When she was hired for the challenge, she immediately started the
program with two volunteers who were previously traveling to Sioux
Falls regularly to take part in their CASA program. Six months later,
they held their first volunteer training session. While Rodgers-Conti
handles the program’s resources and funding, contact with sponsors
and the record keeping and documentation required to manage
the program, Case Manager Crystal Gemar works directly with the
volunteers: recruiting, training and supervising them.
Though Rodgers-Conti’s direct role in doing what’s best for children
has changed slightly, her overall focus of helping children has always
stayed the same. “That’s just been a nice transition for me to still have
that satisfying feeling that what I am doing is all for the benefit of the
kids,” she reflects. “We’ve had fantastic people in every community step
up to be CASA volunteers. Of course, if you don’t have good CASA
volunteers, you don’t have a good program. That’s been amazing to me,
the people that will step up, because they’re such great people.”
She explains their role in child safety is because there is a situation
where the judge needs to know what is really happening with a family.
The information that the CASA volunteers present is about what is
best for the child. They are included in the circle of knowledge about
the court case and are considered a voice of the children.
A volunteer is assigned based on a good match to the child, taking
into consideration the child’s age, medical or educational needs,
cultural background and gender. The specific volunteer is included in a
court order that gives them authority to talk with everyone in the case
and attend court hearings.
The volunteer will spend an average of 8-10 hours a month visiting
with the children, parents, foster parents and the assigned Social
Services case worker. The volunteer also has permission to discuss
pertinent matters with the child’s teacher or counselor or possibly
the parent’s employer. The volunteer would speak to these parties to
assure that statements made by the parent are accurate, or to verify that
court ordered requirements are being followed. Typically, each CASA
volunteer has one case at a time, with the average process taking about
a year. Occasionally a CASA volunteer may have more than one case at
a time or a case may take longer than the average.
“This is how we can really speak for this child, because it’s not good
for that child to have the court think that the parent is doing so well
when it really hasn’t changed anything,” Rodgers-Conti explains.
One of the myths of CASA is that their role is to assure that the
kids don’t go back to the parent, which is not true. To the contrary, she
explains that they consider it a huge success if they can verify that the
parent is making progress and continues to make progress, enough for
the child to safely be returned to the home. She estimates that in 80%
of the cases, the child can safely return home.
Rodgers-Conti explains that many families are in crisis because of
drug or substance abuse, though some cases involve physical abuse and
sexual abuse. At this point, the situation cannot be remedied with the
parent any longer. “The majority of the cases we have are severe neglect
and cases with children ages five and under. So, when you put those
things together, you can see why it’s very dire.”
The volunteers chosen to assist with these children must take part
in 30 hours of training, led by Case Manager Gemar. Volunteers are
trained on child welfare, family dynamics, cultural backgrounds,
how to report to the court and what the court needs to know. They
thoroughly understand their job after completing the training.
They have 21 volunteers and are in the process of training another
group. “We’ve been really fortunate, where, we started just in Yankton,
and as we’ve had new cases come up we’ve always had a new group of
people trained. We have from day one met 100% of the need. I am so
proud of that,” she smiles.
It takes a dedicated person to volunteer for this role. Not only are
vFAMILIES continued on page 26
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