Veronica Strong shows up for the children on her cases whenever they need it

April 23, 2021

Veronica ‘Nica’ Strong knows how to keep busy. In addition to owning her own travel business, working as a nature photographer, and doing some web design on the side, Nica has volunteered at various hospitals, mentored incarcerated youth, taken on inmate grievances at Rikers Island, worked with survivors of sexual and domestic violence, served as a chaplain, and volunteered for the American Red Cross’ Disaster Action Team. Five years ago, she was ending her workday once a week by traveling 2-3 hours each way to volunteer as a counselor in Rockland County when she decided it was time to find an organization closer to home. She came across CASA on Volunteer Match, a service that connects prospective volunteers with nonprofits, went in for an interview and was sold.

Now, five years into her work as an advocate for CASA, Nica has served on at least 10 cases across Queens and the Bronx, involving youth ranging from newborns to 21-year-olds. She’s helped children reunite with family members in different states, assisted youth who were unprepared to age out of foster care to extend their stay, and secured dozens of education and mental health resources for clients, ranging from finding a therapist to getting the books or computer a child needs for school. Recently, Nica has taken on more cases in which youth are aging out of foster care, and helped many of them find housing. She currently has three cases: a pair of eight and nine-year-old siblings who are in the process of reuniting with their mother, a 12-year-old reuniting with her father who lives in another country, and a 21-year-old college student who is about to age out of foster care and needs permanent housing. CASA volunteers typically take only one case at a time, but because so much was on hold during COVID, she decided she had the bandwidth to take on more.

One of the cases that stands out to Nica involved two teens whose newborn baby Jasmine had just entered foster care. The parents had a tumultuous relationship and had to overcome a lot of hurdles to bring Jasmine home, including parenting and teen parenting classes, anger management courses, and proving they had a plan for tackling co-parenting and securing housing and jobs. Nica remembers meeting the parents for the first time in court and finding the young mother, Keira, in a combative mood, frustrated that she had to go to court just to get her baby back. Nica said once she sat down with Keira, explained what the process would look like, and reassured her that she was there to help, things went more smoothly. It was one of those cases that “should have been a two-week case,” but ended up lasting almost a year. In the end, with Nica’s support, Jasmine was able to go home with her parents, who were in a more stable place and better prepared to provide a safe environment for her. 

Another young woman who left a lasting impression on Nica was Trinity,  who was struggling with her mental health and hadn’t been able to get the services she needed while in foster care. Over the course of two years, Nica worked with Trinity’s therapist to determine which services she needed and lobbied for funding to get the specialized treatment her therapist recommended. Nica also helped Trinity secure supportive housing, a kind of affordable housing that includes on-site social services. When it was time to move in, Nica helped Trinity furnish the apartment, and worked with the onsite caseworker to ensure she would have help paying bills and staying on top of her medication. Nica remembers the hours spent having in-depth conversations with Trinity, explaining her options and answering her questions. It was important to Nica that Trinity actually understood what was going on with her case. “There were some times that she would nod and I'm like, ‘okay, you're nodding, but do you really, truly understand?’ And she's like, ‘Well, I'm struggling with this.’ And then we would explain it a little bit further,” Nica says. 

Nica describes her work with CASA as “advocating, advocating, advocating, and some paperwork.” In one of her current cases, she’s spent over a year working with social workers, psychologists, caseworkers, lawyers, children’s services, and a foster care agency just to finalize the reunification of two children with their mother. Knowing how frustrating the system can be from the outside as an Advocate, Nica admires the courage of those who are going through it. “What I have learned is that people are resilient,” Nica says. “The strength and the courage that it takes for people to go through the system and to do what they need to do to reunite with their families or keep their children. It's just amazing to me the strength that it takes, and the persistence and the resilience.” As for her goals for the future, “It's always meeting the client where they're at that moment,” Nica says. “Whatever it is they need, I'm here for it.”