I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate

by Gay Courter

  When she went for the interview with Esther Kipper, the therapist, Lydia asked if I could remain with her. Dr. Kipper asked her why.

  “Because there is some stuff I don’t want to have to go over again and Gay knows about it.”

  I sat in a chair in the corner, but when Lydia prompted me I described her legal situation, the search for a home, as well as the facts regarding her delinquency and the false statements about her. Before the interview, Lydia told me that she was going to tell the truth. Keeping her word, she answered every question, even admitting she had tried LSD, uppers, downers, and marijuana, but not cocaine. She talked about how she found Jesus and that she would never use drugs again. “And I won’t take any of those mind drugs, like they gave me at Valley View.”

  When Dr. Kipper asked Lydia if she had ever been raped, she said, “Yes, twice,” which was a shock to me.

  At the end of the session we talked about Lydia’s options. I explained that unless Dr. Kipper saw any problems with our plan, Lydia and I were going to ask the judge to order Lydia into foster care and to keep her at the Fowlers’.

  “Considering the difficult circumstances, I think that you have done very well, Lydia,” the therapist said with a generous smile. “My opinion is that you should remain where you are, continue regular counseling, and start school as soon as possible.”

  “May I quote you for my report to the court?” I asked.

  “Surely,” the therapist said, winking at Lydia.

  Two days later I picked up Lydia at the Fowlers’ and took her to Central High School. Our instructions from the drop-out specialist were to ask to see the principal. He explained that although Lydia did not meet most requirements for admission, he would waive the rules because, “I hear you are a girl with real potential.”

  “Nobody ever told me I could do well before,” Lydia said.

  “You are very smart,” I insisted, then looked to the principal for support.

  “If you put in the effort, I know you can succeed,” he said warmly. “We want to welcome you back to school.”

  “Do I have to take physical education?” Lydia asked.

  “No. I don’t think you would feel comfortable with a bunch of immature ninth graders.”

  Lydia’s eyes sparkled. “What about guitar? I’ve been learning how to play on my own.”

  “We have two guitar classes in our music department. The goal is for you to get back into the routine and have a positive experience.”

  Soon Lydia was signed up for exactly what she wanted: courses in word processing, child development, ninth-grade math and tenth-grade English, guitar, geography, and experiential science. Since it was too late to start classes, she was told to come on the bus the following day.

  “Your parents will be proud that you are back in school,” I said as we headed home.

  “I hope so. They never had much faith in me.”

  So often I had seen guardian children whose self-esteem had been eroded by years of criticism. I refused to go along with the pervasive belief that a child required more correction than praise. One of the most essential roles I could play was to keep reminding my guardian children how terrific they were.

  “I’ve seen some of your ability test results. You can do very well if you want to.”

  “That’s not what my parents believe.”

  “Have you talked to either of them lately?”

  “Not my father!” Then she expressed her fury that every time Stuart answered the phone he either hung up or put her mother on without one word of greeting. “Mom tells me to write him and ask for forgiveness, and I have done it over and over, but he never answers. I say, ‘Dad, please talk to me. Just tell me what I need to do to come home again.’ “

  “That must hurt your feelings.”

  “Nobody wants me … except Al and June.” Lydia exhaled for so long she seemed to deflate. “Do you think there’s any chance I can stay with them?” she asked plaintively.

  We pulled up in front of the Fowlers’ house. “I don’t know. First you would have to be declared a dependent child by the court. Then you would be a foster child, a ward of the State of Florida. But, even then, the Fowlers could ask you to leave at any time or HRS could move you whenever they wanted.”

  “Couldn’t you do anything to make them keep me?”

  “I can protest the placement, but I can’t insist they put you where you want to stay. They could send you to a group facility in another part of the state or to a foster home in another school district. I am sorry to say this happens all the time. I had one guardian child who was moved thirteen times in less than a year.”

  “Why can’t I have a home?” she said tearfully. “The Fowlers are the only ones who want me.”

  “And someone else, remember?”

  “You?” she asked tentatively. I was touched, but I shook my head.

  “What can’t anyone take away from you?”

  “The Lord,” she mumbled.

  I nodded, hoping it was true, for right now the material world had bankrupted her.

  “You know something, Gay?” Lydia said, brightening. “Everyone else always talks to me about what they are going to do to help me, but then time passes and nothing changes. You are the first person who ever did every single thing that you said you would.”

  “Well, I will continue to try for you, but even I can’t promise the end result. Only the judge can make you a foster child, but that still doesn’t guarantee you’ll stay with the Fowlers.”

  “I know that, and I know that whatever happens it won’t be your fault.”

  I began to see that trying to win might be a trap. Already I had won the right to place Lydia outside the system only to find myself crawling back to ask the judge to order the opposite. Would I be winning again if he now granted my request? And what if three months from now, Lydia changed her mind and wanted out? I could just imagine calling HRS and asking for another home!

  If there is anything I had learned as a mother, it was never to say never. I could see that in this case the sole victory would be Lydia’s progress and supposed that this would not be the first or last time I might have to reconsider my original premise, to admit I was wrong, or that the situation had changed. And no matter what happened with Lydia, I would have to return to the same judge and work with the same foster care personnel again and again.

  As part of the preparation for the court date, I attended a formal meeting, called a “staffing,” at HRS headquarters to determine whether Lydia qualified for foster care.

  “Someone needs to chastise the Fowlers for becoming too emotionally involved with a child for whom they were only supposed to have temporary care,” Mona’s supervisor said at the start of the meeting.

  “You’re talking about a child like she’s an ornamental clock loaned out to a home that is paid a fee to wind and polish it and keep it running, but not to care for it too much because they are going to have to pass it on,” I complained.

  But, in the end, the HRS supervisors decided not to approve Lydia for foster care.

  While waiting for a court date, I checked to see how Lydia was adjusting to school.

  “Everything is different when you are trying to do your best for the Lord,” she explained. “They want me to learn secular songs in guitar class, but I have said I will only play spiritual ones.”

  “Is there a problem with that?”

  “No, the music teacher respects my beliefs.”

  From an early age Lydia had demonstrated a spirited personality. Her stepfather in particular had tried to inhibit it, and she had defied him at every turn. Yet, properly harnessed, this same temperament gave her spunk and drive. If she used her religious differences to meet this need to define herself positively, that was fine with me, for the alternatives—from drugs to sex to running away—were self-destructive.

  “When is the judge going to decide my case?”

  “I haven’t been given a date yet, but since there is no emergency, it will pr
obably be sometime in the next few weeks.”

  “May I be there?”

  “I am certain Judge Donovan will want to hear how you feel.”

  “He didn’t listen to me last time.”

  “I know but …” I paused, then took a chance. “Who did he listen to?”

  “You,” she stated, then grinned. “Hope he does that again.”

  The following Monday Lillian called at eight in the morning. “Lydia Ryan’s on the docket for this afternoon.”

  “How’s that possible? I wasn’t notified and Lydia probably went to school already. I don’t even have a written report ready.”

  Lillian told me to call Mona and insist she pick up Lydia from school. I was to write a report and read it to her over the phone, then fax the Guardian ad Litem office the final copy. Because HRS had come out against foster care for Lydia, the guardian office was preparing the legal documents necessary to state our case formally. After a hectic morning, I arrived at the courthouse shaken and unprepared.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ryan were standing by the elevator, and I nodded to them. They ignored me. As I passed through the metal detector, I was asked to relinquish the Swiss army knife in my makeup bag.

  Lillian greeted me with a conspiratorial grin. “Trying to sneak that in, were you?”

  “Should’ve remembered and left it in the car,” I said with some chagrin. I handed Lillian copies of my report. “Where’s Lydia?”

  “Mona has her in the waiting room at the end of the hall.”

  I rushed there and apologized to Lydia for not knowing about the court date.

  “Are my parents here yet?” Lydia asked.

  “Yes, in the hall.”

  “Would you ask my mother to come here? I want to talk to her without my father being around.”

  Antagonism seeped from the pores of the Ryans as I approached. “Lydia would like to see her mother,” I said. Catherine gave a little jump, then looked to her husband for approval. He stared straight ahead at me, so she sidestepped him and went to her daughter.

  As soon as his wife turned the corner, Stuart Ryan sneered at me. “What are you, some kind of nut?” He shook a copy of my court report in my face. “You’ve written lies about my family and I’m going to make sure you pay for what you’ve done.”

  “Do you have some specific objections?” I asked as I reached for my copy.

  His eyes bulged. “What is this shit about having us pay for her care? We already owe thousands for her and I will be paying that off for the rest of my life.” A violet blush spread from his neck to his chin like a barometer of his rising blood pressure. “I’m going to get you for this and put you out of business.”

  Just then Nancy stepped off the elevator and waved to me. Gratefully, I followed her. “Did you hear what he said?” Nancy shook her head, so I repeated it. “Can he sue me?”

  “No. A guardian is protected under the law as a good Samaritan.”

  The bailiff guarding the door to the judge’s chambers had overheard me. “Did you say someone threatened you?” he asked.

  “In a way …,” I demurred.

  “Who?” he demanded.

  “Mr. Ryan,” I said, gesturing in his direction.

  The bailiff glanced from me to Nancy. “You want me to speak with him?”

  “No,” Nancy replied. “I’ll mention it to the judge so it will be on the record.”

  “Everyone for the Ryan case,” the bailiff called a few minutes later.

  To avoid confronting Mr. Ryan again, I went to fetch Lydia.

  Just before we went into the judge’s chambers Lydia said, “I want you to know that I prayed for God to put me where he thinks is best. If it is not his will for me to stay at the Fowlers’, I will go wherever the judge says, and make the best of it.”

  “Oh, Lydia!” I said, “You put everyone else to shame. I don’t know what the Lord’s will is, but in my heart I believe you belong with the Fowlers and I will do everything in my power to make the judge see it that way. And while I am at it, I have some other business to attend to in there on your behalf.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see!”

  The judge glanced at my report, which was mostly a description of the Christian Farm Society and Lydia’s reasons for not wanting to go there.

  At present Lydia Ryan is functioning at the highest level that she has in several years. She is attending school and doing well, working toward her goal of joining the vo-tech after Christmas. She is involved in church activities, including a drama group, is seeing her mother and siblings every few weeks. Her relationship with her foster family has grown even tighter, and she is particularly close to her foster sister/roommate. Breaking up this harmonious situation at this time is going to set Lydia back on the progress she has made.

  The judge looked to the HRS attorney for his perspective. “In our opinion this child does not meet any of the qualifications for an abused or neglected child to be placed into state-supported foster care,” Calvin Reynolds began in a flat tone. “We are recommending a private placement at the Christian Farm Society. Mr. and Mrs. Ryan have agreed to sign the papers for her admission there.”

  This was news to me. Mr. Ryan nodded at the judge. The judge scrutinized my side of the table. Since Kit Thorndike, the Guardian ad Litem attorney, had not been able to come, Nancy was on my right, with Lillian behind her. “What does the guardian say?”

  Nancy pushed forward a copy of the guardian office’s motion for a change of placement pursuant to the Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure and Florida Statutes 39.442. “We respectfully disagree with HRS’s position and are asking for Lydia Ryan to be placed in temporary legal custody of the department in foster care so the child might remain on a permanent basis in the same home where she now resides,” Nancy explained.

  “Would you state your reasons?”

  Nancy nudged me.

  On the drive to the courthouse I had made an attempt to frame my argument but had not been able to do so. Something I had recently read resonated in my mind. At the risk of being late, I had turned my car around and returned to my office. For a film project I had been reading Lisbeth B. Schorr’s Within Our Reach, Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage. Now, in the judge’s chambers, I reached for the book and opened to page 146.

  “Your honor, I cannot dispute the facts of this case, and I must be accountable for changing my initial recommendations. I never would have suspected that Lydia and the Fowlers would develop a rapport so swiftly. But the fact is that they did.” I paused to make eye contact with Judge Donovan. “Your honor, every day you have the formidable task of placing children outside their homes and you must hope that they somehow find the love and security absent in their natural families in these surrogate ones. Now, almost despite the court—not to mention your appointed guardian, and the other professionals assigned to this case—something wonderful and unexpected has happened. Lydia and her foster parents have become deeply attached.” I quoted from the book. “ ‘The failure to develop strong early connections with someone, who in Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner’s phrase, “is crazy about the kid” has been found to lead, with haunting frequency, to an adult personality “characterized by lack of guilt, an inability to keep rules, and an inability to form lasting relationships.” ‘ Here we have a young woman on the brink of independence,” I continued. I looked around the room, trying to win sympathy. “If we sever this fragile bond now, maybe she will never form another one, and the self-destructive path she started down will lead to her ruin. Lydia is a special girl and I am proud to have gotten to know her.” My hands began to tremble. To steady them I pressed my palms to the table, and then without premeditation, I stood up. “Before I go any further I want to make a point for the record. For too long Lydia Ryan has been called ‘the girl who put a baby in a microwave oven.’ It has been acknowledged that she never did this, but still the label persists.” I stared at a few of the offending parties. “From now on I want it noted that anyone
using this term is deliberately slandering her and I will take legal steps to have her compensated for damages.”

  I slipped back into my seat and spoke more softly. “The Lydia Ryan I know sings and plays the guitar, is loving and funny. She likes poetry, especially Robert Frost. She knows all about ‘the road not taken’ and she is asking your honor to give her this chance to follow the road of her choice toward the happiness she seeks.”

  “What are your other recommendations besides foster care placement?” Judge Donovan asked with some impatience.

  I listed my requests rapid-fire. “That Lydia Ryan be permitted unsupervised and unrestricted visitation with her natural family as often as is mutually agreeable, that she be encouraged to continue her schooling to receive a high school diploma—and also receive ongoing assistance if she remains in school for higher education past her eighteenth birthday—that no change of placement be made without a court hearing, and that the appointment of the Guardian ad Litem be continued in this matter.”

  “Any other comments?” The judge stared at Calvin, but true to his word, the HRS attorney did not enter any further arguments.

  However, Mona jumped into the fray. “I know the guardian feels she has to safeguard Lydia, but she has to see it from our point of view. This girl has been charged with delinquency and is a certified risk to young children. What about the Fowler twins? Don’t we have a responsibility to them?”

  “What do you think is the risk?” the judge asked her.

  Mona hesitated, then awkwardly stated that Lydia had been in Valley View, and before that, had been the “paramour of a boy who was murdered in a gangland-style slaying.” She stopped to clear her throat. “At the last court appearance your honor ordered the guardian to find an alternative placement, but because she was unsuccessful, she wants the department to support this person from our limited funds.”

  The judge nodded for me to comment. “I made several attempts to find her a private placement,” I stated, “but Lydia, as well as the Fowlers, believe that the Lord led her to them.”