Want to help a child heal? Volunteer as a guardian

TROXLER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published May 20, 2002

Like a lot of people, Sandra Killian slowly grew more and more unhappy with our state's care of abused and neglected children.

"It has always bothered me," she says, "when children weren't treated properly, or brought up without love."

Finally, one morning four years ago, she read yet one more news story about a young abuse victim who was brutally killed.

"I just decided then and there," Killian told me, "I can't NOT do anything anymore."

So Killian, 57, a small business owner, volunteered for a special job in the court system called "guardian ad litem."

Being a guardian ad litem is a good answer to the question that a lot of people have asked, in the wake of the current scandals in Florida's child abuse system:

What can one person do?

We can look after the kids, one at a time.

The term "guardian ad litem" is a little confusing. It does not mean a full-time guardian, counselor, or that kind of thing.

A guardian ad litem is simply a volunteer who keeps track of an abused child's case and speaks up for him or her in court. The term means, roughly, "guardian for the case."

It's a lot less likely, if not impossible, for a kid with a volunteer guardian to get "lost" in the system as in the tragic Miami case.

A guardian ad litem interviews the child, caseworkers, experts, people in law enforcement, friends and anybody else with information. The guardian makes sure that the child's wishes and interests are represented.

The guardian ad litem makes sure that the child's family is taking the steps it is supposed to be taking, such as getting the necessary counseling. The guardian makes recommendations to the family-law judge in the case.

You might ask yourself: Who am I, to be qualified for a role like that?

You are exactly qualified, as long as you are over 19, and have no serious criminal background, and you care enough to try. You don't have to be a lawyer, an expert, a counselor or even a parent.

They will help you do the rest. You'll get 30 hours of training. Each judicial circuit in Florida has its own staff and lawyers and counselors to assist and support guardians ad litem. They will teach you how to do it.

"I just keep in contact with my counselor almost daily, telling her about phone calls and conferences with the family, checking to see if I am on the right track," says Killian, a guardian ad litem in Pinellas County.

"We have lawyers. Any time I have a legal question, I can sit down and talk to them," she says. "In the beginning, they walk you all through it. Now it's second nature to me."

Eve Walker is the director of the program for Pinellas and Pasco. The program was appointed to about 800 cases last year, which was only 25 to 30 percent of the total caseload. "Truly, we don't have enough guardians," she said. That's true everywhere.

Understand, the work is hard, and there are special constraints. Everything you do is strictly confidential. Your relationship with the child is based on listening and you build a rapport, but within limits: You do not transport the child. You do not counsel the child. You do not make doctor's appointments or arrange for care. Your job is to be a sponge, to learn everything about the environment and to make recommendations to the judge.

You are not paid or compensated in any way, not even for mileage, nor for using your cell phone. When the case is resolved and either the family is made whole or the child has been moved into a better environment, you have to say goodbye.

"You really, really make a difference in a child's life," Killian says. "When you see a child come from a neglected and abused situation and that child gets love and attention, and blossoms, it's worth everything you go through."

Go ahead. Make the world better.

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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