More child advocates needed after dramatic pandemic plunge

For 35 years, court-appointed special advocates have helped abused and neglected children by pushing for judicial outcomes that are in the child’s best interest.

But the number of volunteers for the state’s CASA program took a major hit during COVID and has never fully recovered.

Before COVID-19, there were about 5,000 CASA volunteers. Now, there are around 3,000, and the push is on to find more.

Peggy Johnson has been volunteering in Marion County for 16 years. She said she first heard about volunteering as a CASA from either a TV or radio commercial.

“I went to the training and never looked back,” Johnson said.

She said being a special advocate can be both frustrating during the legal proceedings and rewarding in the end.

“I’ve never in all this time had a case closed that I wasn’t happy with the way it closed,” Johnson said. “That is very satisfying for me.”

She said CASAs see children in situations that no one would ever ask to be in.

“They just need the guidance and the extra help, and sometimes an extra financial help that they get, therapy that they didn’t know they needed,” Johnson said. “Every case is different, everybody has a different need. And as a CASA, I try and see what the parent needs to make the child’s life better, not just what the child themselves need.”

Emily Angel, executive director of the guardian ad litem/CASA program, said advocates don’t run as many radio and TV ads seeking volunteers as they used to.

The focus is on social media, with some billboards. She said she also tries to do a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.

“We’re starting an ambassador program for some of our existing volunteers to join, hopefully to go out and kind of engage with their own communities and their own networks, because we know that’s the best way to get high quality, high retention volunteers,” Angel said.

She called being a CASA a unique volunteer opportunity.

“It’s not for the faint of heart, necessarily, and it’s a big-time commitment, and it’s a big emotional commitment, and so we want to make sure people know and understand what they’re signing up for,” Angel said.

Coming together

Hundreds of CASA volunteers gathered at the Indiana statehouse last week, filling the second floor in a sea of blue t-shirts.

Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush spoke at the annual CASA Day, recalling her days as a juvenile judge and thanking the CASA volunteers for their work.

“If there’s a pillar of the Indiana Supreme Court, it’s to make sure we have safe places for children so they can grow and thrive,” Rush said in her speech. “The work that you’re doing to end generational cycles has never been needed more.”

Rush held up a poster of photos of children who used to come into her courtroom in Tippecanoe County. She used to have the photos covering her bench, but when Rush was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2014, she made the poster.

She said having the poster sit in her chamber serves as a reminder of the work she and CASAs do.

“These lives saved, these lives put on a better path, and the fact that they had your voice was just critical,” Rush said.

Rush said she had represented about 100 kids herself before being elected as a judge.

When she was elected to the bench, Rush said she traveled to every placement where they put both children in need of services and delinquents.

“It was really important for me to see where they were because what we think we’re doing for kids, we’re doing to them,” Rush said. “When you talk to kids that have been through the system, you learn so much about what you did.”•