GET INVOLVED

Court-appointed guardians help kids in need.

While studying late one night, Monica Offredi (BBA ’03) heard a television ad that changed her life.

“It was about an organization that needed guardians to help children,” said Offredi, who works as a loan officer in a commercial bank.

She called the number, and thus began her involvement in the Florida Guardian ad Litem program.

Guardians assemble information about abused, neglected, or at-risk children for use by the court and other interested parties. They meet with the children every two weeks, serving as constants as they move through the legal system and into a safe environment. Every three to six months, the guardian appears in court before the judge.

“We get to speak first, even before the lawyers,” Offredi said. “The judges really value our observations because they know that we are doing this because we really want to, not because we are being paid.”

Offredi is helping students in the College of Business Administration get involved, too, in part through a special topics course, taught by Robert Hogner (“Dr. Bob”) associate professor of management and international business and coordinator of the College's Civic Engagement Initiative. The course has a community service requirement.

“We were trying to find an avenue for students to get involved in the community, so we created a special topics course,” said Malcolm Vivian, graduate assistant for the Civic Engagement Initiative. “The course has a reading requirement—The Good Society by Robert Bella—and a writing requirement, but its main focus is to encourage and enable student involvement. The Guardian ad Litem project has been very successful.”

About fifteen students are working in the program and the organization has strengthened its ties to Florida International University.

Guardians go through training and, thanks to this stronger relationship between the organization and the university, university students can get the training right on campus. Sessions are offered every month on the weekend: six hours on two Saturdays and two Sundays is all it takes.

“We’re small, but we’re growing,” Offredi said. “We welcome not only undergraduate students, but also family members of university students.”

For more information about how to get started, call 305-638-6861 or go to www.guardianadlitem.org.