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

by Gay Courter

  Another grim consequence of this incestuous relationship was the long-term erosion of Alicia’s power to grow and develop. Because she had subjected herself to her father’s will, ignoring her own needs and wishes most of the time, she was suffused with feelings of powerlessness. Instead of believing she could function in the world on her own, she felt that she had to do whatever anyone—particularly any man—asked. As young people develop into functioning adults, they learn step-by-step mastery of skills, how to work toward goals, how to use choices responsibly, and to delay gratification. Alicia’s growth had been stunted by her father, who usurped self-mastery by violating her body with deceit.

  Even more distressing, the disclosure of this abuse further undermined Alicia’s control over her life. Immediately she was yanked from her home and placed in shelter care. When she applied some measure of autonomy by running away, she became the criminal, was picked up by the police, and moved to a foster home without her consent. She lost her house, her possessions, her brothers, her friends in the neighborhood, even her school. From then on she became a “case,” both in dependency and criminal court. She had to respond to the summons of attorneys, doctors, caseworkers, even her child advocate. No matter how hard I would try, I knew I continued to represent “them” to Alicia, who sometimes saw “us” as more the enemy than her father.

  From our first encounter, Alicia had been open with me about her sexual activity. Because I never condemned her, she continued to confide in me. While I would listen, I usually didn’t ask for details, unless to clarify what she meant. If she said, “I was doing it with him when I got my period,” I might ask, “You mean having sex with him?” Then I would listen to the rest of the story. My comments always focused on her health. Suggestions about birth control or a frank discussion concerning AIDS were common threads in our ongoing dialogue. I brought her books, including the updated Our Bodies, Ourselves and Learning About Sex: The Contemporary Guide for Young Adults, which was used in the sex education program at our son’s school. This book, by Gary F. Kelly, combined straightforward information with a discussion on ethics. While I showed these books to Ruth Levy, I did not ask her permission to give them to Alicia, because as her guardian, I felt the information was essential to her welfare.

  One of my early discussions with Ruth centered around birth control and teenage girls. “Nobody in my house is going to be on the pill,” she announced. “That’s like writing a blank check for them to have sex.”

  “But some of them are probably going to be sexually active. Don’t they need protection from disease and pregnancy?”

  “I’m willing to give them the information, but not provide assistance. My job is to teach them to respect their bodies, learn how to say ‘no,’ and develop a sense of values.”

  Ruth’s theory was lovely, but her values offered no immunity to Alicia, whom I knew to be at great risk. Soon Alicia told me she was using condoms and had tried foam. I brought her statistics about the effectiveness of combining two barrier methods to increase the chance of preventing pregnancy as well as disease. By the spring, when Alicia had a “serious” boyfriend she saw three or four times a week, Ruth faced the fact that they were sexually active. She called me to ask if I would object to Alicia taking the pill, if only to “regulate her periods.” Without wondering why she had changed her mind, I said I thought it was a splendid idea. When Alicia began using an oral contraceptive, she and I discussed the side effects. Six months later Ruth informed me that she had made an appointment for Alicia to have Norplant inserted. Norplant is an implantation of slow-release hormone capsules under the skin of the upper arm that prevents pregnancy for five years, but which may be removed at any time.

  “When she’s eighteen, she won’t qualify for free birth control,” Ruth explained, “but Medicaid will pay for the Norplant now, which costs around eight hundred dollars.”

  “I think you made the right decision,” I said. “This will give Alicia the freedom from pregnancy for several years after she is out of foster care so she can get her education and start on a career.”

  A few weeks after he settled into the Rose/Perez house Cory had a birthday. I decided to buy him a battery charging system for the radio-controlled truck he had received at Christmas from the MacDougals. When I arrived for the party, the living room resounded with a cacophony of children punctuated by Manuel’s suction machine. Pizzas were served followed by a birthday cake with fourteen candles.

  “Show Gay your birthday present to me,” Birdie said coaxingly. Cory looked confused. She handed him an envelope and he passed it to me. I took out his latest report card. “All A‘s and B‘s,” Cory boasted. “I’m on the honor roll for the first time in my life!”

  When it came time to open the presents, Cory unwrapped the battery charger, then looked at it dubiously.

  Birdie glanced from him to me. “He doesn’t have that car anymore. Mrs. MacDougal didn’t let him take it with him. In fact, she didn’t give him anything that he acquired at her house, not even most of his clothing.”

  “But his Christmas gifts were his!” I put my arm around Cory. “We’ll take the charger back together and you can pick something else out, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I’d like my old truck back, and some of my other stuff too.”

  How well I remembered Mrs. MacDougal bragging at the HRS meeting about the four hundred dollars she had spent on gifts for each child, then later showing me everything she had given Cory. No … not showing just me, showing us. Lillian had been there too.

  “How can Renata MacDougal get away with this?” I railed on the phone to Lillian the next day. “First she tells lies about me, then she throws Cory out for nothing, and to top it off, she keeps his gifts and clothing. Here’s a kid with nothing: no parents, no home, no sister, no brother, no money, and he is denied the few objects that belonged to him.”

  “It happens all the time,” Lillian responded slowly. “A foster parent gives a kid a bike, but when he leaves to go to another foster home or to return to his natural parents, he is told that the bike was on loan. Then the foster family passes it down to the next one.”

  “How can HRS condone that?”

  “The ‘official’ policy is that the children’s possessions go with them, nevertheless you rarely can prove to whom something belongs.”

  “Maybe not in most cases, Lillian, but remember Renata bragging at the meeting? That was in front of her HRS supervisors as well as Nancy, you, and me. Then, later that day she showed off each item to both of us. Don’t you remember the brown cowboy boots, the pass to Disney, the red radio-controlled car, the Walkman, and the baseball outfit?”

  “Sure do. Call Cory and get as accurate a list as you can. Then you write two letters, one to Mrs. MacDougal requesting the items on Cory’s behalf, and the other to Mitzi Keller.”

  The response was as unexpected as it was swift. Phyllis Cady phoned Nancy at the guardian office. “Our policy is to back the decision of our foster parents.”

  “Phyllis,” Nancy said in her most conciliatory voice, “this is an unusual circumstance. Renata MacDougal listed the gifts to us at the meeting, then flaunted them in front of Gay and Lillian.”

  “Come on, Nancy,” Phyllis urged, “don’t you have some really dreadful cases to pursue? I know I do.” She hung up.

  Nancy phoned and told me what Phyllis had said.

  “Where’s Judge Wapner when you need him?” I asked.

  “Exactly!” Nancy replied. “May I have permission to put your name on the civil case in Cory’s behalf?”

  “Absolutely!” I said, elated there finally might be an antidote to Renata MacDougal’s venom.

  “I haven’t done one of these since law school,” Kit Thorndike said as he described a Writ of Replevin, the method to recover possession of personal property.

  A few weeks later the papers arrived in the mail. I felt a jolt as I read the first page of the documents.

  IN RE: The Interest of:

 
; CORY STEVENSON, a minor child.

  Gay Courter, as Guardian ad Litem and next friend of Cory Stevenson, a minor child, petitioner,

  vs.

  THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES and CONRAD MACDOUGAL, and his wife, RENATA MACDOUGAL, Individually and as agents for THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES,

  Respondents.

  I had never before been involved in a lawsuit. I scanned the petition, which listed the property in exhibit A and explained that “the petitioner was entitled on behalf of Cory Stevenson, a minor child, to possession of the property based upon the fact that the property was gifts to the minor child and that the property was wrongfully detained by the MacDougals and HRS, who believed they could retain the property because they had a right to use the same for other children who came into their care.”

  I called Nancy and asked what would happen next. “You are not going to believe this, but I just got off the phone with Calvin Reynolds, HRS’s attorney. He states he will fight us through any court because he can’t let this become a precedent.”

  “Do you mean we’re going to have a trial for the cowboy boots and the Walkman?”

  “Yes, and I’m delighted. If we win, it will warn other foster parents not to do the same.”

  When I saw Nancy in court the following week, she pulled me aside. “Want an update on the ‘Scrooge Suit’?”

  “The what?”

  “Have you forgotten Cory’s cowboy boots?” she said in a mock-stern voice. “We’re calling Mrs. MacDougal ‘the mother who stole Christmas.’ There’s a hearing next Thursday to decide whether the case will be heard in civil or dependency court.”

  “Should I attend?”

  “No, it’s just a technical matter and will take five minutes.”

  Late Thursday, though, Nancy called me from her home. “Kit Thorndike has a decision on Mrs. Scrooge.”

  “Already?” I asked, disappointed that I had not been present.

  “It was totally unexpected. After Calvin handed Judge Donovan the documents, he looked up and bellowed, ‘Is this about a foster kid’s cowboy boots?’ Calvin started to argue the case right then and there, and Thorn didn’t stop him. Calvin yammered on about not interfering in a foster parent’s decision. Then Thorn explained how Mrs. MacDougal had listed the gifts at an HRS meeting and had shown them to two guardians. ‘How far are you prepared to take this case?’ the judge asked Calvin, who mumbled something about going to the highest court. ‘Oh no you won’t,’ Judge Donovan retorted. ‘I hereby order you to go to that foster home within twenty days and get every single item belonging to that child and to return it to him at once. If some of the articles are missing or broken, you are to get their value in cash from the foster parents. And I do not ever want to hear any mention of this matter in my court, or any other, again.’ “ Nancy paused and chuckled. “So, the Scrooge Suit is over.”

  “And Cory will get everything back?”

  “Yes, and I’m very pleased,” Nancy said, sighing contentedly for the first time I could recall.

  Dr. Newman intercepted my phone call to Rich, who was in a group meeting. “Richard is doing much better. He made it to A-level status—that’s the one with the most privileges—and has maintained it for several weeks. When he slips up, we ask, ‘Is that your best A-level behavior?’ That’s usually enough to get him to comply. His caseworker is arranging something with a psychiatric facility that has an adolescent outpatient program called Garrison House.”

  Mitzi Zeller couldn’t wait to tell me about the facility in Sarasota. Connected with Garrison Memorial Hospital’s psychiatric department, Garrison House was a pilot project to prepare adolescent children for independent living. Residents in the program ranged from age sixteen to twenty and lived in two-story duplexes. Placement was difficult to arrange, but they had tentatively agreed to take Rich, pending a report from Dr. Newman.

  “Will he continue to receive therapy?”

  “Counseling by the live-in staff is ongoing, but not of a formalized nature. If he needs individual sessions, he can make his own appointments at the Garrison Clinic and will get himself there using public transportation. Buses pass right by the complex. He’ll be using them to get to his job and to school.”

  “But Rich hasn’t even completed middle school.”

  “He’ll be tested and placed appropriately, probably in night education classes. This is a reality-based program. The residents do their own shopping, cook under supervision, have bank accounts that they must balance. Everything is designed to prepare them for living independently while offering them support if they make mistakes.”

  “Do you think Rich is ready for this?” I asked skeptically.

  “We’re under a mandate to select the least restrictive environment for him.”

  “Does Garrison House know about his history of violence?”

  “They have his file. Dr. Newman thinks he may do well with more autonomy.”

  “Mitzi, I’m his advocate, but you don’t hear me begging to have him out on the streets, at least not until I see some evidence of self-control.”

  “The case manager for the special assessment team has decided on Garrison House.”

  Maybe I had missed something in Rich’s bulging file. I sorted the papers by date, then pulling out a yellow highlighter, tried to find some evidence of preparation for Garrison House.

  Rich hated guidelines of any kind. Most of his placements had failed due to his uncontrollable aggressions. One foster mother reported that when he was given a list of their family’s rules, he said, “You want me to circle the ones I will follow?” Later that same day he ran off, taking the foster father’s machete. Another time, when Mitzi tried to calm Rich on the phone, he threw the phone against the wall, cracking the hard plastic shell. Worse, in recent weeks, he had become increasingly delusional, telling everyone his father killed his wife and now had a contract out on his life. His doctor reported that he complained of being dizzy and fuzzy and his excuse for his behavior lapses was that he “couldn’t think straight.”

  There were more arrests in his HRS files than I had located in the police records. A joy ride with a friend in a neighbor’s car had led to a charge of grand theft auto. He had at least three breaking and entering notations, had been picked up for bringing a .44 Magnum to the high school and threatening a student. The gun turned out to belong to his father, who, he told Mitzi, “sleeps with a gun.”

  Rich’s file contained several references to his interest in firearms. He related an incident shortly after Christmas to a therapist. Rich and his father were quarreling when his father handed him a gun and said, “Why don’t you shoot me if you hate me so much?” The report said that Rich had taken the gun and loaded it, then explained, “I couldn’t do nothin’, not even point it at my dad. Instead I pointed it at myself. But I couldn’t even do that right.”

  Another therapist reported that Rich described watching his father have intercourse with his sister, saying he said he had felt “dizzy and sick, like I wanted to throw up.” Rich had readily admitted drug and alcohol abuse, saying he preferred marijuana but that he had “done rock” (crack cocaine) and liked to “huff gasoline.” The therapist suggested that this wasn’t as much a thrill-seeking diversion as Rich’s way of seeking consolation from his misery.

  Rich’s suicide attempt by jumping out of the window of one of his shelter homes—and his other discussions about ways to “off” himself—did not surprise me. What did this boy have to live for? There was not a single person in his life who was there unconditionally for him—not a parent, grandparent, teacher, neighbor. His yearning to blot out the terrifying past, ignore the suffocating present, and suspend concerns about the formidable obstacles of the future was utterly comprehensible.

  I considered whether to tell Rich about finding Tammy. Did he really believe she was dead? When I mentioned this to Alicia, she explained that one of their stepmothers—Peggy, whom Rich had liked t
he best—had had an automobile accident when Rich was about fifteen. After she was released from the hospital, she never returned to their home. Perhaps he adjusted to that loss by pretending—or convincing himself—that she had died. I had heard that when a child was separated from an idealized parent, he had to work through the grieving process. Some children “killed off the missing parent in their minds, which may have accounted for why Rich claimed his biological mother as well as Peggy was dead. Wasn’t it far easier to think they had died rather than contemplate the possibility that they had not returned home because they had rejected him?

  The truth was, of course, that Peggy and Tammy and the other mothers had forsaken Rich and his siblings emotionally. Otherwise they would not have allowed them to be abused by Red. I also knew that studies indicated that once a child suffered through three major separations, he might be considered unsalvageable. No reason to add another mother with the power to reject him quite yet. I decided to wait until Rich was more settled before I gave him the news about Tammy’s reappearance.

  Ruth Levy cared deeply for Alicia, of this I was certain, but Ruth ran a busy group home for as few as three or as many as seven adolescent girls. None of Alicia’s foster sisters was the model of decorum or psychological health. They arrived physically battered, sexually abused, emotionally neglected. They had been pawns in custody cases, raised by mentally ill parents, or were victims of tragedies. A few came from inpatient psychiatric beds, some were on antipsychotic or antidepressive medications. Some were at high risk for suicide. By comparison, Alicia was remarkably stable. As Alicia’s advocate, I beheld the parade of other children from her viewpoint and came to resent the drain on Ruth Levy’s energy, emotions, health, and stamina. Whenever I visited Alicia, her major complaints centered around the latest in a long line of roommates. Invariably they stole her clothes, messed with her possessions, created problems for her at school. The longer she stayed with the Levys, the greater her resentment. And while Ruth juggled the needs of the girls skillfully, Alicia’s requests were often set aside because of a more dramatic problem instigated by a newer, sicker child. More than anything else Alicia wanted a consistent family she could truly call her own.