Savannah/Chatham CASA is on mission to pair every foster child with volunteer advocate

Today, 93 percent of the county's foster children have been paired with CASA's 170 volunteers – and Blair expects the nonprofit to serve all 340 children by year's end.

Georgia CASA, the statewide nonprofit that oversees the 45 local and regional affiliate programs, took note of this remarkable turnaround and honored the Savannah/Chatham office with its 2021 Established Program Award for Excellence at its annual conference in August.

Credit: Shot by Somi

Credit: Shot by Somi

Jennifer King, Georgia CASA executive director, touted Savannah/Chatham's strategic vision for meeting the needs of all the children in foster care when she spoke with the Savannah Morning News last week.

“I think they have actualized so much of that plan, which then brought on additional staffing that allowed them to increase the number of volunteers that they had," said King.  "(They) not only increased the volunteers but diversified their volunteer base, which we know creates this really, really dynamic mix of people who are coming together to support this work and advocating for kids.”

In Georgia, 18,000 children under the age of 18 enter foster care through no fault of their own. Of those children, fewer than 60% are partnered with a CASA volunteer, according to Georgia CASA's website. Last year, Savannah ranked ninth in the state for the number of children in foster care.

Even though Savannah/Chatham CASA was one of the seven original offices established nearly 30 years ago, Blair credited the program’s recent success to the social workers she inherited when she became executive director and the grants they received to fund new staff positions. With more staff, the nonprofit has been able to train more community volunteers to serve as a "voice" for abused and neglected children to judges and others within the juvenile court system.

The organization typically recruits and trains between 60 and 70 volunteers a year, but is nearing volunteer capacity. CASA Volunteers must complete 30 hours of training and 10 hours of court observation. They are then sworn in by juvenile court judges and are assigned a case with a single child or a sibling group.

“They have access to all that child’s information. They get to know the child. And they become a little bit like investigators, finding out everything that's going on in the child's life,” Blair explained. “They advocate for them within the school, making sure they have their needs met, and meet with DFCS [Department of Family and Children Services].”

Volunteers also work to ensure everything is being done to move the child out of the foster care system and back into a stable home environment. That means a CASA volunteer submits a report and often testifies to what they feel is the best decision for the child or siblings.

“[We try] to identify potential family members that may be able to care for the child and things like that, but then where the rubber meets the road is a CASA volunteer goes to the court hearings and gives their assessment of what's in the best interest for the child to the judge,” Blair said.

Credit: Jenny Rutherford Real Estate

Credit: Jenny Rutherford Real Estate

To that end, the local nonprofit will soon open a supervised visitation center, where families working toward reunification can hold supervised, court-mandated visits.

"They can practice being a family together," said Blair. "So many of our parents that have their children removed from their home are overcoming substance use disorder or mental illness that's been untreated."

She added that parents working to get sober or address mental health issues don't always have the best coping tools to effectively raise their children. "We want to create a place where they can get the parental coaching, they can get the resources to address their needs, and be in a place with their kids that feels like home."

Fostering care

Although volunteers have increased Blair's under tenure, she said one challenge is finding volunteers adept with teenagers and "dually-involved" children, meaning they experience other issues such as delinquency, dependency, neglect, or court involvement.

"We applied for some grants and looked to recruit volunteers in particular, that would be willing to serve that population," Blair said.

Tim Wright, a former probation office, was one of the first additions to the Savannah/Chatham CASA staff to assist in this area.

Since hiring Wright and increasing volunteers, Blair said, "There's not been a single child who has come into foster care that we've had to turn down."

Hiring Wright may also help recruit more male volunteers, a big need for the local CASA office. Of the 170 current volunteers, only 20 identify as male. "We know how important that is and how many of these children typically don't have any male role models in their life," Blair said. "We want to make our volunteer base reflect the clients that we serve as much as possible, and we do a decently good job of that when it comes to gender."

'I might go for 20'

Longtime volunteer Yvonne Hafer has noticed the recent increase in volunteers. Back when she took her first training class 19 years ago, she was the only one who took a case, a 13-year-old boy with a mental disability who was mistreated by his parents and later his adoptive aunt.

Credit: Courtesy of Savannah CASA

Credit: Courtesy of Savannah CASA

“It is a lot of work,” Hafer, 66, said. “You have to visit at least once a month. If you have a parent that's in drug court, you visit once a week. You have reports. You can talk to their physicians. You talk to the teachers. I go to the schools. So, it does require a lot of time, and people that work don't easily have that time.”

Hafer became involved with the program after seeing a commercial for Savannah CASA on television. “When my kids got older and grown and left, I had time, and I didn't have to work. So, I felt like I could give back to the community somehow, and I love children. So, I took the training and I love it. I mean, I hate the situations, but I love the work.”

Hafer has managed up to three cases at a time. Still, there are rewards from volunteering. One group of siblings Hafer worked with was adopted by an aunt, who still sends her pictures of the children.

Typically, the volunteer-child relationship ends when the child or sibling group is adopted or reunited with their family, but Hafer keeps in contact with some of the children – a few who may be adults now.

“I might go for 20 (years),” she said with a chuckle. “I don't know. You know, I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I'll be 67 in December. But as long as they'll keep me, I want to stay as long as I can do it.”

Raisa is a Watchdog and Investigative Reporter for The Savannah Morning News. Contact her at rhabersham@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah/Chatham CASA is on mission to pair every foster child with volunteer advocate