CASA - Court Appointed Special Advocates For Children
 

Is anyone here a CASA volunteer (Court Appointed Special Advocates For Children http://www.nationalcasa.org/index.asp )? After much prayer and soul searching, I've decided to become one. I just so tired of reading stories about how children are just abused and degraded as if they are nothing but trash, but when in fact they are a gift from God. Hopefully, I won't be crying all the time. lol

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has done this before and if so, what has your experience been like.

Thanks in advance for sharing!

Congratulations, Honeykiss!!

I fixed your link because the ")?" carried over.

Congratulations, HK74, ...do your thang.

Way to go Honeykiss!

I have a friend who is a guardian ad litem and she loves it. It actually brings her more joy than tears.

Kudos to you, Honeykiss!! :cool: :)

Congrats HoneyKiss!

My mom has been a CASA volunteer for about a year. She got involved after she read about the program in an article. Right now she's working with a young girl who's parents are going through a divorce, and helping the mother get parenting skills and go to classes. She really enjoys it.

It's great that programs like that exist.....the child needs a voice and I can imagine how frustrating it must be for a small one, with everything in chaos around them and feeling like he or she has no voice.

You go girl!

I submitted my application last week, I just felt the need to. A friend of mine introduced me to the program and I can't wait to hear back from CASA. At first I was a bit reluctant due to my tie constraints, but I just had to offer what I could. I'm looking forward to it, but I know this will affect me in some way.

In the past I was a Big Sister to a young girl and became close with the rest of her (6) siblings. Something happened where I couldn't see them anymore and that tore the children and me to pieces.

Oh snap, thanks everyone for the support and well wishes. I'm praying that I am accepted. I was worrying that it may interfere with my job (because I do work a lot of hours especially in the summer) but I feel like things will work themselves out. They say it requires about 10 hours a month so I can handle that.

I'm excited. :) Hopefully I will not want to adopt every child I come in contact with! lol

This is an excerpt from their site that found very interesting so if anyone else is thinking about volunteering, here is a good reason too...

Overwhelmingly, African-American and Hispanic/Latino children are overrepresented in the child welfare system. In fact, African-Americans represent only 15% of the total population but make up 34% of the children in the foster care system. Of all CASA volunteers, currently only 12% are African-American. With more than 50% of the African-American children in need being boys, we have a special need for more men to stand up and be counted as everyday heroes and role models in the lives of these future men.

Visit our African-American dedicated site http://www.nationalcasa.org/aao/

Honeykiss1974, please keep us posted on yoru progress and I will keep everyone posted on mines as well. I'm looking forward to this.

HK and ScholarOn,

bless you!

Honeykiss, you are wonderful! I wish we had more people standing up for kids

You might know this, but CASA is the main philanthropy of Kappa Alpha Theta

My sister volunteers through CASA and she enjoys it thoroughly!

What a wonderful program. I may have to get involved, once this grad school thang is over!

Bless those of you who take this on. It's a responsibility, and it takes a special person. Good for you!