the foster care crisis needs to be on the forefront of everybody's mind. Get involved some way. It may not be with CASA. It may be being a foster parent. It may be, you know, providing kinship support.

do something. Yeah, you know, so many people in foster care, and I say this a lot on here, but so many people in the foster care world think that people don't care. And my experience has been it's not that they don't care, it's that they don't know. They just don't know. They don't know. And once they're confronted with it, they're going to respond. do. They do. I mean, people do care. They just they don't know what to do. They don't know how to do anything. You know, and when I go and speak at a church or host a toy

Matthew Darrah (25:28.752)

this weekend at Unique Toys. People see the need and they respond. Not everybody, but like you say, mean, one person at every church and every kid would have a CASA or whatever, however it works out. But it is constantly getting the message out, getting the word out, and once people see, I think they...

We have a really good response. I mean people go, my gosh.

I didn't know that that was happening. I didn't know that kids from here, you know, go to Houston. I didn't know that was a thing. How can I help? Back to your question about how you can help. So sharing our social media, sending people our way, letting us talk to whoever we can talk to. Obviously, it takes money to run an organization. You know this. So any kind of financial support is always we're always looking for that. We have a couple of fundraisers during the year attending those. We do a toy drive, bringing toys and gift cards for the

Every November that helps us. Yeah, because you guys do a Christmas we do thing for all of the kiddos. We do. Yeah, so there is somewhere for everyone. Somewhere. Yeah, so, you know, do you have like monthly donors set up thing? We do. Yeah monthly donors yearly donors; We do the Panhandle gives every year just like everyone else so There there are so many opportunities to help. Yeah

I get it. It's so stinking important and just getting people to know about it and be aware of, know, that's why we're here is trying to get the community to see and then building community around foster parents and things like that. So the big thing is that CASA is...

Matthew Darrah (27:31.118)

I really do believe it's critical for the whole proceeding from start to finish to have somebody that doesn't have, like I said, they don't have skin in the game. They don't have any ulterior motive to get the kids here or there. They want, they only want, they're the only ones really in the courtroom that...

Their only job, the only thing they care about is what's best for the kid. And that's why it's so stinking important. I it made a huge difference, like I said, in our case and in so many. I've heard so many times where a CASA person just like, kind like a dog on a bone was like not letting this go, right? And saying this is what's best, not that, right? The laws are...

complicated. They're complicated. They're complicated and there's a lot of them. I think that's something that's special about us too is there are going to be times when

you know, St. Francis, there are certain rules that they have to follow and policy they have to follow. And sometimes we can kind of wiggle around those things. And so we can make different recommendations, maybe that St. Francis can't or the attorney ad litem can't. So and we try to bring everybody together to write. any information that we get, we're sharing that with everybody involved in the case. There's no secret who we're there for. Or what we're doing. And we don't always agree.

There's times when foster parents don't agree with us, attorney ad litems maybe we're not, but we're all in it for the same result, right? We may get there different ways or have a difference of opinion about how we get there, but we want permanency for these kids, whatever that may look like. We don't want them in foster care. That's it. That's all. There should be no child in foster care. That's our end goal, right? I mean, no child abuse, no foster care.

Matthew Darrah (29:31.598)

Boy, that'd be a... Wouldn't that be amazing? Sadly, people are gonna be people. And that's why it's so important for people to stand up for the people that can't stand up for themselves. They can't go speak in court, say, is what I want. But somebody has to.

Man, thank you for coming. Yeah, thanks for having me. Jarah. Guys, go to pleasebeacasa.org.

You host informational things at the office periodically too, right? So watch out for that. Do you have one coming up? So we've actually moved everything you need to know is on our Facebook, Instagram, and website. So we even have informational videos. It's five minutes. It's not going to take a lot of your time. Check it out. Hear what it's about. But again, you just need to have a passion for kids. Please do not worry about the rest. Don't let the word court or CPS scare you. These are kids.

These normal, everyday kids who deserve somebody in their corner. Yeah, that's so stinking true. Well guys, thank you for coming. Thank you guys for listening. Like I said, we'll put the link to their website in the show notes. Consider being a CASA. If you know CASA, give them a hug. Because they're doing an important but a tough job. And thank you again to...

ER On Soncy for your sponsorship and.

Matthew Darrah (31:11.406)

can't remember. we'll have to cut that out. All right, well thank you guys and have a great week.