Big Country Resilience: CASA volunteers help foster kids find their path
ABILENE, Texas () – Theresa Collins and Jonathan Leverton grew up in foster care, facing different challenges but sharing the same desire — to be seen, heard, and valued.
Family pictures of Theresa Collins show just her and her sister after she was seven and went into foster care.
'It's devastating, and you don't know what's going on. We went to a foster home that really didn't want us to be there,' Collins recalled.
Their foster family seemed fine to the naked eye, but behind closed doors, Collins said it was a different story.
'It was a nice family from the outside. They used to time our showers and make my sister and I shower together, and they would say, you have 2 minutes total for the shower together. They would stand at the door with the timer,' Collins explained.
How Big Country CASA helps foster kids navigate the court system
As a child, her biggest wish was simple: she wanted a family picture.
'They would always ask me to take the picture, right? I got to be behind the camera and take the picture of our family,' Collins said. 'I was never on a Christmas card, and I was never a part of that family picture. So being on a Christmas card was like a dream of mine.'
After about two years, a speck of light came into her life through one person, a court-appointed special advocate, or CASA.
'My CASA volunteer is the first person who ever made me feel special, capable, worthy. I felt like she saw me. Hearing that at nine years old, when you've never heard those words of encouragement from anyone in your life before, it was striking, and it stayed with me,' Collins said.
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Jonathan Leverton entered the system at 12 and shortly moved to an all-boys home, where he said he grew up in a military-style lifestyle.
'I ran for hours down that road where he would just make me run back and forth, back and forth, to try to get the discipline out of me, which I don't know. The way I was raised is I'm not going to let him break me,' Leverton said.
He said that during his time in foster care, he was fighting to go back home, reluctant to face the reality of his home life.
'I thought I had a role as the older sibling to defend my father. So, I never really wanted to concede that maybe there was some justification for us being removed. So I can remember when we initially were separated, my whole stance was to get us back home, and if that meant lying, if that meant being manipulative, that's what I thought it would take,' Leverton said.
He built connections throughout the unknown with those around him, which made the transition easier.
'Just to get to interact with those kinds of guys who we were all on the same playing field because we were separated from our family for a variety of reasons,' Leverton said.
After he aged out of the system, he joined the Marine Corps, where he left an impact on kids in Iraq by helping to build an orphanage. Leverton did not have that person by his side when he was in the system, something he shared he would have benefited from.
'We never consistently got the same person. When a new person would come and pick us up to take us to visitation or whatever, we could always tell that they were just barely getting a scratch of the information with us,' Leverton said.
Now, both are ending the cycle of hopelessness, with Leverton becoming the person he wished he had and Collins embodying the person she did have.
'It just gives me a different mindset and more of an open heart to just be patient with them and let them kind of be willing to break those walls down, and we can do it together. I can kind of help them navigate that process and show them, 'Hey, this is what worked for me,'' Leverton said.
Collins opens up about overcoming the shame she once felt as a foster child.
'I pushed it way out of my reality. My ex-husband never knew I was in foster care. Actually, he had no idea that I was ever a foster kid. It surprised him when I started talking about it a few years ago,' Collins said.
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Now, she is using her story to inspire every kid to be #fosterkidfierce.
'I want every foster kid to feel deeply foster kid fierce,' Collins said. 'To say I can do this. I can change the world. I can be the next president because of my experience as a child, not in spite of it but because of it. I have this tool bag.'
CASA is currently seeking more volunteers to help out with foster children in our community. Visit Big Country CASA online to find out how you can join.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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