The Chief Judge of the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, the Honorable Janine Saxe (left), administering the oath to the November 2014 class of Fairfax CASA Volunteers Photo courtesy of Fairfax CASA
Since 1989, Fairfax Court Appointed Special Advocate Volunteers have advocated for over 6,500 abused and neglected children in Fairfax County. Known as Fairfax CASA, the nonprofit organization has been working hard to accomplish their ultimate goal: ensuring that each individual child’s needs are identified and addressed with the goal of living in a “safe and permanent home.”
The first CASA Program was founded in 1977 in Seattle, Wash., by Judge David Soukup. Today, over 900 CASA programs are in operation across the nation and 27 of them are in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Virginia’s first CASA program began in 1986 and since then over 82,700 children in Virginia have had a CASA advocate on their behalf. In the last 26 years, Fairfax CASA has trained and supervised over 1,500 volunteers.
Darcy Cunningham, executive director of Fairfax CASA, said the organization has five major duties: investigate, monitor, report back to the Fairfax Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, assist the Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) and report allegations of abuse and neglect to the Department of Family Services.
CASA volunteers are granted unprecedented access to a child’s case through court orders and are expected to provide information to the judges, which is used to make difficult decisions. For this reason, CASAs are often nicknamed “the eyes and ears of the court.”
“Our volunteers are typically assigned one case,” said Mindy Stewart, director of Volunteer Recruitment/Marketing and Supervisor at Fairfax CASA. “They track and follow that family until the case is closed by the court.”
BY LIMITING the CASA volunteer to one family at a time, the volunteers are able to focus on details and dig deep into what is going on, according to Cunningham.
“It helps the process and it really provides the court with additional information,” she said. “The CASA volunteer is able to focus on that one case, sharing information and really helping to make sure that the child doesn’t fall through the cracks.”
Fairfax CASA volunteers are average citizens. Many are retired or are professionals currently working in different fields, and they usually have no background in child welfare. Many of them are long-term volunteers as well, having served for nearly or more than 10 years.
Bob Stewart has been volunteering at Fairfax CASA for 14 years.
“I think my favorite part about volunteering is the opportunity to help kids and their families,” he said in the CASA Volunteer Spotlight Video. “I also have some respect for the judges and the fact that what we’re doing is helpful to the judges as well.”
Fairfax CASA looks for volunteers with the ability to commit to their cases, flexibility, open-mindedness and objectivity. In addition, volunteers must have strong oral and written communication skills, as their written reports are “a professional document that becomes a permanent part for the child’s record.”
“Judges use the report and read the report in order to help them make life-altering decisions for the kids in our cases,” Mindy Stewart said.
Once accepted as volunteers, they must complete at least 35 hours of training before they can be assigned to a case.
The children are usually under 18 years of age. Fairfax CASA serves approximately 400 children a year. Last year, 34 percent of the total children they served were under the age of 5 years old.
The children in the cases volunteers are assigned to are in situations where court intervention has become necessary: the children are no longer safe in their homes. Last year, 85 percent of the children Fairfax CASA advocated for were placed in some type of a foster care placement, meaning they had been removed from their homes. Cases include physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse, as well as difficulties with substance abuse and mental health issues.
“Different people have different ways of parenting,” Cunningham said. “You cannot come into this with this pre-determined sense of, or feeling of, ‘this is how it should be’ and ‘this is how it will be.’ You have to recognize that we are dealing with families. Each one is different.”
THE NUMBER of abused and neglected children in Fairfax County remains steady each year, according to Cunningham. However, the number of cases before the court has gone down over the last few years, as the Department of Family Services has worked diligently to provide services and support to families before a crisis occurs that requires court intervention.
Mindy Stewart said Fairfax CASA is lucky to practice their work in Fairfax County because the county is rich in resources for the children and families.
“I just have felt for a very long time,” Bob Stewart said in the video. “that CASA has done as much for me as I have done for it and I think its value flows both ways.”
Keeping their mission phrase - “advocating and ensuring safe and permanent homes” – in mind, Cunningham and Mindy Stewart continue to work in supporting the children they serve and to recruit more volunteers.
Fairfax CASA will hold an information session for prospective volunteers, Saturday, Sept. 19 at 9:30 a.m. at Patrick Henry Library. For more information and RSVP, visit http://www.fairfaxcasa.org.