PLAINS TWP. — John Aciukewicz will soon be retiring from his professional role as executive director of Court Appointed Special Advocates of Luzerne County (CASA).
He won’t be stepping away from his personal role as an advocate for one of the more than 500 county children currently in foster care.
“You help bring some normalcy to this child’s life at a time when they don’t have it. Sometimes all they want is “can we go for ice cream? Can we go to the park? Can we just go for a walk,’” he said.
CASA of Luzerne County seeks to provide a qualified and compassionate volunteer advocate to every abused and neglected child in Luzerne County to ensure their right to a safe, nurturing, and permanent home is met.
They also serve as a vital liaison between children in the foster system, the courts and attorneys.
“One of the most important things we do is to humanize these children for everybody in the court system, so they’re not just a number going through an overwhelmed and understaffed system,” Aciukewicz said.
That is why the staff at CASA, including Aciukewicz, not only recruit, train and supervise advocates: Like Aciukewicz, they serve as advocates as well.
In addition to her many professional obligations as part of the job, CASA Program Coordinator Sarah Mulé is currently serving as an advocate for a teenage girl.
Like Aciukewicz, she’s also learned that the very serious obligations of being an advocate are balanced by the surprisingly simple needs many foster children have.
“Sometimes she just wants me to watch TV show bloopers with her, or she’ll ask, ‘Can I show you this music video, and did you read this blog? And can we look at eye shadow palettes?’ She just wants me to be there, to listen,” Mulé said.
And, Mulé acknowledges, Aciukewicz has been a valuable role model in that regard.
“Because of the leadership — being able to see from John what’s expected from an employee, from an advocate — it makes it easier. It’s been a road map and I’ve been very grateful for that, Mulé said.
Early days
Aciukewicz served on the steering committee which brought CASA to Luzerne County 10 years ago, served as president of the board of directors from 2013 to June 2016, and was named executive director in October 2016.
“CASA started with some folks who were committed to bringing this really great organization to our community,” he said.
“The timing was so right, because of Kids for Cash,” Aciukewicz reflected.
“Obviously our population is different — children that are dependent who have suffered from abuse and neglect,” he noted, “But the timing was right for this really new and innovative and much-needed program in our community.”
It was, however, a need Aciukewicz had been thinking about for some time.
Aciukewicz graduated from the Dickinson School of Law in 1984. As a young attorney, he worked with a legal services program in Wilkes-Barre that represented parents in child dependency proceedings.
“Pretty early on I recognized that it’s a pretty challenging system to navigate — as a parent, as a child,” he said.
In the mid-2000s, Aciukewicz came to learn about the CASA model, a national program that originated in Seattle.
“You’re going to take a volunteer from the community to train, and that volunteer will have complete access to that child’s information, spend time with the child, report to the court what you’ve learned about what’s going on in that child’s life, and then advocate for that child’s safety and best interest,” he said.
“It’s not intended to supplement the work of a caseworker. It’s not intended to replace the work of the attorney. The intent behind the CASA model is for that advocate to know more about the child than any other participant, simply because they’re focused solely on that child. It just made such perfect sense that so much good would come out of it, and I think it has.”
“This concept makes so much sense,” Aciukewicz said.
Road to stability
Building up a successful volunteer organization takes time, money and the support of many, including volunteers — and, in CASA’s case, the county court system.
Former President Judge Tom Burke and then-Family Court Judge Tina Polachek Gartley were very supportive, Aciukewicz said, as current Family Court Judge Jennifer Rogers also has been.
CASA’s first training class was held in the late winter/early spring of 2013.
But, Aciukewicz notes, there was some instability in those early years, too, including in the executive director’s post.
After 32 years of practicing law and a frank conversation with his wife, Beth, who was supportive of the idea, Aciukewicz transitioned from board president to executive director nearly five years ago with the board’s blessing.
“My first objective was to bring some stability to the organization,” he said. “The second expectation I had for myself for the program was to grow it.”
Both have been accomplished, Aciukewicz said, which is a key reason why he feels now is the right time to retire.
“We’ve gone from 18 advocates serving 25 children to 53 advocates serving 77 children. We have definitely increased our financial stability and security, thanks to the generosity of so many people in the community,” he said. They also have gone from 2.5 to 5.5 employee positions since 2016.
Financial stability has grown also due to the success of the annual CASAblanca and NEPA Sings events, fundraisers that have taken on lives of their own while bringing cash and recognition to the group.
“We’ve achieved things that I have hoped we would, so that I am very comfortable now saying that a very solid foundation has been established for CASA — with our children, with our advocates, with the community, with the court,” Aciukewicz said.
That foundation is critical, as the need for CASA’s services only continues to grow.
At any point in time there are between 12,000 and 13,000 children in foster care in Pennsylvania, Aciukewicz said, with 22 CASA programs throughout the state serving 2,200 children, or about 20% of the foster care population.
“Going back five years ago, 420 children in our county were in foster care because of abuse and neglect. Now, it’s about 520,” he said. “It is troubling. And the primary reason that children are removed from their homes is because of parents’ substance abuse.”
Changes ahead
The CASA board will establish a search committee to find a new executive director, and Aciukewicz will remain in his role while the CASA Board of Directors recruits his successor.
As well, CASA is in the process of expanding its physical presence: The group will move from its current offices in the basement of the Cross Valley Centre on River Street to new space upstairs, as well as upgrading its phone and computer systems. CASA will retain its present space for use by advocates and the children they serve.
“It is very bittersweet for us. We’re very excited for John, but the changing of the guard is a momentous thing,” Mulé said. “Whether our physical location changes our our staff changes, the mission doesn’t change, and we’re all committed to that.”
Change is something familiar to Mulé, who worked as a journalist in Florida and Pennsylvania in her former career.
“I felt really passionate about people’s stories. It was time for me to make a shift. I saw an advertisement for part-time work (with CASA) and I said, ‘let me just see.’ I sent the application in and received a call a couple of hours later.”
“It may sound a little bit cliche, but it felt like it was divinely orchestrated from the start. I was supposed to do this,” said Mulé, who joined CASA in a part-time capacity in 2017 and took on her first advocacy case about a year later.
“You start to hear the stories and you think, ‘how can you not?’” she said of advocating. “I think if you want to be an ambassador for the program, recruit more advocates and be able to properly support and supervise those advocates, you need to be able to have walked in their shoes.”
The majority of CASA advocates are over 50, and the majority are white females. Aciukewicz and Mulé said CASA would like to see that group become more diverse in terms of age, race, gender; they especially would like to see more male advocates, as the children CASA serves are evenly divided between girls and boys, but just six or seven of the advocates are male.
The time commitment can be significant — week-in and week-out for one to three years — and advocates will be working with children at a time of great emotional difficulties.
“It takes a special person to do this. On the other hand, so much can be accomplished by one adult,” Aciukewicz said.
“If there is one plea I can make to people who are reading this, please consider this opportunity to step outside of yourself, to know that you can play a role in a child’s life when they are extremely vulnerable, to make a really lasting, meaningful difference,” he added.
For more information on how to volunteer, including about CASA’s next training class this fall, call the CASA office at 570-855-2247 or visit luzernecasa.org to learn more.
Meanwhile, Aciukewicz is thinking about his own future.
Forty-four years after he graduated from high school in Nanticoke, and 37 years after graduating from law school, he is simply committed to taking some time off, admittedly with no specific plan or goal in mind.
“That can be both liberating and scary,” Aciukewicz said.
What is certain is how he feels about his work with CASA.
“I’ve often said it’s the most difficult thing that I’ve done, but it’s also been the most rewarding and enjoyable.”