CASA OF MARION COUNTY INC
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Mission Statement
We provide every child in need with trained volunteer advocates to ensure they are safe, have a permanent home and the opportunity to thrive.
About This Cause
We are a community owned, volunteer driven and staff supported organization. It is our vision that every child in foster care due to abuse and neglect will have a voice and be appointed a CASA. With our actions we have the ability to tell every child that their story will not end like this...they will thrive, be safe and grow up in a loving and permanent home. Children enter foster care as a result of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect, as well as exposure to their caregivers' substance abuse, mental illness, homelessness, domestic violence, criminal activity, and other traumatizing experiences. Foster care constitutes an adverse childhood experience, which can have far-reaching impacts on children's cognitive and physical development. We also know that Black, Indigenous, and LGTBQIA+ children are disproportionately placed in care, and employ culturally-specific practices to our work. When a child is placed in custody, the child enters a maze of strangers: social workers, therapists, police, foster parents, judges, and more. Each person in this child's life has a specific role to play in ensuring the child's safety. Assignment of a CASA volunteer ensures that a trained, compassionate adult will fight for and protect a child's right to be safe, to be treated with dignity and respect, and to learn and grow in the security of a loving family. CASA uses trauma-informed practices to build rapport with children. As legal parties to the case, we have the authority to review medical records, police reports, school report cards, and mental health records. We speak to the child's medical and behavioral healthcare providers, teachers, foster parents, faith leaders, and others so that we can get to know the child's emotional, psychological, and behavioral health needs. After meeting with the child directly, we advocate for the child's individual needs in court. We check with the child's doctors on prescription medication, such as anti-depressants and other prescriptions. A child may move from one foster home to another, and have a revolving door of lawyers, DHS caseworkers, and others come and go. At CASA, it is our job to get to know the child better than anyone--better than the foster parent, the lawyers, the teachers, the judges, and so on. Our goal is to create safety and opportunity for children to thrive. The CASA is often the only person who truly knows the child and knows how the child is really doing. National data indicates that foster care children with CASA volunteers are more likely to receive therapy, health care and education, more likely to do better in school, less likely to be bounced from one home to another, less likely to get stuck in long-term foster care, and significantly more likely to reach safe, permanent homes.