On any given day in The United States of America, an unprepared, unstable child “ages out” of the foster care system or a child’s needs cannot be met while they are in the foster care program. While the foster care system in the states provides a temporary home for children in hardship, it often lacks recognition of each child’s individual needs.  

CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) strives to speak on behalf of abused or neglected children in foster care and advocate for their individual needs. In Colorado specifically, Jenny Bender serves as Executive Director. Not only does she lead the movement in Colorado, Jenny has experienced all she represents while in the “foster to adopt” process with two of her five children, Millie and Poppy. She shares her story and involvement in CASA below…

What does CASA do?

“CASA stands for court appointed special advocates and it provides a volunteer’s voice in court for children who are victims of abuse, neglect, or severe domestic violence and the children are removed from their homes and placed into foster care or with family members. The children then become the property of the Department of Human Service and a dependency and neglect case is opened. These children often times get lost in the system. A CASA volunteer then takes over the case of the child and truly serve as the voice of the child in court. CASAs create a court report for the judge and consider the child’s best interest while making recommendations to the judge of what is a safe and permanent home.”

What role do you have in CASA?

“I am the executive director for the state of Colorado. This summer I went from being a local program executive director to being the executive director of the state association so I now provide statewide awareness and funding. The mission of knowing we are helping children is most enjoyable.”

What is the story of Millie and Poppy?

“Zack and I had two biological children and when they were 5 and 6 years old, we decided we had the capacity to love more children. I always thought that I wanted my Thanksgiving table to be bigger so why not foster?

We became licensed foster parents and soon after we got a call that there was a two-day old baby girl at Memorial Hospital that needed a home. All we knew was that the parents were homeless and we thought that the mother had maybe even been abandoned. We said yes, we prepared our home, and told our kids. We knew that we would have this baby in our home maybe a week, a month, a year, or forever. We just told the kids that we would love on her and teach her brain how to be healthy and attach.

We went the next day and met her and I felt like I had just met my own child. We brought her home and that began our life with Millie. A few times a week, I would bring her to supervised visits with her biological parents, although it began to feel more like she was my child.

In the process of court hearings, we found out the same mom and the same dad were pregnant again with their second baby which was Poppy. The parents were still sleeping outside under a bridge the week before Poppy was born and DHS put them in a hotel. We found out on Labor Day that Poppy was born, 13 months apart from Millie. We prepared our home and we were so excited. I ran around the whole house and told everyone that the baby was here. We still didn’t know if we would be able to keep Millie or Poppy, and unfortunately, this was not our decision. We had a CASA on our case and they really helped to advocate for the girl’s needs. Poppy exhibited abnormal feeding issues, and they tested her, and she was completely normal. I think her issues were that she didn’t have the opportunity to connect when she was born.

Three weeks later, she was sent home with us. Two and a half years after the initial call about Millie, we adopted them both on the same day, December 1, 2015. Once the gavel came down, it was really beautiful.”

Jenny Bender and others involved in CASA provide a voice for abused or neglected children and always focus on the needs of a child above all else. Because of their impactful actions, children’s lives are saved. Because of Jenny Bender, Millie and Poppy have a loving home forever.