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About Our Organization
About Our Local Program
Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Camden County, Inc. is an independent, non-profit organization committed to advocating for the best interest of abused and neglected children in out-of-home-placement under the jurisdiction of the NJ Family Court. CASA of Camden County, Inc. provides for a corps of trained volunteers who work to ensure that needed services and assistance are made available, in a timely fashion, to children in placement while helping to move them as quickly as possible toward safe and permanent homes.
Right now New Jersey has thousands of children living in out-of-home placement. Unfortunately, Camden County has a significant number of these children - children who were removed from their homes because they were being abused or neglected. These children could have been sexually abused, not fed, physically abused, educationally deprived, psychologically abused, tormented, and /or left to fend for themselves in dangerous, sometimes life-threatening situations. After being removed from their homes, their parents, and sometimes their siblings, these children enter into a system that tries very hard to help them. These children, however, often become lost in the very system which is working so hard to help them.
This is where CASA comes in.
Children who have been abused or neglected are often without a voice in the court system. A CASA volunteer can be that voice and advocate for their best interests. In order to do this, the CASA must investigate the facts of the case, recommend a course of action to the court or Child Placement Review Board (CPR), facilitate the resolution of the presenting problems, and monitor the progress toward the established goals. CASA volunteers are ordinary people who care about kids who come from all backgrounds. Some are students or retired adults; however you must be at least 21 years old to volunteer and make a one year commitment to the program. No legal expertise is required. About National CASA
On any given day, 500,000 children in the US are living in foster care because they cannot live safely at home. But only half of these kids have someone who speaks out just for them—a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA volunteer.
CASA volunteers (sometimes called Guardians Ad Litem, or GAL volunteers) are appointed by judges to be the independent eyes and ears of the court, watching over and advocating for a child until the child is placed in a safe, permanent home.
The National CASA Association links a network of 954 local CASA programs in 49 states. Last year, 59,000 CASA volunteers served 240,000 children and youth living in foster care, getting them into safe, permanent homes sooner and saving taxpayers an estimated $582 billion. It’s a huge return on a very modest investment—the cost to give a kid a CASA volunteer is just $950 a year.
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