The Court Appointed Special Advocates are about building a relationship with a child who has suffered from abuse or neglect in their home while the child’s parents receive help"‹

DIXON, CA (MPG) - The young couple both had a history of homelessness and drug abuse but had got married and started attending a church in an effort to straighten out their lives. But, when the man lost his job, it didn’t take long for his ‘friends’ to influence him back into an addictive lifestyle, chaos and crime and ultimately their two children were taken under guardianship while they both entered programs for parenting. One can imagine the impact on the young children to be taken away from their home by an order of the court.

In 1977 there was a judge who had to decide the fate of some children and was troubled by the decisions he needed to make. He said, “I don’t know these children.” That was the beginning of a nation-wide movement among judges and attorneys who started working on a plan within the court system to do a better job taking care of children whose parents have not.

CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates and is a program that trains volunteers to spend 12 hours a month with a child--that is three hours a week talking to them and getting to know them so that they can file a report with the court so the judge can be told more about the children and their situation before making any ruling.

There are people who have a heart for children and some especially gracious people who open their homes to foster children who aren’t theirs, but CASA is not about foster care or even adoption. The Court Appointed Special Advocates are about building a relationship with a child who has suffered from abuse or neglect in their home while the child’s parents receive help.

“This isn’t about being a Disneyland Dad; it’s about quality one-on-one time,” said Candy Pierce, Executive Director for CASA. “Every year about 500 children come into foster care in Solano County and of those, at least half need a CASA volunteer. Currently, we have 125 volunteers. There is a great need for more. We serve a lot of children, but we haven’t served enough children.” There are children from all seven cities in the county in the program who are suffering from abuse or neglect. While the goal is to get the child back to the parents, it is also to protect the child. Parents may need services to have their children returned to their care, but the children also have a need for services to help deal with their trauma and other challenges. Often what is truly needed for the child is learned by a CASA volunteer.

CASA volunteers are exceptionally well-trained, Pierce said, as they go through 40 hours of training and some of that is done by the judges themselves.

“Volunteers are actually sworn in front of a judge and become officers of the court so they can review the children’s files and the court cases involved. They can talk to everyone in a child’s life,” Pierce added.

The statistics are that when a foster child “ages out of the foster care system without a support system within three years, they are more likely to become homeless, incarcerated, or on welfare,” she said but noted a law passed in 2012 helped with some of the outcomes for foster children as it extended foster care to 21 years of age.

CASA is central to fulfilling society’s most fundamental obligation by making sure a qualified, compassionate adult will fight to protect a child’s right to be safe, to be treated with dignity and respect, and to learn and grow in the security of a loving family, she said.

There is an orientation on the first Wednesday of every month. The organization has a volunteer Board that helps put on fundraising and awareness events. They are also looking for volunteers to serve on the Board. For more information, call (707) 421-CASA (2272).