Abused and neglected children need more than the foster care and child welfare system can provide.
• A six-year-old girl rescued from an abusive father only to be bounced around to eight foster homes and six different schools over the course of two years.
• Four children separated from one another and placed in different locations after their mother abandoned them.
• A young boy prescribed 12 different psychotropic medicines by healthcare professionals who have limited access to his medical records or ability to follow-up on his care.
• A teenage girl kicked out of her foster home, and forced to sleep on a cot in the hallway of a group home until she turned 18—when all her possessions were handed to her in a garbage bag as she was officially “aged out” of the system.
These are not isolated stories. They are everyday realities of children in the foster care and child welfare system. A system full of devoted and deeply caring people that is simply too overburdened and under resourced to protect the rights and needs of vulnerable children.
CASA Volunteers
The solution is a CASA volunteer—a specially trained advocate, appointed by a judge, who fights for the rights of children during the most vulnerable time of their young lives. A trusted adult empowered to ensure that each child is well cared for—able to find a safe, loving, permanent home. But 60 percent of the children who need a CASA volunteer do not have one. Almost half a million children in the United States don’t have the hope a CASA volunteer can offer.
Every child in the foster care and child welfare system should have a CASA volunteer. You can help us in this quest by providing the critical financial support, by becoming a CASA volunteer yourself, or by letting us know we can rely upon you when critical policy decisions are being made.
CASA for Children is one place where a single individual—you—can make all the difference.