CASA seeks volunteers for Black History Month
Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Texas has launched a campaign to recruit more African-American volunteers throughout the state. Currently, more than 30% of children in foster care are African-American yet, 92% of CASA volunteers are of other ethnicities. The campaign reaches out to churches and community leaders statewide to help raise awareness for the children CASA represents and to encourage African-Americans to step up to the challenge. Most children relate best to adults who look like them and are familiar with their culture.
CASA volunteers watch over and speak up for abused and neglected children to make sure they don't get lost in the overburdened legal and social service systems or languish in the foster care system. Each volunteer is appointed to advocate for one child or set of siblings so he or she can get to know the child or sibling group and what the children's current and future needs are. The volunteers commit to staying with each child until he or she is placed in a safe, permanent home and the case is closed. For many abused children, their CASA volunteer is the one constant in their lives and often, the one adult who cares only for them.
Texas CASA has 69 local programs in its network working to ensure that every child who needs an advocate to speak for his or her best interests before the courts has a caring, trained adult to help them with this difficult period of his or her life.
"What we really like is to have our volunteers mirror our children in foster care who we are advocating for. Right now that is not happening. That's not to say an Anglo volunteer can't do a good job with an African-American child, but oftentimes it would be so important for the volunteer to be able to be that role model so [the child] can see somebody who looks like them who is doing well in life and is able to give. It's very encouraging for them."
—Susan Etheridge, executive director of CASA of Collin County
To get more information on becoming one of the 7,000 volunteers advocating for our state's abused or neglected children, visit the Texas CASA volunteer page.
