Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) came to Cass County in 1995 through Family Court Judge Susan Dobrich of Dowagiac.
“She has been a very, very great advocate of our program since its inception,” Director James Ward told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889. The first volunteers were trained in 1997.
Despite being a small, rural county, at any given time there are 125 or more children in foster care who have been removed from their homes – often to other counties, but they remain wards of the Cassopolis court system.
Eighteen active volunteers advocate for 32 children. The “magic number” is “somewhere in the middle” of 32 and 125.
Youths placed in foster care “age out” at 18.
“We’re also looking for diversity in our next group of volunteers,” Ward said. “We need more men. We’ve got a lot of teen-age boys who would relate to a man who could help them and guide them. We need African Americans. And we need Native Americans.”
Contact him by e-mail at casscocasa@yahoo.com or by telephone at (269) 445-4431.
As for effectiveness, Ward says CASA research shows involvement of one of its volunteers with a child, “That child will spend less time in court and in foster care. There’s a better chance of finding a permanent home because the CASA volunteer has the time and skills to look out for that child. They also have access to more community services because they study them in the training itself.”
“If you’re looking for immediate rewards,” CASA would be the wrong place to volunteer, Ward cautions. “Each case takes about 18 months and they don’t’ always work out as well as we’d like them to. They don’t all end up in safe, permanent homes. If you’re a ‘my way or the highway’ guy, you might have trouble. You have to be strong because there’s a lot of emotional stress in this job. For the first three months I was the CASA director, I’d just drive through the community and shake my head at having known for the first time in 59 years what was going on around me.”
Ward spoke as the guest of Rotarian and CASA volunteer Sonja Smith.
“He has roots in Cass County,” she said. “His family has had summer property here since 1938. He was in the insurance industry for 35 years in regional management and marketing throughout the Midwest. He came back to this area in 2006″ and is nearing his one-year anniversary as director in July. He volunteered for CASA, SCORE business mentors and the Diamond Lake Association. His two daughters still live in Columbus, Ohio, where Ward and his wife lived before moving to Cassopolis.
Nationally, 720,000 children in the United States are wards of the court because “of something their parents did, which is primarily not taking care of them. They find themselves in the child welfare maze, surrounded by a lot of strangers who are caseworkers, social workers, policemen and foster parents. There are 68,000 CASA workers, volunteers appointed by a judge to watch over the children and to advocate for 240,000 children every year who have been abused or neglected. There are over a thousand programs. We’ve helped over 2 million abused children since the inception of CASA in 1977,” Ward said. “They stay with the case until it’s closed,” which differentiates a CASA from a caseworker, employed by the state who works with 30 to 40 children at a time.
Caseworkers can be reassigned at any time, so the CASA can become the one constant in a child’s life while others come and go.
CASAs develop fact-based information through interviews about the child, who is never taken to the volunteer’s home.
The CASA makes recommendations to the judge who swore them in while developing a “support system” for the child.
CASAs represent the child’s “best interests,” but are independent, which gave them more continuity than other elements of the system.
“There is only one mission in the CASA organization,” Ward said, “and that’s to find a safe, permanent home as quickly as possible.”
Three outcomes can be expected, though reunification with biological parents rarely occurs. Another is adoption. Third, finding a permanent home that fulfills their needs.
Ward characterized CASAs as “team players” who work alongside attorneys, state Department of Human Services (DHS) caseworkers, therapists and the judge. “We gather information together and make our recommendations,” he said.
It takes a considerable time commitment, which Ward said CASA tries to “never sugar-coat” so volunteers don’t walk away after undergoing 35 to 40 hours of classroom instruction spread over four to five weeks in 10 sessions, plus eight to 12 hours a month after the initial training.
“It’s a big chunk with homework and reading, but it’s over after a month,” he said. “The monthly commitment is that you usually see your child two or three times a month. Initially, you have investigative work to do, looking at all the circumstances surrounding the child. You may be interviewing parents, school teachers and counselors and aunts and uncles.”
Cass County CASA is structured as a stand-alone, 501(c)3 non-profit.
Thirty percent of its funds come from county, state and federal government, 20 percent from community foundations such as St. Denys, Gateway and United Way, and 50 percent from private fundraising.
Past fundraisers have been consolidated into the third annual CASAblanca coming up July 25 at Southwestern Michigan College Mathews Conference Center East.
The live and silent auction took place the first year at Orchard Hills Country Club and last year at Dowagiac Elks. “We outgrew this room,” he said. “We need room for 200 or more guests. Dinner is provided by eight restaurants who have donated their specialties. We’ve put all our eggs in this one basket.