Court Appointed Special Advocates, New York City (CASA)
Accomplishments During Calendar Year 2008
CASA concluded its 29th year of operation, remaining steadfast to its original—and only—mission: to recruit, train and supervise volunteers to advocate on behalf of New York City’s foster children to move them quickly through the bureaucratic maze of foster care and into safe, permanent homes where they can thrive.
CASA’s volunteer advocates served 1,584 children during the year.
Of the children served in 2008,
- 31% were between birth and five years of age;
- 13% were between six and eleven;
- 56% were between 12 and 21.
- The overwhelming majority of the children were members of minority groups—43% Black (non-Hispanic), 27% Hispanic origin and 27% from other minorities or unknown ethnicity.
During 2008, we trained an additional 93 volunteers in three sessions.
A total of 189 individuals served as advocates at one time or another during the year.
CASA staff and volunteers participated in more than 25 in-service trainings at CASA and elsewhere.
CASA continued its involvement in an Adolescent Initiative and Project Family Connect, an initiative involving children with incarcerated parents.
The Adolescent Initiative focuses on the most vulnerable group in foster care—children between the ages of 12 and 21 who are approaching the time when they will age out of foster care. CASA undertook this initiative to ensure that all services for adolescents to whom it is assigned are in place (medical, financial, housing, employment, education) and that the adolescents remain in foster care as long as possible while CASA explores community resources that will provide family-like environments for them once they leave foster care.
Project Family Connect (PFC) is a three-year initiative aimed at creating systemic change through program development and practice in the way in which the Family Court system and the Administration for Children’s Services responds to cases involving children in foster care who have an incarcerated parent.
The CASA Board is actively involved in the governance of CASA. A major boost in increasing CASA’s visibility with the public has been the establishment of a very active Junior Board—a group of almost 40 young professionals who both serve as goodwill ambassadors for creating awareness of CASA among their acquaintances and provide a source of substantial new financial support through their fundraising events.
The CASA staff is comprised of the Executive Director, the Deputy Director, eight Advocate Supervisors—three in Brooklyn, two each in the Bronx and Queens and one in Manhattan—the Project Family Connect Director, the Director of Development and Marketing and the Office Administrator. All of the program staff have MSW or JD degrees and are Licensed Master Social Workers. The Executive and Deputy Directors are Licensed Clinical Social Workers, and the Deputy Director has a Ph.D. in social work.
Program evaluation and development is ongoing, and maintaining the program staff to carry out the program is essential. Even though CASA serves the family courts, less than 25 percent of our annual operating budget is derived from public sources; thus, institutional and individual support is crucial to our ability to carry out our work. We are diligent in keeping our administrative and fundraising expenses low. Last year, more than 83 cents of every dollar we raised was spent on program and less than 17 cents on administration and fundraising.
