Kristi Nuzzo

I think my most notable achievement is helping parents understand the process. As an advocate, I can't be their attorney, so it takes a lot of patience. It's very hard to understand this process, so being able to break it down in a way for parents to understand their rights, what is expected of them, how they need to act - that's what matters most to me. Understanding each case individually, but also understanding each parent individually, and being able to help them so that when they get a piece of paper in the mail, they can read it and understand it, whereas before they wouldn't. If you don't understand it, how are you going to go into court and defend yourself? You can't. My ultimate goal is that many who I've advocated for have become advocates themselves. If I can explain it to somebody and let it become an understanding that they feel comfortable advocating for someone else, that to me is an achievement. There's a need for advocates, and if I can pass that knowledge on, that's success.

I would absolutely be on board with it, but they would need to understand that it's a commitment. I'm very good at reading people and their intentions, and they have to be doing it for the right reason. There are a lot of advocates that take money and don't do anything to help, they just leave families there. So it's a commitment to these families and these parents, and it's very time-consuming and gets very emotionally draining. Even though it's not your family, any case that I have, I put myself right in their shoes. I work so hard on the case that everything they feel, I feel as well. You have to be able to put that aside, especially if you have kids and a family of your own. You have to still be a parent. You can't let it take the life out of you and stress you out to the point where you can't be the parent that you need to be or the wife or whatever your situation is when you're not working as an advocate. I consider TPR as a death penalty, especially for mothers. It's very important to understand what you're getting into and be committed for the right reasons.

The biggest problem is that there's no federal oversight of state CPS agencies. In 1996, under Bill Clinton, they changed one word in the legislation - instead of saying they 'shall' have 11 board members for the ABCAN Committee, it says they 'may.' Ever since then, it's become dormant. There's only the secretary, which is Robert Kennedy right now because he's head of HHS. That's a major problem because how do you keep track and know if they're following these laws, if they're in compliance or not, when they're the ones reporting on themselves? You can't. The last reports the ABCAN committee created in 1995 called it a national emergency. They knew exactly what was happening today and mentioned it in their report. There's a big problem there, and I have a bill that I'm bringing to Washington this fall. Instead of the same ABCAN committee, because times have changed with AI, algorithms, and predictive analysis, I believe people that have dealt with the system - foster children who have aged out, parents, people with lived experience - should be part of the committee along with lawyers, doctors, and social workers. You have to have people with first-hand experience.

I believe every person deserves to be heard, every child deserves protection, and every parent deserves due process. A lot of times due process is not granted to them in these proceedings. Every government agency must hold some type of accountability to the laws and constitutional principles that govern it, and that's very rare. Family is very important to me - I come from a big family, my kids' best friends are their cousins, they see their grandma all the time. You take a child and put them with strangers and cut them off from everything they've known for all their life, that's very traumatizing. I will stand up for what's right and for what my heart says is right. It's hard for me when people in politics don't speak out even when they feel something is wrong because it goes against what they're supposed to say. I'm the opposite - I will stand up for what's right. I wish this work was recognized more and understood as a very in-demand field that is necessary because these cases are behind closed doors and many people don't know what happens.