CASA volunteers help kids who need temporary homes
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The flashing neon lights of law enforcement cars alert the neighborhood that’s something’s going on down the street. Deputies arrest parents for drugs, and there are children in the home. Usually the kids are taken from the home and placed in foster care. Although the court appoints a lawyer for the children, who provides a safety net?
CASA does. CASA of Montana’s mission is to promote advocacy for each and every abused or neglected child so he or she can thrive in safe, permanent homes.
“We’re their voice,” local CASA volunteer Kelly Bishop said. “We visit the (foster) home. We make sure the children’s needs are being met.”
Sometimes the parents are able to visit, and sometimes they aren’t, Bishop said.
CASA stands for court appointed special advocates, and CASA volunteers in Lake and Sanders Counties represent children in court, attending with the child’s attorney.
But CASA hasn’t always been present in Lake County. Back in the 80s former Judge C.B. McNeil tried to get it going, but when District Judge Kim Christopher was elected in 2000, only one person remained — Bernie Lovell.
Christopher said her first priority was to get a CASA group up and running.
“I was frustrated as a former county attorney because no one was getting to the child,” Christopher said.
Christopher and her executive assistant Rose Bridenstine took on the challenge, but they decided the organization would have to stand on its own feet.
“It was my priority, but it was Rose’s work,” Christopher said.
CASA started out with a steering committee.
“It wobbled a bit but was pretty much always in forward motion,” Christopher said, describing the steering committee.
With a board that understood it’s role, making money to support CASA, good people as volunteers and a series of great executive directors, including Diane Richard, CASA of Lake County got its legs under it.
Christopher and Bridenstine talked to Barbara Monaco about coming up with a fundraiser for CASA. An excellent fundraiser and a person always interested in anything benefiting kids, Monaco came up with the golf tournament, the Mick Holien CASA Golf Scramble, in 2006. Holien, the voice of the University of Montana Grizzlies, asks area celebrities to team with local folks.
CASA of Lake County recently has expanded to include Sanders County. Three volunteers work with a half dozen cases in Sanders County. Approximately a dozen volunteers in Lake County handle about 50 children’s cases. That’s a large number, so the group is seeking more volunteers.
People who answer the call receive about 30 hours of training, including videos and sometimes small workshops with local judges and Montana CASA staff.
So volunteers learn “what to expect and what’s expected of you,” Bishop said.
For folks who love kids and cares what happens to them, Bishop said she’d recommend being a CASA volunteer.
To join the program or for more information, contact Ann Marie McNeel, Director
CASA of Lake and Sanders Counties at (406) 883-0158 or casa4thekids@yahoo.com.
