Advocate foes' stories unravel
Post-Tribune
February 29, 1996
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy.portagelibrary.info/resources/doc/nb/news/1084D869DA1D0097?p=AWNB
When Kimberly Cole told the Porter County Council a heart-wrenching story Tuesday night about how she lost custody of her toddler to an alcoholic ex-husband because of a court-appointed guardian's recommendation, she left out a few details.
The guardian, Beatrice Lightfoot of Chesterton, actually recommended joint custody, according to court documents. But the magistrate who heard the case, James Johnson, decided to award custody to the father.
Cole also neglected to tell the council that she's facing battery charges for striking another child, a 7-year-old boy from her now-ex-husband's previous marriage. The injuries were severe enough to require hospitalization.
Cole went before the council because Lightfoot is seeking county funding for her Children/Parent Center, which she operates to provide supervised visitation for families involved in custody disputes.
The council said it is up to the courts to request funding for the center in next year's budget.
Lightfoot has served the county courts as a guardian ad litem, or court-appointed advocate for children, for the past several years.
But she has come under fire because Helen Boothe of Dune Acres recently wrote a letter to county judges complaining that Lightfoot was biased and presented false information to the court.
Boothe didn't cite specific instances, but instead wrote that she'd learned of the alleged problems through ''friends of friends.'' Still, the allegations were serious enough that the judges asked the sheriff's department to investigate.
But when Cole appeared before the council Tuesday, some began wondering if the ''friends'' aren't people embittered over coming out on the losing side of custody cases.
''She does not conduct herself in a professional manner,'' Cole said. ''Everyone should know what people are like who are asking for your money. I don't want my tax dollars going to her.''
Boothe declined Wednesday to say who her ''friends of friends'' are and what problems they had with Lightfoot. As for Cole's comments to the council, she said, ''I don't know. I guess you can read the (court) case.''
Attempts to contact Lightfoot on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Lightfoot, although trained as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), is not an attorney. Even Lightfoot's critics say that she is well-meaning. If anything, her fault is sometimes being in ''over her head,'' they say.
Judges say that people think the guardians have more power than is actually the case. They are charged only with representing the child's interests before the court. They don't have the power to remove children from the home.
They observe the child, investigate and make recommendations. And like other advocates, such as probation officers, judges don't always follow the recommendations.
''But the guardian ad litem is often the person they perceive as making the decision,'' said Johnson, who heard Cole's divorce case, which was finalized in December.
''If (Cole) is going to be mad at anyone, she ought to be mad at me, I suppose.''
County Council questions need for second child center
NWI Times
Feb 29, 1996
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/county-council-questions-need-for-second-child-center/article_9f064cdee8ea-50d2-ab15-ba9124716d3f.html
VALPARAISO - The Porter County Council is the wrong forum for debating the performance and compensation of guardian ad litem Beatrice Lightfoot and the program she founded for divorced parents and their children, council members said.
Lightfoot's request that the county reimburse her for representing children in rancorous divorce cases attracted emotional protests from parents and other child advocates who insist Lightfoot is unfit to represent children or operate her Children/Parent Center in Chesterton.
The council told the center director on Tuesday that no appropriation for Lightfoot would be considered unless the county judges request funding as part of the court system's budget.
"Without a request there's nothing we're going to do," Council member Karen Martin said. "If it's not in the budget, it's not going to get heard."
The council grilled center director Karen Klein about the need for Lightfoot's services when the county is already paying for other child advocates and subsidizing another house for supervised visitation by non-custodial parents.
"I think what we're hearing is that the council would probably look on this as a duplication of services," Council President Ruth Ann McWhorter said.
Klein maintained that Lightfoot's Children/Parent Center offers longer hours and more services than the county-funded Family House in Valparaiso.
Klein said Lightfoot opened her own center last fall because of numerous scheduling conflicts with Family House and personality clashes with the house's staff.
Lightfoot's center provides a neutral location for children to meet with their non-custodial parents. Lightfoot also serves as a court-appointed guardian ad litem in custody disputes. When judges decide which parent to award custody to, they often rely on Lightfoot's investigations about the parents' conduct and the quality of parents' living conditions.
Although most guardians ad litem are attorneys appointed by the court for specific custody cases, Lightfoot has been volunteering as a guardian for several years.
Lightfoot is not an attorney, but she donated $60,000 to the court system to establish a guardian ad litem program. The program has yet to be implemented. Klein said Lightfoot has cases in Porter, Lake and LaPorte counties and presented letters of support for Lightfoot from judges and the Division of Child and Family Services.
But Kim Cole of Chesterton accused Lightfoot of being confrontational and high-handed in evaluating parents in custody cases. Lightfoot also was accused of disregarding non-custodial parents' rights, overlooking violations of custody orders and lying about the fathers' child-rearing capabilities.
"She has presented herself in a very forceful manner," Cole said during emotional testimony about her experiences with Lightfoot.
Mother presents testimony against child advocate
Post-Tribune
February 28, 1996
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy.portagelibrary.info/resources/doc/nb/news/1084D866EEB250A9?p=AWNB
With the scars from her caesarian section still fresh and with her infant son in her arms, Kim Cole once found herself in the cold, tossed out by an abusive, alcoholic husband.
Two years later, her ex-husband has custody of the same son, at the recommendation, she said, of the child's court-appointed advocate.
Cole, 31, of Chesterton, came to Porter County Council Thursday with others opposed to Children/Parent Center Inc., of Chesterton.
The center, owned by Beatrice Lightfoot, the advocate who represented Cole's infant son in Cole's custody dispute, is seeking to be placed on the 1997 Porter County budget to provide supervised visitations ordered by the county court system.
Currently Family House of Valparaiso arranges for such supervised visitations between parents and children.
''I want the public to know that a program like this is going on. Any time, anywhere, someone may have the power to take your child away from you,'' Cole said.
Cole said she opposes Lightfoot personally and the advocate system in general.
Karen L. Klein, director of Children/Parent Center Inc., in waiting to appear before the Council Tuesday night, said Lightfoot is a court-appointed advocate with additional training in CASA, a volunteer program courts use to train advocates for children.
Slated to appear before the Council to present information related to the center, Klein defended the advocate system, although she admitted that supervised visitation programs in the United States are an unregulated industry. ''The Supervised Visitation Network of U.S. and Canada is currently working on standards for that,'' she said.
A former employee of Family House, Klein said 90 per cent of the cases where supervised visitations are ordered are due to substance abuse in the family. The others usually involve hotly contested divorces, she said.
Klein said she recalls Family House billing the county for as much as $5,200 in a month for services provided to welfare clients alone.
She said that she hopes the Children/Parent Center, Inc. will provide extended hours and a location more appropriate for some clients.
During a break, before Klein's presentation was heard, Porter County Council president Ruth Ann McWhorter said Family House is listed by name in the county's budget and that the service is part of the court's budget.
Judge wants complaints resolved
NWI Times
Feb 26, 1996
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/judge-wants-complaints-resolved/article_cd973cb9-b81e-5633-b262-952948e4cdc3.html
What is a guardian ad litem?
Indiana law allows family court judges to appoint a guardian ad litem to "represent and protect the best interests of the child" in divorce and custody proceedings.
A guardian ad litem may:
* subpoena witnesses
* present evidence
* perform investigations
* prepare reports for the court
Although many of Indiana's guardians ad litem are lawyers, state law does not specify any educational requirements. Porter Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Webber Sr. wants the sheriff to figure out whether complaints against a prominent court volunteer have merit or are the by-product of bitter divorces.
In recent weeks, complaints about the performance of Beatrice Lightfoot, who volunteers her services to family court, have come to the attention of all six county judges.
Lightfoot, a wealthy Portage area landowner, has served for a number of years as a court-appointed guardian ad litem to protect the interests of children in divorce and custody proceedings. Lightfoot is the benefactor who in 1992 contributed $60,000 to the court to provide services to the same children.
Most recently, Lightfoot opened the Children/Parent Center in Chesterton, where children may visit with non-custodial parents.
The judges do not know the sources of the allegations, which range from providing false information to the court to her request for county funds for a children's center.
Lightfoot said on Saturday she believes the criticism is coming from parents who have misdirected their anger at losing custody of their children.
"I have no authority to take children away from their parents," Lightfoot said. "When you get a divorce case and you get a custody battle, I'll investigate. That's all I do."
Lightfoot said her accusers need "to go to the judge" and prove their complaints.
"What bothers me is that they think a woman who just does investigations can take their children away," she said.
"Some of the allegations go beyond sour grapes," Webber said last week. "They go to ethical and legal allegations."
Webber said he is asking the sheriff's department "to investigate the accusations and take action if warranted."
Webber said he suspects the complaints are groundless, the product of people intimately involved in divorce cases and not an unbiased citizens' watch group.
The sheriff could have problems with an investigation because Webber says he doesn't know who the actual complainants are.
Lightfoot is the only guardian ad litem among the county's estimated half-dozen such officers of the court who is not an attorney. Complaints against her performance came to the judges' attention through the intercession of a Dune Acres woman, Helen Boothe. Her hand-carried letter told the judges the information came to her through "friends of friends over the last 18
months."
Boothe submitted to the judges a 13-point statement outlining alleged misconduct by Lightfoot in her role as guardian ad litem.
Among other complaints, the statement alleges that Lightfoot presented "an exaggerated/distorted account of reality to the court."
Boothe also provided judges an eight-point petition objecting to the potential impact of Lightfoot's activities on the county budget. The petition, signed by some 35 area individuals, says Lightfoot's new center duplicates existing services offered by Valparaiso's Family House, which is already supported by county funds.
Within recent weeks, Lightfoot has written the Porter County Council asking how to apply for county funds to help defray the costs of operating the Children/Parent Center.
The petition also questions the "neutrality" of Lightfoot referring her own cases to the center and the lack of an entity to supervise the operation.
But Webber claims the group is "mixing apples and oranges." Webber says the two centers address families with different dynamics.
Lightfoot's center deals exclusively with children whose parents are fighting each other, and Family House deals with parents who are fighting the child welfare department.
Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey L. Thode, who until the last election served as a court commissioner in family court, said he had no reason to doubt Lightfoot.
Thode believes there are safeguards against abuse by a guardian ad litem because the judge has the final call. He has ruled against Lightfoot on occasion, he said.
The bigger problem, according to Thode, are the dynamics of divorce.
"Divorce is a creature of statute," Thode said, "and everybody who gets divorced wants to erase all those years. The problem is you can't pretend you were never married."
Even with the safeguards, the guardian ad litem is not a perfect approach to the results of a bitter divorce, Thode said. "But I'd like to hear a better approach if someone's got one."
Porter Superior Court Judge Nancy Vaidik said the judges discussed the complaints at the judges' last monthly meeting.
"We have agreed as judges that (the complaints) need to be looked into,"
Vaidik said. "That's not saying there's anything wrong, but we're going to look into them to see."
Porter Superior Court Judge Mary Harper said: "This is a good opportunity to look at the overall organization and ensure we don't have duplication of services and unnecessary allocation of funds. It's good this whole area is being reviewed."
"I know there are complaints," Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford said. "I think if there's something lacking, it would be training. There is no specific guardian ad litem training. That's why it's mostly attorneys."
