SOLUTION TO MINIMIZE SUFFERINGS OF NEGLECTED & ABUSED CHILDREN – COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES (CASA)
A country’s neglected and abused children are the most vulnerable class of society. Unfortunately, most countries’ court systems are not enough to provide necessary help which is needed to minimize their sufferings and cannot handle a large number of abused & neglected children. Most countries child protection bureaus do not address even 1% of the abused & neglected children of that country which leaves hundreds of thousands of these children with no help.
We would like to bring your attention to an excellent initiative “CASA – court appointed special advocates” which has almost become a mandatory procedure in US court proceedings to protect these children’s best interests. CASA was initiated about thirty years ago by a U.S. judge with a very sincere and simple thought to have an unbiased representative for each child in and outside of the court who makes recommendations to the judge based on the child’s best interest. As everyone represents themselves in court but unfortunately the main subject matter has mostly no unbiased representation, CASA is the voice of the child in & outside of the courtroom. This program has proven to be immensely successful and has helped hundreds of thousands of children since launch in the United States and some other countries. This program is that good that we believe that every town in US should have a local chapter and other countries should also see how to adopt either this program or something similar to this. The following information provides additional help for any country that may want to initiate a program like CASA.
No Burden to Government – Civil and Civic Partnership
CASA program is run mostly by trained volunteers who provide advocacy to the child and report to the judge for the best outcome of the child. This program does not require too much funding from the government as it is mostly self-funded once established and can make a huge impact in the lives of neglected & abused children in any country. Matter of fact, no government alone can support that many neglected children and thus a good combination of government agencies and citizens’ partnerships where trained local volunteers work hand to hand with agencies in each locality is the best mechanism to bring actual change to the society. Abused & neglected children get volunteers who are there to assist them both inside and outside of the court and country gets the volunteers who create awareness and involved citizens which improves the overall society. Volunteering is not just made for the first world countries; Indonesia ranks the highest in the world in volunteering.
The main goal of every CASA volunteer is to learn about the actual cause behind the child grievance and assist judges to implement court orders that can help fix those grievances to reunite families wherever possible or find the the best option for the child. Poverty, drugs, mental illness, multiple marriages, separations and other similar factors are mostly the main causes of abuse and neglect of children. Once CASA volunteer identifies the actual cause of the child grievance and recommends to the judge the best possible future option for the child, the court can issue the orders to implement such recommendations e.g. stay orders for a violent relative, monetary assistance for deserving families, therapy options, counseling, giving a supervised chance to caregivers etc. CASA volunteer and an informed judge can reunite the families in most cases or find a solution which is best for the child.
How CASA volunteer works?
- Child is rescued or identified & matter comes to the child protection court.
- Court requests CASA volunteer on the case and empowers CASA volunteer with court order to assist child & get all related information about the child and other related parties including parents, guardians, school, neighbors, doctors etc. CASA local chapter assigns a volunteer to child.
- CASA volunteer visits and gathers all the information about the child and the case, learns about the child and related parties and immediately visits the child to provide comfort. Provides assurance to the child that volunteer is there for the child and child is not alone.
- Engages with the child during unannounced or announced visits and provide assurance, provides comfort and confidence to the child. Fills the gap created by others to restore the child’s confidence and minimizes the damage to the child. Make it known to others that the child is not alone anymore.
- Prepares factual reports to support recommendations for the judge.
- Collaborate with others to ensure child and/or others associated with the child are being provided the best outside services e.g. medical, psychological, counseling, educational, monetary etc.
- Report to the court what is the best & safest option for the child for long-term and other necessary recommendations.
- Court issues court orders to all parties based on all the factors including CASA’s recommendations. In most cases, judges rely on CASA’s recommendations to make decisions.
- CASA keeps in touch with the child as long as child and CASA volunteer wants and plays as a role model and mentor for the child.
Watch CASA Volunteer Explains Her Role https://youtu.be/0xw1EaaKlGY | Watch Court Proceeding with CASA in Action https://youtu.be/BqyKmZaodzk |
CASA can Bring Real Change in A Society
The real change in a country can only come when the citizens are involved in bringing the change. It is practically impossible that government alone can bring the change to the lives of masses unless the masses are involved in bringing the change to themselves. When citizens engage with the volunteer work, it helps not only the victims & projects but essentially it engages, educates and enhances the overall society. Volunteering is the best mechanism to involve citizens and can tremendously help any country or leadership who wants to bring the change in the society. The change brought with the involvement of citizens is real change which is permanent and society keeps enhancing as the volunteering roots get deeper.
CASA Organizational Model:
CASA consists of mainly board members, SPCs, PCs and advocates.
Board Members: Influential unpaid advisors from different backgrounds who provide leadership.
Senior Peer Coordinators (SPCs): Paid staff members who coach PCs. Each SPC becomes subject matter expert on one or more special subjects e.g. (older youth, infants, psychiatric evaluation etc.). SPCs are usually salaried full time employees and work from one central office.
Peer Coordinators: Unpaid (basic stipend to cover basic expenses) experienced volunteer Advocates. First SPCs work with Advocates and eventually promote good & experienced advocates to PCs. PCs are part time and give 10 to 20 hours per week and work from home. PCs have the option to work from CASA office occasionally.
Advocates (Volunteers): CASA advocates working directly with children.
One CASA Office Total Impact (with 5 SPCs): 1 SPC manages 10-15 PCs, 1 PC manages 5-10 advocates, 1 Advocate manages 2 to 5 children. Taking avg. numbers, it means that an office of 5 SPCs x 12 PCc each (60 total PCs) x 8 Advocates each (480 Advocates) x 3 children each (1440 total children). Total impact is 1440 children from 1 small office of 5 SPCs. Can you see the impact by only 5 full time staff members that is almost 1500 children each year? We can change the lives of millions.
Step 1: Make first CASA successful:
First step is to make the first CASA successful in your country. Get some like-minded people with good track record who can serve as board members. This group establishes first CASA office in collaboration with local juvenile court and child protection bureau. Board members manage and make the first CASA office successful, this CASA office will become the national headquarter for the CASA.
Step 2: CASA Headquarter in Every City
All child protection & welfare offices throughout the country initiate the main CASA city offices in every city or major rural area of your country. The goal of the city office is to initiate the funding drive, open CASA town offices in every town and provide training to the CASA town office employees (SPCs), hire volunteer advocates, work with the courts and manage & keep accountability of the town offices & volunteers. It is very important to have strict standards & accountability for the volunteers and the people involved. City offices can be started between 3 to 5 employees. Government should assist CASA in national marketing campaigns just as major franchises run their marketing and every local franchise gets benefit out of it.
Step 3: Self-Funded Town Office in Every Town
Associations like CASA should get government grants & support for collecting donations and running fundraisers. City offices should be partially supported by the government but all the town offices should be fully funded through donations, fundraisers and run on their own. There are more than 1000 CASA offices in the United States who run mainly through donations and fundraisers without putting any burden to the government. Every town office should have 3 to 5 full-time employees (SPCs) who perform the same activities as city office but at the town level and their main goal should be to hire, engage and train as many qualified volunteers as possible. Usually, one volunteer should give about 10 hours of their time per month on an average basis so one volunteer should be assigned a maximum of 2 to 5 cases at one time. These cases can take months so the goal should be that each town has at least 50 to 100 volunteers. All volunteers should go through background checks, fingerprinting checks, application and interview process. All volunteers should be given detailed training involving at least 30 hours of training classes, 6 hours of actual court proceedings etc. and should work under an experienced CASA town employee for guidance.
Step 4: Accountability
The program should be supervised strictly by Board Members & some outside well respected individuals such as retired judges, attorneys, professionals who can keep the accountability of volunteers and keep this organization to the highest levels of ethics and standards. As we are connecting the volunteers to the victims, it is extremely important that sufferings of victims are reduced and not enhanced so strict accountability, monitoring and standards are in place.
Step 5: Expand this Concept to other Victim Groups
Once this model is successful, we should expand the same government and civic partnership model to other similar areas where the victims are not able to represent them well such as domestic violence matters, sexual abuse, widows, senior citizens, drug related matters and so on.
Please note that we are not associated with the U.S. CASA organization in any way. The main purpose of this document is to bring your attention towards a success story which has made a real difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in the United States and showing an opportunity to implement CASA in your community or to start something similar to this in your country. There is plenty of good material on the web (google, youtube etc.) which can be used to educate yourself and others on the procedures and successes of CASA U.S. The exhibits and videos provided here belong to CASA U.S.