Both CASA and A Home Within are committed to helping foster youth grow and develop primarily through volunteers.
One of the hallmarks of A Home Within is the matching of a foster youth or former foster youth with a pro bono therapist “for as long as it takes.” The goal is to help these youth find a stable, caring relationship with a therapist who is committed to their growth and development in the midst of trauma and multiple losses in foster youths’ lives.
Casa, the Spanish word literally defined as house, is also used informally as home. A CASA is also a volunteer, a Court Appointed Special Advocate, part of a national program for foster youth. Through advocacy and mentorship, the San Francisco Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program empowers community members to stand up for a foster child and champion their rights in court. In addition, the relationship with a CASA is a community support for the foster youth.
We are members of these organizations: Kira Steifman, PsyD, a therapist and former Board Member with A Home Within, and Deborah Weisinger, PsyD, an analyst and relatively new volunteer with SFCASA. Our presentation will examine how foster youth benefit from broad community support that addresses the many difficult and complex systems that they are thrust into. While the roles of therapist and advocate are different, there are also overlaps.
We will present a vignette of a foster child in the Foster Care System who is matched with a CASA and, perhaps, a therapist through a Home Within. Based upon the vignette, we will discuss needs and challenges that arise through a psychoanalytic lens, referencing journal articles that will be available to those attending. In our conversation with Colloquium Participants, we will examine the home that can be created in the community and within the youth, specifically within relationships to caring adults. Our goal is to help sustain the foster child through the many ups and downs that the loss of their primary home creates, and to promote their success.
Kira Steifman PsyD provides psychodynamic psychotherapy to adolescents and adults in her private practice in San Francisco. She was the co-chair of SFCP’s Community Outreach and Service Division and part of its Management Team from 2021 until the Division was disbanded in 2023. In addition, she has been an adjunct instructor at CSPP. A former corporate attorney, Dr. Steifman has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the Wright Institute. She completed her predoctoral internship at RAMS and her postdoctoral fellowship at Access Institute. Dr. Steifman served on the board of A Home Within for 15 years, two years as President.
