Finding loving homes for children is what CASA Baltimore County is all about

In a weary world with so many problems, the folks at CASA Baltimore County are providing leadership and care for foster children in need of loving, caring home environments. Jennifer Stine of CASA Baltimore County tells Nestor about the organization and he confides about his amazing adoptive parents who wanted and needed a child in Dundalk 50 years ago. This one is personal.

Jennifer Stine from Casa Baltimore County discusses their role in providing volunteers to advocate for children in foster care. These volunteers, who are assigned to court cases, spend time with children, communicate with various stakeholders, and make recommendations to judges. Casa Baltimore County has about 160 volunteers annually. The organization emphasizes the importance of consistency for children, who often change foster homes every six months. Jennifer shares a success story of three siblings who were deemed unadoptable but were eventually adopted by their foster parents. Casa Baltimore County relies on government grants and private donations for funding.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Re-run the recorded Super Bowl segments in various formats and publish them on the Baltimore Positive channels so listeners can access them
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Return to host additional live segments at CASA locations (Timonium and Dundalk) and coordinate future in-person appearances
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Plan and schedule a follow-up summer event (find a suitable ‘summer excuse’) to repeat the on-site community segments

Introduction and Context Setting

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the segment, mentioning it is the final Super Bowl segment from the live standpoint at the Costa sin in Timonium.
• Nestor thanks the Maryland Lottery and GBMC for their support and mentions the Candy Cane Cash promotion.
• Nestor shares his personal connection to CASA, mentioning his donations and interactions with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Nils Lofton of the E Street Band.
• Nestor explains how Nils Lofton’s donations to CASA inspired him to support the organization.

Overview of Casa Baltimore County

• Jennifer Stine clarifies that Casa Baltimore County is different from other Casa programs and explains its role in providing volunteers for court cases of children in foster care.
• Jennifer describes the volunteers’ responsibilities, including spending time with children, communicating with various stakeholders, and making recommendations to the court.
• Nestor shares his personal story of being adopted and the importance of having supportive parents.
• Jennifer emphasizes the consistency and dedication of Casa volunteers, who often become the most stable adults in children’s lives.

Challenges and Responsibilities of Foster Care

• Jennifer discusses the challenges children in foster care face, including frequent changes in living situations and the impact on their well-being.
• Nestor and Jennifer talk about the resilience of children and the importance of providing them with a stable environment.
• Jennifer explains the role of Casa in working with Baltimore County Social Services and the courts to ensure the best outcomes for children.
• Nestor and Jennifer discuss the importance of compassion and understanding for parents who are unable to care for their children due to various issues.

Success Stories and Impact of Casa

• Jennifer shares a success story of three siblings who were deemed unadoptable but were eventually adopted by their foster parents.
• Jennifer highlights the positive outcomes for the children, including healthy attachments, marriages, and families.
• Nestor and Jennifer discuss the importance of providing children with a sense of normalcy and happiness.
• Jennifer mentions her long-term involvement with Casa and the impact it has had on her personally and professionally.

Funding and Support for Casa

• Jennifer explains the various sources of funding for Casa, including government grants and private donations.
• Nestor and Jennifer discuss the challenges of relying on government funding and the importance of diversifying sources of support.
• Jennifer mentions the National CASA Association and the risks associated with funding due to the name “Casa.”
• Nestor shares his frustration with systemic issues and the importance of addressing them to support organizations like Casa.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

• Nestor thanks Jennifer for her participation and highlights the importance of the work done by Casa Baltimore County.
• Jennifer provides information on how to get involved with Casa, including the website and contact information.
• Nestor shares a personal story about a colonoscopy that saved his life and encourages others to get regular check-ups.
• Nestor thanks GBMC for their support and mentions the importance of community involvement in making a positive impact.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Casa Baltimore, foster care, child advocacy, volunteers, court cases, mental health, substance abuse, foster homes, adoption, resilience, government grants, National CASA, Baltimore County, child safety, community support.

8

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Jennifer Stine

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 task of Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are wrapping things up. This is our final couple Super Bowl segment from the live standpoint out at the Costa sin in Timonium. We’ll be re running all of these in various formats. You can find everything we do out at Baltimore positive. It is all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. Candy Cane cash. This is the final I’m down to. This is it. I got like five tickets left. Everybody here at the OTB at CASAS and Timonium are gonna get these as well as our friends at GBMC. I want to thank them for keeping me safe and right and stopping by this week and lifting us all up. We’ve done 31 charitable conversation this week. This number 32 we saved the best for last. Jennifer Stein is here on behalf of Casa Baltimore, and you made me say, what is it? How do it? Because there’s other casas, yep. I think, I think is there one in Phoenix, Arizona? Could there be we are national, yep. So I have donated to the CASA, oh my gosh, in Phoenix. And here’s how it works. I have some rock star friends. One of them is Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Nils Lofton of the E Street Band. Nils is from Maryland. Nils is from Rockville, silver spring area. I’ve known Nils for 40 years. Mills has gone out on tour with E Street forever and ever and ever. And about 20 years ago, I’m a Springsteen nut, and about 20 years ago, mills would leave me tickets whenever I wanted to go cool. And these hands have been on the ass of Bruce Springsteen dozens of times because I’ve carried him through the pit. Fantastic, you know. So mills would always leave me these tickets, and you have to pay for them, you know. But they used to be 150 200 bucks for pit seat, which a lot of money, but, you know, fine, I’m going to see Bruce, and it’s religious experience. And then, like, about oh eight or oh nine. He’s like, I give you the tickets. It was a new thing for the E Street Band. I’ll give you the tickets, but you have to make $100 donation. Oh, that’s cool. I charity. Had two charities, one of them was dogs and cats in in Arizona, was a Spaniard, and the other was Casa of

Jennifer Stine  02:18

central Maricopa County, maybe, maybe

Nestor Aparicio  02:21

8

whatever it was. But so I have donated. So I so have at it, because every time you saw me, Karen Springsteen, Denver, San Jose, wherever it was, all got a piece of the action, I’d say. So love it. Thank you. Nil, so he just wrote a song that is a flying middle finger to the pedophile, which I really heard it. I appreciate it too. Yeah. All right, what is Casa and what is Casa Baltimore? And let’s make it Casa Grande. Sure.

Jennifer Stine  02:51

So first, I’m gonna clarify that we are Casa Baltimore County. County. There is a separate Casa City program. We are all over the state, all over the country, because you’re doing good work. We try so we so our program provides volunteers who get assigned to the court cases of children in foster care. So we’re actually written into Maryland law as something that the courts can use to make sure they’re making good decisions for kids and families that they have all the information they need. So our volunteers, well, first of all, they’re phenomenal people. They’re amazing. They care about kids, and they give their heart and soul and their time, and they’re amazing. And so what they do with all that is they so they actually get a court order with their name on it, assigning them to the case of the child. They spend time with the kid to get to know them, get to figure out what they need, what they want. They’re talking with doctors, teachers, therapists, family members, foster family, social workers, everybody they can to figure out how’s the kid doing? What are their gaps in services? What should we be advocating for? And then ultimately, that’s what we do. We talk with the social workers all the time. We talk with schools, we talk with therapists, and we make sure that the kids are getting what they need. In the end, about twice a year, the volunteers actually participate in the court hearing for the child and make recommendations to the judge about what is best for this child. So our volunteers the way Casa got started, I

Nestor Aparicio  04:15

was this close to being an orphan. I was adopted in East Baltimore. My parents had lost a child. They were very into the foster they needed a child in their life. I was a replacement. Child became that for them, but if they weren’t in the world, my maternal and paternal parents were completely incapable of caring for me. I mean, I done a lot of work with Ed block and St Vincent center and, yep, you know, orphan children. And it always moves me because, you know, I was this close. If I, if I didn’t have people that were that loved me, I would have been in big trouble, because, like, the people that had me weren’t. Not the people that could have gotten me to this place, period. Yeah? Takes A Village. It does everybody. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, very vulnerable that could have been me, yep.

Jennifer Stine  05:10

Well, and one of the cool things about our sort of role in all of it is that even though we’re not the caregivers and we’re not the social workers, our volunteers tend to be the most consistent adults in the kids lives, because kids move, on average, nationally, kids change foster homes every six months, which, if you can imagine, that means you change your school, you change your caregivers, you changed your doctors and friends and kids.

8

Nestor Aparicio  05:32

Kids are wired. They’re resilient. They’re resilient, but, but that, but that’s not normal,

Jennifer Stine  05:37

exactly, right? And it there’s a causes, delays, yeah, right, all kinds of stuff. But our volunteers, it doesn’t matter where the kid is living or going to school, they’re going to be that same volunteer for that same kid for as long as they can. So it’s, it’s pretty cool. We have about 160 or so volunteers each year. Shout out to all the cost of volunteer, amazing people. Yeah?

Nestor Aparicio  05:57

So what’s this delineates a county for the city other than the imaginary line, yeah, but serving Baltimore County. What does that mean?

Jennifer Stine  06:07

8

Yep, it really all it means is that the children that we’re working with came from a Baltimore County home. Okay, so it means that they’re working with Baltimore County Social Services and the Baltimore county courts. So that’s really it. Our our kids live in the city they’re fostering

Nestor Aparicio  06:24

about like that sliding back and forth that, you know, what would put a child into the Hartford, Baltimore kid like, based on what the parents move or they’re, you know, that kind of thing

Jennifer Stine  06:33

at the time of the report, whenever someone reports abuse or neglect, that’s where their jurisdiction is.

Nestor Aparicio  06:40

I’ve talked at length about women not being listened to, and obviously it’s a little in the news and girls and children, it’s been a pretty central topic here. You always think, who would hurt a child, right? Who would hurt a child, and then what happens to that child once that child is hurt? Because much like women, you don’t want to send them back into that circumstance, right, right?

8

Jennifer Stine  07:04

However, what I will say is that we try very hard to see the families, the parents, whoever the kids we’re living with. We try to look at them with some compassion, as people who are dealing with their own stuff, the families, the parents of our kids. 99% of them love their kids and would do better for them if they could, but they have mental health issues, substance use issues.

Nestor Aparicio  07:26

Oh, that was my parents that loved me. They just didn’t know what the hell they were doing, right? So, I mean, literally,

Jennifer Stine  07:32

no, yeah, absolutely, I believe that completely. And so

Nestor Aparicio  07:35

8

I got all the kisses in the world, but that didn’t that one, not enough.

Jennifer Stine  07:38

Yeah, right. So I mean, it doesn’t mean that every kid should stay where they are, but if there is an opportunity to help the parents do better and be better parents and provide a safe environment for that kid, then we’re going to see an option to go home. Right? Foster Care is supposed to be temporary anyway. It’s supposed to be a safety net while the parents address whatever happened, and then theoretically, children back, right? Yeah, theoretically they’d come through the courts, right? Doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes parents aren’t able to make those changes.

Nestor Aparicio  08:08

What a tough job being that judge, right? Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Stine  08:12

I mean, huge decisions for people, life changing decisions. It’s, it’s a lot. We have amazing judges in Baltimore County too. Oh, and

8

Nestor Aparicio  08:19

it’s heavy. It’s heavy, yeah, it’s they’re the most important decisions you can make. Jennifer Stein is here. She’s with Casa Baltimore County. Tell me how to find you and how they can help you.

Jennifer Stine  08:28

Yep. So we’re Casa Court Appointed Special Advocates, and our website is Casa Balt CO, C, A, S, A, B, A, L, T, C, o.org, you can call us for 108280515,

Nestor Aparicio  08:41

and where’s funding come from?

Jennifer Stine  08:44

8

Here? Everywhere we can find it. So we have a few government grants. Either we have a couple county grants.

Nestor Aparicio  08:50

Are they still there these government grants? I mean, for us,

Jennifer Stine  08:53

so far, we are not dependent. We are trying to, like, make sure that we’re not fully dependent on them. But so far, we’ve been fortunate with those just because of the buckets of money that they’re coming from. I will say there is a National CASA Association, and all the programs are member organizations.

Nestor Aparicio  09:14

By the way, Casa means home. By the way, this is true.

8

Jennifer Stine  09:19

Yes, exactly me too. So they National CASA lost their funding temporarily solely because of the name casa. But then once people they appealed, and then people actually read what they did, and then they got their funding back. But it is risky right now, so

Nestor Aparicio  09:37

racist must have thought these were white children. Probably, who knows? Well, my Venezuelan background, you know,

Jennifer Stine  09:44

yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s really hard.

Nestor Aparicio  09:48

8

You’re full of piss and anger lately. I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of am. I mean, I am glad, I’m glad you’re catching on. I’m glad you’re catching on, yeah. I mean, really, I mean, I am. Baltimore, positive we’re doing here, but like, we got, there’s a lot going on. We got to fix man. You know, that’s why we’re here, fixing it. Give me a story or two or three, that of the work you do where some little one is now a little bigger one. Because if you’ve been doing this work for all of you, I always say, whatever the work is, there’s a success story here somewhere. Absolutely, I would have to look too hard to find it.

Jennifer Stine  10:26

Probably, yeah, I mean, so I’ve been doing this for like, 20 years. Oh, wow.

Nestor Aparicio  10:30

So, so you have, I have a few you have kids who come in the bar. That’s great, right? Exactly 20 years ago, exactly right?

Jennifer Stine  10:38

I mean, so one of the stories that always sticks with me is we had a group of siblings, three kids, two boys and a girl, and they were, at the time, they were dealing with a lot of trauma and a lot of emotional stuff, and they were deemed, quote, unadoptable because of the attachment issues that they had. And we were, we worked really hard to go talk with their foster parents and meet the foster parents and talk with people about what they wanted for the kids and what was possible. Ultimately, their foster home adopted all three of them together, which is huge in and of itself. And this was about 17 or 18 years ago. Oh, wow. And I’m still in touch with the foster mom, who is now their mom, who they are doing amazing one of two

8

Nestor Aparicio  11:27

of them are married people that can’t have children, that would love to have a family.

Jennifer Stine  11:31

They also had bio children. Okay, fair, it’s this amazing family there anyway. But yes, yes, no, it’s true. I have friends too that have adopted because they can’t have their own children, and it’s just the most amazing gift to give to someone. So I’m a result of that. Yeah, yeah, right, exactly, yeah. So, like, one of the boys, his wife, just had a baby, they all have very, very healthy, happy attachments and relationships and children and, like, it’s all just the most amazing normal, or what we call normal Exactly. And that’s really all we’re going for. I don’t care if they turn out to be, you know, doctors or presidents or, you know, whatever, I just want them to be happy normal people. So that’s usually where we get

Nestor Aparicio  12:10

very success stories. Yeah, exactly. Jennifer Stein is here. She’s here on behalf of Casa in Baltimore County, I think here because of Trish Woodward.

Jennifer Stine  12:17

8

Does that sound right? That is yep, yep. She worked for Maryland Casa for a while, and I got to know her there.

Nestor Aparicio  12:22

Yeah, she does something really special camp opportunity. You know, we’ve known each other since childhood. Oh, really, we were in a play together. Oh my gosh, a segment we did Oliver Twist together in 1982 amazing Colgate Elementary School. She was a little younger than me then, but yeah. So I’ve known her my whole life. That’s been told the story actually over pizza John’s. You know, she’s been coming to CASAS and Dundalk last because she dunk girl. And I said, Pizza John. She’s like, I love me some pizza John’s. That’s a whole east side thing. So I big appreciation everybody that’s joined us here this week. Jennifer Stein is our final guest. She’s at Casa it’s all brought to you by our friends at Maryland. Lottery candy cane cash, come get it, as well as our friends at GBMC, who’ve put us out on the road. And I had this colonoscopy that I don’t mind telling you about helped save my life in November because I had precancerous polyps. And all and 57 had never had one people talking me into it, twisting my arm so go do it. And if I didn’t do a prostate cancer piece this week because I wasn’t at the Super Bowl, because I would do that every year, because there’s all sorts of Hall of Fame guys that have come by. Michael Haynes, sit with me and talk to me about it, make sure you’re getting that check to know your number, even though I’m lying if I told you I know my number, because do what I say. Don’t do what I do, unless you get the colonoscopy. GBMC, thank you for coming by. Donations. All that’s already we’ll find you

Jennifer Stine  13:44

absolutely. Www dot Casa bolt, co.org,

Nestor Aparicio  13:49

thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, we’ve been lifting everybody up. If you want a cup of Super Bowl on the way out, it’s on me. We’re CASAS and Timonium. We’ll be back at CASAS and Dundalk, even though they think I’ve forgotten about him over there. They threaten to take my Dundalk cars. Yeah, well, they opened ammonium up here, and it’s closer to my house right now. And I don’t know, like when my wife and I on a cold night are like, Let’s go cost us and we just come over here lately, yeah, and that upsets Karen down to

8

Jennifer Stine  14:17

Dundalk behind the bar, you be I have a feeling she’ll forgive you.

Nestor Aparicio  14:20

Well, you know, if Nick can forgive me, Dundalk would still well, hey, you remembered us still here hanging out with Pete and Chris up in Timonium. So my thanks to Costas for being great to us as they’ve always been. All right, I’m gonna step out take a break to everybody that participated this week in a cup of Super Bowl. My thanks. We’ll do it again. I told my wife Thursday night, I’m like, this is going so well, out of sign. Find some excuse to do it this summer. I love it. Gotta find some dumb summer excuse. Put crabs out so we’ll do it all right. I’m back for more. We’re Baltimore positive. I’m Nestor. Stay with us. You.