August 2024 Success Story

In January 2022, Fairfax CASA received an Emergency Removal Order (ERO) case involving a four-year-old child. The affidavit alleged the child had been left outside in sub-freezing temperatures for several hours in urine-soaked clothes not appropriate for the weather. The child’s mother and her paramour struggled with substance use and housing insecurity and her father’s whereabouts were unknown.  The child was assigned a CASA, who immediately began working the case.

Over the course of 22 months, the child’s mother was able to begin substance abuse treatment, but was, ultimately, unable to remain sober. The child was moved to foster home with a family that was anxious to provide a home and take care of the child long-term. As the child adjusted to the home and the family spent more time together, the CASA began to observe new behaviors in the child. Anxieties appeared that hadn’t been present before, and the CASA noted that the family did not seem to be bonding well as a unit. The CASA relayed her concerns about some of the foster parents’ behaviors and parenting techniques to the Department of Family Services (DFS) Specialist assigned to the case, specifically tensions between the child and foster parents.  The CASA and the DFS Specialist assessed the situation and agreed that this family was not a good long-term fit for the child, because it was not facilitating a healing environment.

Thanks to the advocacy of the CASA, the child was soon moved to a more trauma-informed home, with foster parents who happened to be fostering the child’s new baby sibling. The child is now thriving, receiving services, doing well in school, and enjoying being united with their sibling in a loving, healing, environment, with a goal of adoption by the foster family.