When CASA-NYC volunteer advocate Susan met Nyeka (“Nyke”) in 2024, Nyke’s daughter Zendaya had already spent most of her childhood away from home.

Nyke grew up in foster care herself and became a mother without a safety net. After giving birth, she struggled with untreated postpartum depression and, terrified and alone, she sought the help of a therapist. As a result, Zendaya was removed from her home and placed in foster care.

What followed was a years-long separation, during which time Zendaya bounced between multiple foster homes. By the time a family court judge finally assigned CASA-NYC to Zendaya’s case, it had already dragged on for years. Nyke did everything the system asked of her and worked for years to bring her daughter home, inching closer to reunification.

Then, after a period of unexpected and intense hardship, and with a new baby on the way, the family was pushed even further apart. Nyke and her husband made the difficult decision to move back to her home state of Tennessee, where their youngest, Zaryiah, was born in April 2024. The last barrier to bringing Zendaya home was housing. Paperwork went missing during agency transitions. Inspections stalled. Money ran out. Zendaya’s reunification date slipped yet again.

In her journal, around the time of her ninth birthday, Zendaya wrote down what she wanted more than anything:

"I want to visit my Mom. I want to meet my baby sister. I don’t want a birthday party. I just want my family.”

“Even in the best of times, this system has a true human cost,” says Meg Ford, CASA-NYC’s Director of Advocacy. “Zendaya is nine, and she was away from her mom for six years of her life. For a child, that’s forever.”

But the delayed reunification was not for lack of effort nor force of will. “Nyke is one of the most incredible women I’ve ever met,” said Susan. Susan stepped in as a CASA volunteer and a steady voice in July 2024. She translated a maze of requirements into practical next steps. She asked the important questions: Which bus line reaches the after-school program? Where is pediatric therapy available? How will daycare line up with Nyke’s new training schedule? She located services, confirmed appointments, and, when a last-minute snag threatened the family’s apartment approval, called the management company and “read them the riot act.” Shortly after, the keys were promised for the following Friday.

The courts saw Nyke through a narrow lens. “They constantly said I was a bad parent. Said I was negligent,” Nyke reflected. By contrast, Susan and Meg saw a mother doing everything in her power to bring her daughter home. “There was not one shred of doubt in my mind that this family was ready to be reunified,” Meg said.

Practical help was only part of the role Susan played in Nyke’s household. The deeper gift was their ongoing relationship.

“I don’t get hijacked by emotions,” Susan says of the skillset she brought from a career advising Fortune 100 executives. “I listen, let people finish, then solve the issue in front of us.” For Nyke, having someone she could count on was a blessing. Even when her husband showed up one evening with a dog he had decided to adopt, Nyke had someone to call and vent her frustration.

In November 2024, Nyke and her husband finally moved into an apartment in Chattanooga. In December, Zendaya came home. It wasn’t a fairy-tale snap to a “new normal.” Zendaya is still adjusting to the routines of a new household. Nyke is working through health issues. But today, they are together. They are a family of four around one kitchen table.

Nyke is also looking ahead. She wrote two books dedicated to her children, which she published as E-books on Amazon. She launched a food-truck business. “She’s a force of nature,” Susan says. “If we lived in the same city, there’s no doubt we’d be business colleagues in one way or another. And I feel privileged to count her as a friend.”

When asked what she would say to other parents trapped in the child welfare system, Nyke is clear: Keep records, ask for a CASA volunteer, and never stop telling your story. “I’m proof of it: With the right support, you can bring your kids home.”