New advocates complete 30 hours of classroom training prior to being matched with their CASA child.  Trainings are held in the evenings.  Once the work begins, CASAs spend an average of ten hours per month spending time with the child or researching the case.   We ask for a one year commitment.  Most advocates become increasingly passionate about the mission of CASA and opt to continue working, sometimes for 5+ years.

Across the United States there are over 500,000 children in foster care due to abuse and neglect, approximately 600 of those children are from Baltimore County. Social Workers from the Department of Social Services in our county work with approximately twenty children and families each. Appointed juvenile attorneys have caseloads of 75 to 100 children each. The professionals involved are unable to provide children with the individualized attention they deserve.  A CASA advocate, on the other hand, is assigned to the case of only one child or sibling group at a time.   These advocates are the one constant in the foster child’s life.  As one advocate told her CASA child whose experience was that every adult in her life had abandoned her, "I’m not going anywhere!”

The court often feels that without the voice of a CASA, they do not have enough information to make the right decision about a child’s future.  CASAs are able to thoroughly know each case.  They will fully inform the court about the needs of the child and his or her best outcome.  The CASA is usually the first adult in the child’s life who has not abandoned them, the first they have been able to trust and rely on, the first who has promised to stick with them for the long haul.  Indeed, our advocates change lives.   They are the one constant in the life of a child who has only the voice of the CASA to speak for them, one child at a time.

We encourage all to consider joining the CASA family and becoming the voice for an abused or neglected child who needs an advocate!