Local Program Spotlight: Voices for Children, CASA of Brazos Valley
Originally shared by Voices for Children, CASA of Brazos Valley in their April newsletter.
Katie became a CASA volunteer in 2017 after seeing the impact of advocacy firsthand within her own family. A relative was fighting for custody of a grandchild, and the presence of a CASA volunteer in court made a critical difference.
Years later, Katie found herself on a case that reminded her exactly why persistence and consistency matter. Two children had been brought to Texas from another state and placed in foster care. The adults who knew them best were hundreds of miles away. The case was complex, constantly shifting, and moving toward an outcome that felt easier on paper: non-relative adoption.
During a routine visit, while coloring and placing stickers together, one of the children began talking about the beach — and about someone they loved deeply: “MiMi.”
To anyone else, it might have sounded like a nickname in a child’s story. To Katie, it sounded like a real family connection that hadn’t been identified.
As the case progressed, pressure to close it increased. There were delays. There were doubts. The mother refused to provide information about relatives, and no one could identify who “MiMi” was.
On the paternal side, the children’s father had expressed interest in taking custody — but an arrest from decades earlier raised concerns, despite a long history of stability since. Katie refused to let the case move forward without fully exploring family placement.
She documented everything. She asked difficult questions. She advocated across state lines. She pushed — sometimes uncomfortably — for the children’s story to be fully understood before permanent decisions were made.
The day before court, she found the missing piece: “MiMi.”
By identifying her, Katie demonstrated that the children had an existing, loving family network — one that knew them, remembered them, and wanted them. That discovery forced the case to slow down and reopened conversations about family reunification rather than non-relative adoption. In court, Katie told the caseworker, “I found her. Please don’t start the process for non-relative adoption.”
With renewed momentum and the children’s attorney taking a deeper look at all family options, the father was ultimately approved for placement. When he arrived for a supervised visit, the children ran to him. He cried. They hugged him tightly. Watching from behind the two-way mirror, the attorney turned to Katie with tears in her eyes and said, “You were 100% right. I’m so glad we got this outcome.”
For Katie, the moment mattered not only because the children were reunified with their father — but because they were returned to an entire network of belonging: a loving aunt, familiar cousins, and family connections that would have been lost through non-relative adoption.
“It wasn’t just returning them to one person,” Katie said. “It was returning them to a whole family — people who already loved them.”
Katie describes herself simply: persistent, consistent, and willing to be “a pain” when it counts. But the reason she continues to serve as a CASA volunteer is straightforward.
“I didn’t change the world,” she says. “But I changed that kid’s world.”
