Free I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate by Gay Courter Page A

there were so few guardians, in her opinion, they should be given to younger kids.”
    “What should we do about Lydia?” I asked, refocusing on my case.
    “I am worried that the Tabernacle Home is not a suitable placement,” Nancy responded curtly.
    “However, she is comfortable there for now,” Lillian interjected in her honey-sweet accent. “What do you think, Gay?”
    “Do you sense we can work with Mrs. Shaw?” I asked.
    “I hoped we could,” Lillian replied, “but she is one of the most dominating women I have ever met. Her way is the only way. I don’t think she’ll compromise.”
    “Also,” Nancy added, “she is smart and has done her homework. By now she probably knows the legal situation as well as I do.”
    “Lydia wouldn’t be welcome at her parents’ home,” I said, thinking out loud. “We certainly don’t want her back in detention. If she is forced to go somewhere she doesn’t like, she’ll run away, and then be at risk on the streets. Why don’t we back off until we can find her an alternative placement?”
    “I’m supposed to talk to Mrs. Shaw tomorrow with a list of our demands. My feeling is that they have to comply just like anyplace else,” said Nancy emphatically, “or else the child needs to leave.”
    I could see that this might not be solved until Nancy and the Shaws dueled at dawn, but where did this leave Lydia?
    Lillian offered a suggestion. “We need more backup for our position. I have the name and number of the doctor who cared for Lydia at Valley View. Why don’t you contact him and discuss whether he thinks the Tabernacle Home is a good placement for Lydia?”
    “Wonderful idea!” I said, anxious for an objective opinion. “She’s been so unstable for so long, I feared moving her from even an inappropriate placement against her will.”
    Stability. I thought about a recent lecture I had heard on the importance of permanence that compared children’s emotional security to a bucket. If a child’s needs are met, if she receives the love and attention she craves, the sturdy bucket does not leak. But as soon as she is abused or neglected, tiny holes begin to puncture the bucket, and the vital fluids that maintain a child’s stability start oozing out. If a child who enters the social service system isn’t maintained with transfusions, the essential elements slowly drain away. Even worse, the system itself is capable of widening the holes, or even punching fresh ones. Moving children from place to place, treating them unfairly, not meeting their needs in a timely manner—all contribute to the leakage. Eventually it will not matter how fast you try to replenish the pail; like a sieve it empties itself instantly.
    Fewer holes in the bucket. I had to keep that in mind and not unwittingly become another archer shooting arrows, even if my aim had been meant for a higher purpose. If the folks at the Tabernacle Home, with the help of Jesus, could mend Lydia’s lacerated spirit, I did not want to be the one to reopen the wound.
    And yet everyone, including the psychiatrist who had treated Lydia at Valley View, confirmed my sense that the Tabernacle Home was not in Lydia’s best interests.
    “She’s too easily led and needs to learn to rely on herself, not another cult,” the doctor told me.
    “What are the chances for family reunification?” I asked her.
    The doctor was extremely negative about Stuart Ryan, calling him “brittle, authoritarian, and mean.” She also warned that if Lydia had to live with her family, she might be at risk for suicide. “Why doesn’t HRS find her a supportive foster family?” she asked.
    “Although her parents don’t want her, Lydia is not yet a legal ward of the court,” I explained.
    “Aren’t there any other alternatives in your community?” the doctor asked before hanging up.
    From experience I knew that once HRS was in control of a child, they could move her without anyone’s permission. My work with other guardian