Angela Beckham on forging relationships with families during the pandemic

April 29, 2021

With 40 years of experience as an educator under her belt, Angela Beckham was no stranger to working with children and their parents when she came to CASA. During her time as a teacher, administrator, mentor, and in many other roles, Angela advocated to meet the needs of countless students and their families, whether academic, emotional or material. She was used to collaborating with psychologists, social workers, and countless other professionals “to get the answer for the children.” So when she retired from the Department of Education in 2019, she wanted to be part of an organization that served children in a similar way, ultimately providing “a chance at a better life.” CASA was just that.

Fast forward to April of 2020, in the early weeks of the pandemic. Angela had completed training and just returned from a trip to South Africa when she got the call that she had been appointed to her first CASA case. Her client was Inez, a mother of three who was living in a one-room shelter with her children, who had spent some time in foster care and were returned to her on a trial basis. Angela was tasked with helping Inez find permanent housing using the Section 8 voucher that the family qualified for - a difficult task at any time due to the short supply of landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers, but this task got even more difficult as the city was shutting down due to COVID-19 precautions.

Angela got to work searching for apartments online by reaching out to landlords and real estate agents who often didn’t respond. When their search throughout Queens came up short, they decided to move on to Brooklyn. Because of social distancing precautions, all of Angela’s work with Inez was done by phone. Finally in August, after much frustration but with Angela’s determined support, Inez found a home for her family.

Next Angela secured grants and subsidies to furnish the apartment and helped Inez shop for furniture online. Afterward, Angela helped Inez register the children in a new nearby school, and she secured donated laptops and other school supplies so they could participate in remote learning. She also researched free childcare so that Inez could work when the kids weren’t in school. 

With the children permanently discharged to Inez and the family settled into their new home, their CASA case was closed in November. But Angela and Inez kept in touch, and in December, Angela delivered holiday gifts to the family, meeting them in person for the first time after working so closely together for so many months.

“To be able to know what their struggles were, looking for a low-income section 8 housing, and then all of a sudden, being able to walk up the stairs into their home and meet her children. It was just wonderful. The children and the mother were settled. And they were comfortable, they were safe. They were warm. And it was just beautiful,” Angela says.

Now a year into her service as a CASA, Angela has just been assigned her fourth case and hopes to be able to serve for many years to come. She’s learned how to navigate virtual court, and helped families find jobs and access medical care. Having both worked with and grown up around so many families in similar situations, not much surprised Angela about her work with CASA. But one thing she didn’t expect from the families she’s served is “how much they not just rely on you, but connect with you to the point where they trust you. You know, they talk to their families about you. They allow you to work on their behalf. It’s a beautiful relationship that I've been finding with most of my clients.”

As for what she’s learned, Angela says that “children and families in the child welfare system want what those outside of the welfare system want: respect, dignity, a home, their family, their basic needs, an education, their human rights, a chance to live their best life.”