A group of staff members and volunteers for CASA gathered at 11:45 am Tuesday at the Brown County Courthouse to kick off the 20th anniversary of CASA in our area. CASA in the Heart of Texas trained their first advocates, and began serving children in the foster care system, 20 years ago this month.
“We are doing kickoff events in each of our three counties. We basically just want to start the celebration of our 20th anniversary through this campaign that’s going to last throughout the year, said Michelle Wells, Executive Director of CASA in the Heart of Texas (shown in the photo).
“We’re trying to gain support from individuals and others in the community who can help us reach our vision which is to serve all of the children in our service area that need us,” Wells said.
CASA in the Heart of Texas serves Brown, Comanche and Mills counties. Last year CASA served 104 children which, Wells said, is about 30% of the children they could have served based on the number of children who are in care.
“We’re needing to grow our volunteer base so that we can serve more children,” Wells said. “Go onto our website, which is casabrownwood.org, and the application is actually there. You complete the application and some background check forms and get those to us. We begin the background check process and then we have a Pre-training interview. If you’re accepted into the training class then the training lasts about 6 to 8 weeks, eight sessions done through a combination of virtual and in-person,” Wells said. At the end of the training, CASA volunteers are sworn-in by the court and cases can then be assigned to them.
The special speaker was retired District Judge Steve Ellis. (shown above)
“CASA is a voice for children who are the subjects of abuse and neglect and they are literally a voice for children in courts that are dealing with what to do with their living situation,” Ellis said.
He spoke about how CASA got started, the need for it in Brown County and thanked the CASA volunteers in attendance saying that being a volunteer can sometimes be a challenge.
“The more I learned about it (CASA) I thought it was an excellent opportunity for us to improve how we were dealing with our cases here locally and indeed it was,” Ellis said. “They make such a difference. You see the changes in the lives of these kids, just to have someone that’s there for them that comes to their ballgames, that knows who they are, that cares about them, that can be such a change in their attitude. These volunteers stick with them and they’re not paid at all,” Ellis added.
For full details on CASA in the Heart of Texas, refer to their website casabrownwood.org.