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KARA Signature Video (4 minute)
Public Service Announcement( 30 Second)
KARA Social Media Links
Discovering the CASA volunteer guardian ad-Litem program can make your community a happier and safer place for abused and neglected children.
Volunteers (like me – like you) become a voice for children unlucky enough to be involved in County Child Protection services.
Courts are a cold, scary place for a State Ward child removed from
the only home she has ever known.
CASAs add a community volunteer touch for a very frightened, lonesome child.
Often, I was the only adult that stayed in that child’s life over those years.
Social workers, teachers, therapists and foster homes come and go.
The lack of stable adult mentoring is disorienting –
it reinforces a mechanical nature of the child protection system.
Not having a caring adult that stays in your life as a child can be a terrible thing.
“You are the only person in my life
not being paid to care for me”
is a phrase I’ve had said to me on multiple occasions.
I’ve advocated for over 50 children and helped to save them from years of the terrible things that were happening them in their homes.
There are thousands of former MN CASA volunteers that have helped many thousands of traumatized children live through court systems, foster homes and adoption.
There are many retired CASA volunteers that have gone on to form organizations and efforts to improve the lives of vulnerable abandoned children.
These are hard times for social workers, teachers, foster families and others working with a tidal wave of violence, trauma and abuse that the COVID lockdown has added to already stressed systems.
At this time of COVID stress and social upheaval, community service providers are being overwhelmed and they need our help. Caseloads for paid staff become larger (30 families can equal 100 + children per worker to care for). CASA volunteers can work with one or two cases at a time. Big difference to a child that needs the attention of a caring adult.
It’s critical to interrupt child abuse when it happens. Overwhelmed systems simply can’t keep up and children live with the traumas they suffer forever.
NEED HELP? Access our CRISIS DATABASE
https://linktr.ee/kidsatrisk
Submitted by CASA volunteer Mike Tikkanen
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