Humanists of Minnesota

Guardian Ad Litem

NathanCurland — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:14:47 +0000

by Norma Adams

(Norma Adams is a member of Humanists of Minnesota.)

Becoming a Guardian ad Litem for Juvenile Court in Hennepin County was one of the best decisions I made after retiring. I thought this type of volunteering was a way to do something productive with my time. However, it has turned out to be so much more.

Here is the official explanation for what a Guardian ad Litem (GAL) is: A GAL is a trained volunteer that advocates for abused and neglected children to ensure that their needs do not go unheard. Different from a legal guardian, Guardians ad Litem have no control over the person or property of the child and do not provide a home for the child. The Guardian ad Litem does not function as the child’s attorney and does not provide direct services to the child.

The term “ad litem” means “for the suit” or “for the court case”. It is an old concept –in the Anglo Saxon times, at common law, the king appointed a guardian ad litem to speak on behalf of the child or incompetent person. Today judges appoint community volunteers who have been trained as a GAL to advocate for abused and neglected children so that they can thrive in a safe, permanent home.

When the court is making decisions that will affect the child’s future, the child needs and deserves a spokesperson, an objective adult who can provide independent information about the best interests of the child. While other parties in the case are concerned about the child, the GAL is the only party whose sole concern is the best interest of the child and he or she is assigned as an advocate for the child for the duration of the court process.

When I accept a case, I visit with the child or children and then continue to stay in touch with them until the case is dismissed from the court. Many times my first contact with the child is at a shelter where they have been placed by the court. Later, they may be placed in a foster home or treatment center. Eventually they may be reunited with the family if the issues that caused the neglect or abuse have been addressed. If that didn’t happen, then the court will proceed to terminate parental rights and the child will be placed for adoption. During this time- usually about 18 months- I am the consistent person in the child’s life.

Along the way, I also make contact with the other people who are involved with the child such as social workers, therapists, biological parents, foster parents, teachers and others. I gather information and combine it with common sense as the basis for my reports about the best interests of the child. I give reports to the judge in court but also have a voice in various planning sessions with professionals.

I have gained so much from my experiences with these kids. To see their faces light up when they see me at court, listen to their stories of adventures in a new school, hear their sometimes unspoken fears and hopes for the future and to know that I am playing even a small part in helping them to find a safe, permanent home is very humbling. I am in awe of the resilience of the human spirit in these kids and am privileged to be a witness to it. It is not always easy and more than once I’ve literally kicked a wall in frustration (my walls are concrete). But then I walk it off and get back to the job at hand.

Here is the commercial: We need more Guardians ad Litem. There are about 3000 abused or neglected children who come before the court in Ramsey and Hennepin County every year. Most of these are children of color who are poor. They are caught up in a complicated court process and deserve to have an advocate who can speak up for their best interest. If you want to know more about becoming a GAL, contact the Guardian ad Litem program in the Fourth Judicial District in Hennepin County or Second Judicial District in Ramsey County. They will provide the training (about 40 hours), support and supervision.

January 2012 Newsletter

NathanCurland — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:07:16 +0000

Download the Newsletter here

Highlights….

Chapter Meeting: Exploring Issues of Race, Poverty and Social Justice with Prof. Nekima Levy-Pounds
Guardian Ad Litem by Norma Adams
Solstice Pics

December Chapter Meeting Summary by Nathan Curland/Paul Heffron

Humanist Views: Humanism & Skepticism

isherwood — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:51:53 +0000

Scott Lohman interviews Kammy Lyon of Skepchick.org and the Minnesota Skeptics.

Humanists of Minnesota at the St. Paul Interfaith Network!

NathanCurland — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:25:01 +0000

by Dale Handeen

One of our humanist movement’s quite prolific contemporary writers, Ed Doerr, has been articulate and passionate about his view that as freethinkers working to improve society we might best regard those of liberal faith traditions to be potentially excellent allies in working toward specific shared social change goals. He challenged liberal thinkers of every stripe to spend less of our energies squabbling amongst ourselves over philosophical differences, and to invest more of our energies in building practical working relationships with people “of faith,” so that, together, we can achieve more of the important social changes we do envision.

Roy Speckhardt, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, has shared with all of us in print that he makes an effort to be present at interfaith gatherings in the Washington, D.C. area, expressing humanist values, and exploring common ground. Furthermore, I was pleased with Doug Haddon’s suggestion that Humanists of Minnesota begin our program year examining white privilege.

Each of these contributed to my motivation to attend an interfaith series held recently in St. Paul, entitled “Eyes Wide Open; A Conversation about Racism, Discrimination, Prejudice, and meeting The Other.” The series was held on four consecutive Monday evenings, October 3-24. I participated in the three evenings entitled, “Invisible Wounds: Experiencing Everyday Dehumanization,” “Religion: Building Walls, Building Bridges,” and “New Possibilities: Creating Something Better.”

I was deeply impressed with the quality of the speakers each evening, and with the carefully planned formats that allowed the hundreds of participants to speak with one another constructively and openly on these themes. Fifty-two sponsoring organizations were involved, bringing together an assembly of people perhaps more diverse than any other that I have experienced in years. Naturally I contributed to that diversity, as well, enabling my neighbors to confront “the other” also in me, as an atheist and humanist. I share their desire to create something better than the oppressions and the racism with which we struggle.

As part of the video-documented closing, participants were invited to talk about the organizations we represented. I was able to make the assembly aware of Humanists of Minnesota, our local chapter of the American Humanist Association, inviting them to visit our websites, and to learn about our organizations’ commitment to protecting and maintaining separation of church and state. I was not the only non-theistic person present. For information about the series see www.spinterfaith.org.

December 2011 Newsletter

NathanCurland — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:17:30 +0000

Download the newsletter here

Highlights….

Chapter Meeting: The Reason for the Season by J.B. Andersen

Community Outreach by Dale Handeen

Out With Christmas, In with Yule by Audrey Kingstrom

November Chapter Meeting Summary by Nathan Curland/Paul Heffron

Out with Christmas, In with Yule

NathanCurland — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:27:07 +0000

by Audrey Kingstrom

We call it Christmas, but for many of us the holiday is really about winter: enjoying it, surviving it, celebrating it. And while others would remind us that the reason for the season is the birth of Jesus, year after year, “unbelievers” and Christians alike participate in a wide variety of midwinter festivities that mark this darkest time of year. But for the non-believer discomforts abound: ambivalence over cherished traditions, reservation in attending religious services to appease loved ones, wariness in how to be both tolerant and authentic, irritation at the ubiquitous religious messaging, to name a few. In an increasingly multi-ethnic, multi-religious and secular society, the celebration of Christmas as a de facto national holiday is problematic. But, then, it always has been.

Since its inception, Christmas has been as much a cultural holiday as a religious one. The early church leaders intentionally superimposed the feast of the Nativity on the Roman celebrations of Saturnalia and Kalends in late December to supplant allegiance to Roman deities and ensure the worship of Jesus instead. As Christianity spread across Northern Europe, regional harvest rites and Yule celebrations near the winter solstice also were recast with Christian symbolism.

For most of its history, however, the Christian Church had an uneasy alliance with Christmas given its dubious connection to Jesus’ actual birth and its association with the carnival-like festivities and pagan traditions that dominated the celebrations. By the time of the Reformation, purging the Catholic Church of its unseemly Christmas revels was an additional goal of some reformers with the Puritans going so far as to outlaw its observance altogether. Only in the past couple of centuries with the help of writers such as Washington Irving and Charles Dickens was Christmas transformed into a more genteel and domestic holiday.

Over time, obligatory feasts for subordinates, ritualized begging at homes of the elite, and community revelry deemed as a threat to public order all gave way to family oriented gatherings. Children became the new recipients of long-practiced holiday generosity. This reinvention of the season provided a more serene environment in which to commemorate Jesus’ birth. As a result, by the end of the 19th century, Christians were embracing Christmas with a newfound devotion that has continued to this day.

At present, amidst the enduring array of secular holiday festivities, Christians plead with us all to keep Christ in Christmas. It’s an understandable request. Why not let Christians have Christmas to themselves and put an end to the duplicity of the holiday? The broader civic culture can move to uncouple that “holy day” from the age-old winter festival and celebrate a truly secular holiday in which everyone can participate and enjoy without its Christian overtones. Actually, part of this cultural shift is already underway, but more could be done.

We can focus the season on the winter solstice—that pivotal shortest day and longest night in our journey around the sun recognized by both ancients and contemporaries. We can frame it as “Midwinter”—that medieval description of late November to early January as midpoint in the darkest time of year when ordinary life was suspended. We can call it “Yule” after that pre-Christian northern European celebration of harvest’s end and festive respite from the hard labor of an agricultural economy.

To retain “Christmas” as the nomenclature for this midwinter holiday is to needlessly divide us as a society and cast non-Christians as outliers in our culture. In renaming the season “Yule” to reflect its origins in the cycles of nature, we can celebrate our common humanity and acknowledge our shared joys and challenges of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. For the season is not just about Christmas; in fact, it never was.

Let the Midwinter festival begin! Good Yule to all! ◙