CHILD ADVOCATES OF PLACER COUNTY
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Mission Statement
Our mission is to be the bridge between the most vulnerable in our community and volunteers who make a difference.
About This Cause
Child Advocates of Placer County received its 501(c)3 non-profit status in March 2004, with the purpose of establishing a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program for the Placer County Juvenile Court. Over time, we realized that to address the needs of the child without also taking into account the needs of the parents often made change difficult. To address this, we created our Family Mentor and Prosper Placer programs, which serve the children through a “Whole-Family Approach.” Our four volunteer-driven programs are: 1. Placer Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), which trains community volunteers to be Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) and assigns these CASAs to children in foster care (ages 0-18). CASA volunteers are often called “the eyes and ears of the judge and the voice of the child” in Dependency court. 2. BE BOLD Youth Program, which provides additional training to a subset of CASA volunteers and then assigns them to foster and at-risk youth who have been victims of sex trafficking, youth involved in the juvenile justice system, and high needs/high risk foster youth whose needs exceed that of what a regular CASA volunteer could handle. 3. Family Mentors, which trains CASAs to work one-on-one with parents who are striving to rebuild their families. Many of the women in Family Mentors are residing with their children in Transitional Housing settings. The Family Monitor is there to guide them through the process to financial stability and independence. 4. Prosper Placer, which connects volunteers with families who are stable but live at or below the poverty level and are trying to achieve “middle class.” In collaboration with twelve local churches of varying denominations, this secular program brings together volunteers and parents as a group to develop an intentional community of support, where volunteers can help families create SMART goals and help them achieve those goals by sharing their knowledge, connections and friendship. Annually, our 250 volunteers serve about 300 foster children in Dependency, 50 youth in Delinquency court, 40 youth involved in sex trafficking, 50 at-risk parents through our Family Mentor program, and 25 families through Prosper Placer Our goal for the next three years is to continue to grow our new and existing programs by increasing the number of volunteers we train each year. Since November 2019 we have been expanding our marketing efforts through social media, TV and radio. As a result, we are on track to train over 100 CASA volunteers in 2020 (up from 85 in 2019). Our goal is to increase that to 130 new CASAs annually by 2022. PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS: CASA: CASAs are assigned to children and youth in foster care through court orders. As sworn Officers of the Court, CASAs are able to advocate in court on behalf of the child. CASAs also mentor the youth, and the resulting friendships often develop into long-term connections between the CASA, the youth, and the youth's family/caregivers. CASA volunteers meet weekly with their assigned foster youth, conduct interviews with associated parties to the action (parents, social workers, teachers, therapists, service providers, etc.), review court documents, and (with our assistance) develop court reports stating the child’s situation, the child’s wishes, and recommendations for court actions that are in the child’s best interests. As former Juvenile Court Judge Francis Kearney, says, “CASA volunteers make a marked difference in the life of the most vulnerable children in the Juvenile Dependency and Delinquency Courts. It is heroic work.” Our goal is to help return these children safely to their parents, or barring that, to help place them in permanent homes with “forever families” through adoption or guardianship. A secondary goal is to help the youth deal with the trauma that accompanies entering the foster care system by providing them with “a different kind of adult" – one that is consistent, reliable, and caring. Since 2015 we have continued to provide CASA volunteers to between 80% and 90% of all foster children in Placer County. In 2015, at the request of then Juvenile Court Judge Frances Kearny, we expanded our CASA program to include youth who have been arrested and as a result are either in the Juvenile Detention Facility (JDF) or on probation. This continues today under Judge Colleen Nichols. As Judge Nichols has said, “The difference between these (delinquency) youth and foster youth is ‘Who got caught.’ In Delinquency Court, the kids were caught – in Dependency Court, it is the parents. In both cases, the family dynamics are often the same.” The role of the CASA in Delinquency Court is similar to that in Dependency Court, but with the ultimate goal of ensuring the youth successfully completes the terms of their probation. BE BOLD Youth Program- Most recently, we created BE BOLD as a collaboration with Placer County Probation, Children’s System of Care (CSOC), Placer District Attorney, Kids First and the Placer County Office of Education (PCOE) to work with youth who are victims of sex trafficking (known as Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, or CSEC). Youth involved in CSEC often feel that they do not have options in their lives and can’t see how to get their needs met. Without options, youth often feel that involvement in the CSEC lifestyle is the only way to get what they need even though they know the situation is not the best or safest for them. CSEC Youth also typically lack a strong connection to a mature, caring and supportive adult role model - a nonjudgmental adult in their life who can “meet them where they are,” demonstrate healthy mature relationships with same and opposite sex, and give them a safe person that they can rely on. Lastly, all youth crave a sense of community and family. Many CSEC youth seek this within the CSEC lifestyle. CASAs that serve CSEC youth meet more frequently with the girls in an effort to establish a bond before the girls run again, and to let them know that they have a pathway out of sex trafficking. In addition to one-on-one meetings, the CASAs and CSEC youth also meet monthly in small peer support groups. With this network of support, we hope the girls will make the decision to seek a safe passage out of trafficking and transition into a new life. Family Mentors - Our Family Mentor program draws on our pool of existing CASA volunteers and trains them to work with parents who are struggling to either reunify with their children who are in foster care, are in some form of transitional housing due to substance abuse or domestic violence, or are just struggling to hold their family together. These parents typically lack basic life skills and struggle with issues around health, education, housing, employment and transportation. They often see themselves at “rock-bottom” with little hope of rising out of the situation. For some of these parents, their children are at risk of being detained by the child welfare system (and when that happens, we assign a CASA to these foster children). Family Mentors and parents meet weekly, one-on-one, at the parent’s home (or placement). Together, they work on basic life skills – sometimes as simple as getting your child ready and off to school on time or learning how to shop for and cook meals. At the same time, the Family Mentor helps the parent identify barriers in their lives, and together they set goals to overcome the obstacles. Most importantly, Family Mentors become role models and friends, helping parents gain access to resources and the larger community in which they live. As one parent claimed, “My Family Mentor introduced me to people I never dreamed I’d meet – I was always so shy and embarrassed about my past. She helped me gain so much confidence!” Prosper Placer – All too often, as families begin to climb out of poverty, government and other support services start to drop off. As support dwindles, many parents, lacking the natural supports that healthy families enjoy (in the form of friends, neighbors, churches, etc.), slip back into poverty, become dependent on government assistance again, and the cycle repeats. In 2016, five Auburn area churches launched Prosper Placer as a secular program designed to address poverty at its holistic core — social, emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial – through education, goal setting, connection to opportunities, and advocating for needed services that are absent within the community. This program came under the Child Advocates 501c3 umbrella in 2017, and has now expanded into a collaboration with twelve local churches. Prosper Placer matches low-income families (“Change Leaders”) with 2 to 3 volunteer “Allies” who commit to working together for 18 to 24 months. Together they create an intentional community of support and work toward solutions that will improve access to jobs, health care, stable housing and education. The goal is to help families create SMART goals and form a plan to reach 150% of the poverty level in Placer County within two years. By living above the poverty line, families greatly lessen the chances that they will be victims of homelessness, addiction, mental illness, and violence. In 2018, we formed our first Latino cohort. Whereas our other cohorts focus on developing life skills and creating a community of support, the Latino cohorts focus more on issues around immigration, entrepreneurship and higher education. As part of this, we are now an affiliate partner with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. (CLINIC), which allows our staff member Frida Diaz to be a Department of Justice (DOJ) Accredited Representative who can collaborate with local attorneys and other organizations. As such, we are now able to provide Latino families with the following: • Know Your Rights Presentations, • Emergency Plan Preparedness, • DACA renewals/ DACA first time applications (pending on USCIS decision), and • Community Support Groups By providing this service to our Latino families, we are helping their children succeed and mature into responsible, self-sufficient adults.