VOLUNTEER

What is a CASA volunteer?

CASAs are Court Appointed Special Advocates. They are community members from all walks of life with a common pledge to dedicate about ten hours a month towards helping a child in the foster care system.

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Find your local CASA program to attend an information session and see how to become a CASA volunteer in your community. Fill out this contact form to reach out to your program today.

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Children and youth with a CASA volunteer are more likely to…

  • Receive needed services in a timely manner

  • Be enrolled in the appropriate educational setting

  • Participate in extracurricular activities

  • Have long-term connections to siblings, relatives, or other support people

  • Be on track to graduate high school on time

  • Enroll in post secondary education

  • Be placed in a permanent home two months faster that children without a CASA volunteer

CASA volunteers are recruited and trained by CASA programs in each county and are sworn in by a Juvenile Court judge. They fulfill a unique role to an abused and neglected child as they are one of the only adults who stay with them through their journey through the system. Kids may be moved from home to home, courtroom to courtroom, and even school to school. Their CASA volunteer is there through it all, showing them that there are caring individuals who care about them.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is an American pediatrician who was named as the state’s first ever Surgeon General in 2019 by California Governor Gavin Newsom. She has dedicated much of her career to informing the public about toxic stress that children experience and how it impacts health outcomes throughout a lifetime. 51% of the children in the child welfare system who have taken the ACEs questionnaire (Adverse Childhood Experience) have had four or more “adverse experiences” like neglect, domestic violence, parental mental illness, and substance abuse compared to only 13% of those outside of the foster care system. Burke and other specialists remind us that one of the most important components in fighting a high ACEs score is building resilience in children.

A CASA volunteer is the foundation of this resilience, a chance at a brighter future no matter the past.

Five key actions of a CASA volunteer

  • Advocate: Speak up for the best interest of a child

  • Support: Provide a stable and caring relationship

  • Investigate: Gather important information about situations in the life of the child

  • Report: Organize and present details to a judge and caregiver team

  • Recommend: Offer ideas for improvement in the best interest of the child

This heartwarming song was gifted to California CASA Association by Denis Loiseau, an award-winning songwriter and former California CASA board member who was inspired to write it by a true CASA story, and Irish songwriter collaborator Maurice Byrne. Thank you to our partners on this project: Walter S. Johnson Foundation, Tea Time Entertainment, Twenty Twenty Studios, and Gardiner Music Mentoring.

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?” 

— Martin Luther King, Jr.