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Interview with Tammy Passwater

© Dena Standley

The following is an interview conducted via e-mail with Tammy Passwater. As a Therapeutic Foster Care Specialist she managed cases, worked with children and foster parents, and acted as a liaison between children and courts, schools, healthcare providers, state caseworkers and biological parents. She was a Legislative Specialist for a state commission on children and youth where she tracked legislation, produced legislative reports, and wrote and distributed position statements. She was also a Research Associate for an Advisory Commission on intergovernmental relations where she conducted research and analyzed policy for the State Legislature.

1. Can you tell me about a specific success story either in the system itself or about a particular child?

I had a 15-year-old who felt like the system was against him. He'd been in custody for about 10 years and had been shuffled through at least that many families. I decided to let him advocate for himself, so I involved him in his court hearings and the judge not only listened to him; she gave him a real say in his future. As a result, he got permission to have his mother (whose rights to him had been terminated years earlier) join him in counseling so they could work through past issues and plan for the future. The court realized that the system might quit when a child turns 18 and that this boy's relationship with his mom was one he would need in the future, despite her failings in the past.

2. What was the most rewarding experience for you personally as an advocate?

Just working with the children. Letting them know that they were special, listening to them and seeing them grow despite the many obstacles against them.

3. Can you describe your biggest disappointment?

In general parents and the system. Watching parents fail to work on their goals toward reunification while the child works his/her tail off only to be let down by the parent(s) and trying to work with an ineffective, understaffed, underpaid system that fosters burnout in staff who are suppose to be looking out for the children in custody.

4. I have said often in my articles that children need a "voice" in the issues that govern their lives. What, in your opinion, is being done to give them that voice?

I have heard groups of teens currently in foster care or who have been in foster care speak at some professional conferences I've attended. The University of Tennessee School of Social Work facilitates one of these groups in the Nashville area and they also produce a statewide newsletter for children in state custody. This not only gives the children a voice, but it provides professionals with valuable information on the reality of foster care from the child's perspective. In addition, it appears to me that over the years we swing back and forth, between family preservation and the best interest of the child. The pendulum now seems to be swinging toward what is in the best interest of the child (though some high profile failed adoption cases might make one believe otherwise) with the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (11/19/97) Public Law 105-89. Below is some information on this law and only time will tell if it works to give children in state custody a "voice".

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