VENANGO CO., Pa. (EYT) — The Venango County Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program is seeking volunteers to help neglected and abused children in the Venango County area.

(Pictured: CASA volunteers in training during a panel discussion night)

CASA works to ensure a safe, supportive, permanent home for every child in need by providing court-appointed volunteers to advocate for abused and neglected children within the local court system.

The CASA movement began in 1977 after a juvenile court judge in Seattle came up with the idea of citizen volunteers to speak for the best interest of abused and neglected children in court. The program has since grown a network of more than a thousand CASA and guardian ad litem program offices that recruit, train, and support volunteers in 49 states.

Venango County CASA began in 2005 under the direction of Youth Alternatives and was later changed to a standalone program in 2010 under the guidance of President Judge Oliver Lobaugh. Though it remains a part of the national CASA program, Venango CASA officially became its own 501(c)3 entity in the state of Pennsylvania in 2012.

One of the unique things about the CASA program is that each volunteer is assigned only one case, either an individual child or a sibling group, at a time in order to be able to devote their attention to that case.

According to Cinnamon Evans, Executive Director of Venango CASA, volunteer advocates must be 21 or over and are required to complete a 30-hour training course, to learn about child welfare system and how to talk to children and youth that have been through trauma.

“We aren’t experts, we’re volunteer advocates. I sometimes like to say, ‘we’re the common sense in the courtroom’,” Evans said.

“We’re the eyes and the ears of the judge; we work for him in a sense. We’re there to make sure the kids have what they need.”

As volunteers, CASA advocates fill a different role than caseworkers or others involved in neglect and abuse cases.

“Since we’re volunteers and not paid, people know we’re unbiased. When we go into homes, whether they are biological, kinship, or foster homes, they know we are volunteers who choose to be here to help, and sometimes we’re able to talk with the families on a different level because of that,” Evans noted.

The program also works closely with Attorney Virginia Sharp, who is often appointed as Guardian ad Litem for children and youth in care in Venango County.

Venango CASA does not receive any federal or state funding for their program, only a small amount of county funding to provide for their office. They do hold a number of fundraising activities to provide support for the children and youth they help through programs like Sweet Case, which provides sturdy duffel bag filled with personal hygiene and other necessary items for children in care.

The Friends of CASA, which is led by a Board of Directors and funded through private donations, also helps to provide funding and support for neglected and abused children in Venango County by ensuring necessary resources for the CASA of Venango County program.

“A lot of the Friends of CASA fundraising also helps with things to allow these kids to be kids,” Evans said. “That can mean anything from helping them get a bike or a bike helmet to helping pay for their senior pictures.”

Venango CASA is currently in need of more volunteers and will be offering two training courses over the next year, one beginning in September, and another beginning in March.

Due to the intensity of the training, and the sensitive nature of the issues discussed in training, they only accept five to six trainees per class.

“This subject matter, it can bring things up and just be very intense for people. We’ve discovered it is best to keep the classes small,” Evans said.

For the fall class, Venango CASA has decided to try something new and offer Saturday classes rather than evening classes, which they have never done before.

“We wanted to try something different with the class times, and we haven’t done Saturdays before,” Evans said.

The course will consist of five classes, which will run from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Evans explained that the fall classes are split up more to take fall activities, such as Applefest, into consideration. There will be two classes in September, one in October, one in November, and a final class, to be determined, where the new volunteers will also be sworn in.

“Our volunteers are sworn in, taking an actual oath to become an officer of the court after completing their training,” Evans explained.

“The oath is pretty substantial. They work as court-appointed advocates, so it involves an actual court order appointing them to a child or sibling group.”

The spring training will begin in March and will consist of a longer course of classes that will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday evenings.

“We also offer our volunteer trainees dinner at 5:30 on the nights of weeknight training classes,” Evans noted. “We understand that most people have to come to training straight from their jobs, so we try to provide that for them.”

The training covers courtroom procedures, social services, the juvenile justice system, and the special needs of abused and neglected children.

“We try to bring in experts to talk to the trainees, as well. We bring in service providers, caseworkers, even nurses from the neonatal unit to talk about babies who are born addicted and what to watch out for,” Evans said.

Once the volunteers are sworn in, they can be assigned a case.

“We get to know each volunteer, so we know who is the best match for each child. There are some volunteers we know can handle a sibling group and other who do best with a single child, for example,” Evans explained.

Once a volunteer is assigned a case, they begin talking with the child, the parents and family members, neighbors, school officials, doctors, and anyone else involved in the child’s life that might have facts pertinent to the child’s case.

The volunteers review the court documents and the attempt to facilitate a relationship with all of the individuals involved in the child’s case, while also submitting written reports, including recommendations, to the judge at each hearing.

CASA volunteers are each supervised by one of the program’s staff members to maintain consistency and as a guide and resource in navigating the child welfare system.

According to Evans, there are around 240 dependent children and youth in Venango County right now, the highest number they’ve had in care in the last five years.

“We’re seeing a lot of opioid and other drug use, homelessness, hygiene issues, and even cases involving multiple animals, so these kids are often coming from some pretty horrendous neglect or abuse situations,” Evans said.

With so many dependent children in Venango County and the vital role Venango CASA volunteers play, they are hoping to fill the upcoming classes with people ready to help children and youth in need of an advocate.

Those interested in signing up for Venango CASA volunteer training can fill out an application on the CASA of Venango County website.