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CASA of El Dorado County
Photo by Dante Fontana
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One of life’s impossible truths is that thousands of abused and neglected children in this country – hundreds from our community – have been extracted from their homes, removed from their families and are part of an overburdened dependency and delinquency system.
They live in limbo and bounce from foster home to foster home while equally strained courts try to determine their best interests. Is reunification of the family possible, and if not, under whose custody will these children live until they “age out” of the system?
Wading these unpredictable waters is Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteers. Formed nationally in 1977 to provide court-appointed volunteer advocacy to abused and/or neglected children of all ages, CASA now operates a network of more than 1,050 community offices nationwide, including a local chapter in El Dorado County, first formed in 1992. Like its national counterparts, this CASA affiliate recruits, trains and supports volunteers to provide quality advocacy and consistency for children in the system – and a voice for them in court.
CASA of EDC, explains Executive Director John Adams, operates at an unequaled level of effectiveness and efficiency despite significant fiscal limitations and staffing shortfalls. “We are the gold standard,” he says. “I always tell people that we have a good news story to tell.” In 2009, for example, CASA of EDC produced David and Goliath-like statistics. That year the organization served 70 percent of all children in the local court system – “twice the state median average, at a cost per child, less than half the median state average.”
