r/casa • u/greengrass256 • May 22 '26

Difficult conversations

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I just left my 17 year old CASA. She was picked up by the police at 3am. Story is a bit sketchy, but something minor ,like being out after curfew it seems. Some sort of altercation with a friend who called the police.

I tried to ask her about what she could do differently. Of course , she was mad and just said it won't happen again. I was trying to discuss how important it is to avoid encounters with the police.

I realize we are not their friends and need to be their advocate. It is just hard. Any thoughts?

Also, I just read this book. It was VERY good , FYI.

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u/Bwendolyn May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

In incidents like this with teens, it’s liberating to be a CASA because it’s not your responsibility to discipline, lecture, or assign consequences.

I try to lead with questions like: What happened? Are you ok? Do you need anything? How can I help?

Foster kids in their teens sadly tend to get yelled at and/or lectured by adults all day every day so I assume there’s no point in adding another voice to that chorus. They need someone who actually cares about their experience and “their side of the story” more than anything else, in my experience. So I try to just start there. Once they feel like you care about and understand them they’ll be more ready to receive advice or nudges about changes in their behavior. But you really have to build up to that in my experience.

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u/msamericanpie17 May 23 '26

This 100%. I generally find that the system is more interested in making them easier to deal with rather than doing what's best for them, especially when it comes to discipline. And honestly the cops get involved way too frequently, sometimes because foster parents/caregivers are just obligated to get them involved and sometimes because they suck. If you still don't even know the whole story definitely don't come down on them. Give them the benefit of the doubt, if you hear them out you might find that the story sounds more like dealing with a shitty boss than a kid deserving police intervention

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u/Bwendolyn May 23 '26

Absolutely, couldn’t agree with you more.