This is Gulf Coast Life Im Mike Kiniry.

Thanks for joining us.

A guardian ad litem is a leGALly appointed, trained volunteer who represents the best interests of children who have become involved in court proceedings, often in cases related to abuse or neglect and custody disputes, and other situations where a child's welfare is at stake.

Guardian ad litem volunteers investigated child circumstances and living situation and their school time and social environment.

They provide recommendations to the court about what they believe to be the child's best interests, including things like custody arrangements, visitation rights, and foster home placement.

Judges often rely on this information.

There are more than 500 court certified guardian ad litem volunteers in the 20th Judicial Circuit that includes Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Glades and Hendry counties on any given day in Southwest Florida.

More than 1000 children are displaced due to abuse, abandonment or neglect in their home.

More than half of them under the age of five.

Sorry, TV people, more than half of them under the age of five.

These kids and the guardian ad litem volunteers helping them are supported by a nonprofit called Ana's Friends.

It was founded in 1983, originally as the Guardian AD Litem Foundation.

Honest and for abused, neglected and abandoned.

Joining me today to help us understand the work they do and the world they're in is Jessica Kaestner.

She's A.N.A.s Friends Executive director.

Welcome back to the show, Jessica.

Thank you.

Glad to be here.

Also joining me in studio is on A.N.A.s Friends Board President and GAL volunteer himself, Bruce Greenberg, welcome back to you as well.

Bruce.

Good morning.

Do you say gal or GAL GAL?

Okay, so I got that right.

Yeah.

I wasn't sure I'd been saying it in my head that way.

So, Jessica, you've been executive director.

I have it right for about seven years.

Seven in October.

You got it.

Last time you were here three years ago, you guys had just celebrated a ribbon cutting.

We did.

And you said you were moving into your new identity because of that transition from the foundation to A.N.A.s Friends, are you fully settled into your new identity?

And does the place feel like home?

You know, I don't know that we'll ever feel fully settled.

There's there's always more kids to serve and more things to do, but we are swimming right along and so proud of our progress.

You're not the guardian ad litem program.

You are the supporter of the guardian ad litem program.

Is that correct?

Well, the guardian ad litem, it's office now is a state agency.

So state budget, state employees.

Previously, we really kind of had a very close friendship with them.

And thanks to the generosity of our community, we've been able to grow even broader.

So we are glad and happy to support volunteers like Bruce that are giving their time with the guardian ad litem office, but we're also supporting case managers.

We're supporting the Children's Network of Southwest Florida.

We're supporting teachers and guidance counselors and any professional that's connected to these children, they can access our programs now.

So we didn't cut anything.

We grew significantly.

Bruce, when you here last time you said been doing it for eight years.

So I guess you've been doing it for 11 years now.

That's correct.

11 years.

Last time you were here, you said you were working at that time with about eight kids.

Is that about the same?

Actually, I've.

Dropped a bit.

Just actually down to one child now.

But I'm still, you know, active.

It's an adoption case, and the child has some special needs.

And trying to make sure that that she gets everything that she needs.

How long have you been working with her?

It'll be 17 months since she was born.

I met her at about ten days old.

Is that a long time or is that.

I mean, what's the scope of the time?

You might work with a kid.

There's legislation that was passed a couple of years ago by Representative Roach that requires now any cases to be.

It's called a year is a long time in the life of a child.

Most of the cases I've had, though, perhaps due to complexity or parents taking a while to complete their case plans in most cases have taken longer than that, though.

She kind of touched on this, but the scope of what you do as a GAL is far broader than helping in court proceedings, right?

Absolutely.

I mean, I've gone with this young lady that I'm involved with now.

I've gone to feeding therapy sessions because she has an aversion to to it was a, you know, a texture issue with everything that she was eating.

I've been there pediatric appointments, neurology appointments.

She's got a host of issues.

And I as a support to her adoptive, hopefully adoptive family, just going out to the home and making sure they have what they need.

Trying to explain the processes involved with becoming an adoptive parent.

And they're phenomenal, phenomenal people.

In fact, they adopted this little girl's half brother about three years ago.

Same mom, but she had another child, different father.

But she got a call.

They got a call on New Year's Eve a year and a half ago or so and said, we've got the brothers sister was just born.

Are you willing to to take her?

And they said, yes, absolutely.

Let us give us a moment to think about it.

Absolutely.

They took her.

So they're just amazing people.

They had two of their own biological children, but their hearts were large enough that they wanted to take in other kids, especially siblings that had been born into horrible circumstances.

You must get to know foster care families pretty well, and probably you too, Jessica.

Is that just part of your daily life with them?

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Again, it's a I have tremendous respect for them.

People say, oh, Bruce, it's great you're a guardian ad litem.

Volunteer.

Frankly, the people doing the heavy lifting are the foster parents, you know, because they basically turn their lives upside down 24 over seven to take on a child that may have some significant health issues or behavioral issues.

So, yeah, you get to know them pretty well.

From what I can tell, there are about 500 guardian ad litem volunteers certified or whatever the correct term is in the 20th judicial circuit.

Do you work with all of them?

Do you work with some of them?

I mean, what does that work?

How does that work with A.N.A.s Friends?

So we take requests from any of the volunteers or the guardian ad litem office staff, so they can refer children to us.

When there's a need, they can make sure that they're engaged with our heartfelt hangouts, our in-person programing.

So all of them, as child welfare professionals or certified volunteers can work with us.

We have some volunteers.

Bruce is a great example that not only is this heart big enough to volunteer, it's big enough to provide a lot of those needs.

He spends a lot of money out of his pocket to make sure that kids can go to McDonald's or have shampoo, so we maybe don't hear from Bruce as much as we may hear from another volunteer, but they all are aware of our programing.

We make sure that we do outreach to them so that not only can they have us as a tool in their toolbox, but they can make sure that that family and that child has the support that our programing and services can provide.

We've also expanded to kids that are not involved with active dependency cases.

Maybe just can address that.

Absolutely.

Is that part of the new transition?

Because last time you talked about expanding the scope.

So talk about.

So we're there's a couple of different ways that we've grown.

Of course active dependency foster children, that's our biggest area of need.

But we're also making sure that teens who transition out of care are taken care of.

So if you're in a group home, for example, on your 18th birthday, you may no longer meet the criteria to stay there.

And you're heading out into adulthood with a life that's been riddled with trauma, especially group home.

Kids are there for years, and so we're doing some programing for them, some life skills.

We're providing them resources.

We just bought Clippers for a child to go to barber school to try to set that path for his career.

So we're making sure those kids are supported children that are in independent living.

So maybe they do extend foster care and they're in a different kind of living environment.

We're helping them, giving them some stability as they move into adulthood.

And then we also believe that we're not doing our job if we're not trying to prevent children from coming into the system.

So prevention is a big thing within the court systems.

Now, you know, we don't want the trauma of pulling a child out of a home if it's not warranted.

And so there's a whole section of children's network and case managers and different people that work.

It's called IFS.

So it's an intense family therapy.

And so there may be a hotline call.

There may be a, oh, I think something's happening at my neighbor's house.

And they'll go in and they'll go, okay, well, something is happening, but we're not going to pull that child.

It's not let's not disrupt their life.

Of course, if that child is in a unsafe situation, that will still happen.

But otherwise they're going to wrap services around that family, which is great.

And so we want to do our part there too.

So those case managers can access our programing just the same.

Maybe kids are sleeping on the floor because dad's lost his job and they can't afford beds.

We're going to get them beds.

We're going to get car seats.

So we know kids are traveling safe.

We're going to wrap around our services just as much as anyone else is to try to give that family it shot at succeeding.

That sounds that expansion sounds like it really strengthens the possibility of the system around here.

Is that a fair assessment?

Absolutely.

I mean, if we can keep families together and if we can remove that trauma from that child's life, that we're not doing a service to vulnerable children, if we don't look at prevention the same way we look as helping a child after the trauma occurs.

About how many kids are you working with currently?

Do you have that number off the top of your head?

Yeah.

So between kids that are coming to our heartfelt hangouts are in person, you know, happy memories, moments and our children's needs program and our comfort closet.

Right now we're at about 1400 kids.

What do you mean by the happy memories, moments or whatever?

I'm not.

Yeah, so that's new.

Since we spoke last, you know, we've always had a transactional referral program so someone can come to us and say.

The child arrived to their foster placement last night in a dirty pull up in Crocs.

You'd be surprised how often that happens.

So we've always had the they need clothes.

Here's a gift card.

They need a tutor.

We'll pay for that.

They want to play soccer.

Great.

But we really wanted to add a transformative piece to I mean, we know that those things are all transformative, but to a kid, you know, they may not remember.

Oh, I got new shoes from Honor's friends.

So we added heartfelt hangouts.

And so at its core, these programs exist to make sure every child can answer the question, what was the best part of your childhood?

What's your favorite memory?

And maybe that's going to a mighty mussels game.

Or feeding a giraffe.

At the Naples Zoo, we went to iguana land.

They all wanted to hold these big crazy lizards.

Where is iguana?

It's in Punta Gorda, okay.

And it is the largest reptile museum.

Whatever the right word is in the world in Punta Gorda.

And so the kids, they rolled out the red carpet for these kids.

They got to feed their big iguanas.

Name is Donkey Kong.

I will never forget that.

These kids love Donkey Kong.

He rolls around in a wagon and everybody got to feed him.

And they got to ride on the back of sulcata tortoises.

And you know, just a great day.

And those are the things that children will remember.

And so we want them to feel joy.

We open those opportunities up to the whole foster family.

You know, we don't want to say, okay, Johnny's a foster kid, so Johnny can come.

But like in Bruce's case that he was talking about there's other children in that home we don't want to say, oh, sorry, only Johnny can come.

So the whole family gets to come along, and that foster child gets to feel the normalcy of being out with a family.

They get to be around trusted adults.

They get to just be a kid.

No one had to go on a land.

Knew that they were foster children.

They thought they were there for a group tour.

And those two hours, like the kids, cling to that when everything else is trauma and everything else is adversity, and they have a label on them everywhere else.

They just get to be normal.

And the other great thing that happens there is we reunite siblings.

There's a lot of siblings that are go into foster care and are placed separately from each other, and they don't have the normalcy of being around a sibling.

We have Back to School Bash last year.

We have these two sisters and they ran to each other at Head Pins and we are all like, oh my gosh, how cute.

You know, they love each other.

Well, we found out they had been through egregious physical violence, domestic violence.

They would hide in their closet together to stay away from dad.

They had been pulled from the home and put in two separate foster homes.

They had not communicated in a significant amount of time, so they come to head pins at our Back to School bash, where they're going to eat pizza and play in the arcade.

They run to each other and the younger sister says, I thought you were dead.

I thought daddy killed you.

And that moment allowed them to reunite, to be sisters and to Goble.

Wow.

I remember last time you told a story about a kid who had graduated and his foster mom, or whoever told you the story about how he still had the blanket on his grandma, and you just gave me that same moment in terms of like, you guys are dealing with, like the the worst things and the best things all tied together.

Correct?

Bruce.

Yeah, we're trying to create happy memories.

I mean, we were at Top Golf a couple of weeks ago, and it's kind of funny to watch a five year old tried to swing a golf club and not fall off the top level.

There's that.

But yeah, doing that, or we had a pickleball outing the other day through the generosity of the owner of Pickle Rage, trying to create normal activities for kids.

We do sponsor soccer camps.

You know, if kid wants to go to a baseball camp, we'll do that as well.

So we're just trying to create a happy childhood.

Despite the fact that these kids have come from potentially horrible situations.

Last time you were here, Jessica, you said that the the the need was greater than the ability to supply the need.

You've talked about expanding your services.

I mean, where where where are we at now?

Have things gotten tougher or less tough since 2023.

So I think it's a different kind of tough.

You know, we're we're seeing as we serve more populations, the need continues to grow.

And even with the populations we were serving three years ago, the cost of living is higher.

The cost of items are higher, even summer camps.

I mean, we looked at what we were paying for summer camps last year and we were like, oh my gosh, these camps have increased 50, 60, $100 a week.

So the strain on the family is is more significant.

And as such, we're seeing more requests come to us.

Maybe a family could pay for camp on their own last summer.

They can't now.

And so we're seeing more of those requests come in and our heartfelt hangouts.

We're trying to do more and more of those.

We're trying to make sure that all the children we serve can participate.

And so there's a cost associated with all of that.

We're very fortunate that the community so wholeheartedly believes in our mission.

It's an interesting time.

We're not unlike a lot of other nonprofits in our area where giving is down.

We're seeing people not give as often or not give a, you know, a high amount.

We're seeing some of our grant funders maybe not meet their own fundraising goals or change their giving, you know, priorities or things that they're doing.

Federal dollars are unknown at this point, and that's a bulk of our budget.

And so we're committed to serving children.

And we'll we'll figure it out.

you guys are funded entirely from generosity, from the community.

We're an independent 501 C3 nonprofit, so everything that we do is donations, grants, family foundations, national foundations.

But it's all donation based.

And you have volunteers who aren't guardian ad litem.

We do talk about like the network of support of if somebody is listening and they want to support, but they don't want to become a guardian ad litem.

Sure.

So when we rebranded, it was important for friends to be in our name because everyone has the power to be a friend to a vulnerable child.

And so that looks different.

As you said, not everybody has the time to be a guardian ad litem volunteer, so you can come alongside us at our heartfelt hangouts and help us to check children in, or walk around a museum with them, or sit next to them at a baseball game.

You can help us to work in our comfort closet.

We have this large space at our office that has diapers and wipes and hygiene products all the way up to strollers and bed frames that always needs sorting or hygiene.

Bags need packed.

We are a small team.

$0.98 of every dollar we bring in goes directly to our program, so there's no shortage of administrative tasks to help with at our office.

If that's something you know, someone is interested in serving and helping us with.

So lots of opportunities to to bring skills and passion to our table that does not involve the larger commitment.

We're also trying to improve life lessons for kids that may otherwise not have had them.

For example, we've partnered with Macy's with target.

Just maybe you can talk about the target, the shopping for absolutely loved ones.

So we we do a program every December called gifts of Hope.

And a child gets a gift card at target.

But the situation is they have to shop for other people.

We want to teach them that the joy of giving is just as great as the joy of receiving.

Return them all into many philanthropists, right?

But they have to write a budget, you know, the little kids have to think about who they're going to buy something for, what they might like.

The bigger kids.

I will never forget.

We had a shopper come through and he said, Miss Jazz, I got to talk to you.

And I said, what's up?

And he's like, tax sucks.

And I said, just, just you wait.

But he learned that you can't go to target with 150 bucks and spend 150 bucks on stuff.

So that event is huge for volunteers because we we need a lot of elves to make that happen.

But yeah, walking alongside them, helping to, you know, take your phone out and do the calculator for them, help them to learn what a budget is, help them to maybe sometimes scale back their cart because they get really enthusiastic about shopping.

So that's a great opportunity and you can definitely impart some adult knowledge onto them.

If they get to buy something for themselves.

Yeah, we get them to, of course, but.

They realize they can't buy Air Jordans for every member of their family.

Yeah.

You know, last time I talked to you, and again, this time, it's not like you guys have a list of things you do.

You do whatever needs to be done.

And that might end up like last time you were talking about, like, equestrian therapy and things like that.

So it must just be a constant evolving, like, can we do that?

Yes, we can do that.

I mean, is that how it works?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, we we say all the time, I'll tell people we're a no but organization.

So if we're telling, you know, it's because we're saying, but this place does that or this organization that we partner with can provide that.

I'm a big softie, so luckily I have some members of my team that are like, just we don't fund that.

But normally it's something that falls completely outside of normal, like, oh, this child needs a spa day, you know, with all of these different things.

But yeah, I mean, we we meet the child where they're at.

The kids that we serve don't fit into check boxes.

They don't fit into black and white narrative.

Do we have guidelines?

Sure.

But we want to make sure they have what they need.

We say all the time trauma doesn't get the final say at our organization.

And so yeah, that's constantly evolving.

I mean, we just had a case.

The guardian ad litem volunteer reached out to me and said, before I put in this request online, I want to talk to you about it because it's kind of crazy.

And it was an infant and he was born substance exposed, spent most of his very short life at Gallsiano Children's Hospital, and no one was able to pay for his cremation when he passed.

And so that was a need.

Even at the end of that child's life, that was a need.

And we funded that and we were able to, you know, do some other things for siblings that he had.

But there is no black and white list.

And as long as we have the means to provide, we're going to provide.

We have a grandma who's early to mid 70s and she was receiving treatment, I think, at Moffat up in Tampa.

She had four grandchildren, you know, under the age of seven, all living with her.

She opted them.

Yeah.

She adopted them, which is a great thing.

Right.

But her car didn't have air conditioning.

So, you know, there was an infant and there were three other kids.

So we found a mechanic that would replace the air conditioning or fix the air conditioning for her.

We created this bridge fund.

Everything doesn't fall into a neat little box.

But we had some funders that wanted to say, well, yeah, but what if, you know, they want to come take their kids to school, but they have a flat tire, they can't afford a new tire.

So we get some unusual requests.

But if we can fulfill that need and it makes sense to help the children out, then we'll do that.

Last time you were here, you said you had dozens of pictures in your photo thing.

Of all the kids you'd work with, how many more pictures are in there?

Since there are definitely a handful, and I have found that some of the kids that I met when they were late single digits nine, ten, 11 years old.

I'm still in contact with them.

Here we are.

You know, 9 or 10 years later, one's going to cosmetology school.

One became a massage therapist.

These kids came from absolutely nothing.

But we're trying to help them move along and has just said, you know, you have been fortunate.

I have some money in my pocket, and I've been glad to share with them, because I've become for some of these kids to get grandfather that they never had.

So if I can promote kids to get education and help them out with short this month, and I'm glad to do that.

If someone is listening and they want to get involved, I mean, I guess there's two roads you can like.

How do you do?

You start with you if you want to become a certified guardian ad litem.

Sure.

Yeah.

We we can connect you to the right place there.

And if that opportunity isn't what's most appropriate, we can have a conversation about ways you can plug into our mission.

But your one stop shop is on anasfriends.org There's a form there that you can fill out if you're interested in learning more or getting involved.

And it'll be me that will reach back out to you and see how we can best partner and fill a need for those people that want to make a difference.

We're out of season now.

I don't know how much that matters as much as it used to, but you guys have any events planned for the fall?

We do so well actually.

Next weekend we've got Back to School Bash at headpin, so we'll serve just shy of 500 kids that day, getting Old Navy gift cards and staples, gift cards, bowling, pizza, getting them ready for school.

We'll do a lot around Halloween.

We're going to do a costume closet for them to pick out Halloween costumes.

Any final thoughts?

Bruce, we're out of time.

Jess is, she's a rock star and she keeps pushing us forward.

We're just glad as a board to help support her ideas and her efforts.

Well, you guys are doing important work.

I mean, those numbers are just stunning.

Jessica Kaestner is Executive Director of A.N.A.s Friends.

Thank you Jessica.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

And Bruce Greenberg is on his friends board president Bruce, it's always great having you in the.

Studio again.

Nice to.

See you.

You can find a link to more information about A.N.A.s Friends and the work they do on our website.

If you missed any of the show, you can find all of our episodes on our website.

Our show today was produced by yours truly, with audio production from Matt Krause and video production from David Oquendo for now.

Thanks for listening.

I'm Mike Kiniry, this is WGCU-FM Fort Myers 90.1 WMK0, Marco Island 91.7 fmm NPR for Southwest Florida.