Sow Good Seeds

Long before the weather cleared when we were still waiting out freezing temperatures and brown earth, I began thinking of the expression “Sow Good Seeds.” I am someone who likes to start the new year with a word or phrase to capture what I envision for the year ahead. Early in January I was reminded that the seeds I sow with my words, intentions, and actions directly impact my well-being and my relationships.

February marked 9 years since I first came to CASA as an Advocate Supervisor. My perspective about advocacy and the work of foster care is continually evolving as I learn and adapt to this system. I believe everyone who has come to PCASA, in whatever capacity, has come with the common mission to help the children in our community. My thinking about what it means to truly help has also been evolving. After witnessing family after family move through the foster care system, each one forever changed by the experience, I find myself less certain that services alone, however valuable, are enough to move families toward lasting strength. What I’ve grown increasingly certain of is this: it is the quality of our words and the sincerity of our intentions toward the families we serve that hold the greatest power for lasting impact at CASA.

The advocate who shows up month after month for the youth who is angry at the world and declines a visit when they come. The one who tells a parent they matter and that their fears for their child are heard and will be communicated to the court. The individual who steps in to connect a parent with an attorney they’ve been unable to reach. The advocate who tells a parent battling substance use that there is hope. I think of our own Kati Naess, who recently retired, but spent the last several decades championing the needs of children in foster care and seeing where needs were greatest and trying to provide tangible help.

We cannot fix the system we work within. But as long as this system exists, children will be placed in foster care. They come with needs, challenges, and fears, and they desperately need a reason to believe there are better times ahead. I believe every phone call to a parent, every month you show up to see a child, every time you give a family a voice by listening to their story, you are showing them they matter. You are sowing good seeds for a harvest you may never see. I often remember a youth whose case I managed when I first came to CASA. She rarely spoke to her CASA when he came to visit (and he visited every month). She thought he didn’t understand her and she was angry to have extra adults in her life she didn’t ask for. But when she turned 18 and he came off her case, she told a member of her team “that CASA cared about me.” That thought keeps me going at CASA. As we prepare to onboard another strong class of volunteer advocates this spring, we remember to teach that advocacy is found both in the big and the small things. The court victories and the untold times of progress that inches forward. I am going to sow good seeds this year and our advocates will, too.