Call Now to Save the CASA Program for Foster Children Statewide
The NYS Office of Court Administration which provides funding for the Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children (CASA) has announced that it is eliminating its $800,000 funding for CASA in 2013 because of budget constraints.
“This program provides one- to- one advocacy to help children in foster care grow up in safe, permanent and loving homes,” explains Jackie Boissonault, LMSW, CASA Director at The Mental Health Association of Westchester (MHA).
CASA programs utilize professionally trained staff and volunteers to monitor the mental health, physical health, education and permanency plans for children placed in foster care. Their advocacy is life changing for thousands of children across the state. It is a program that pays for itself many times over at a cost of an average of $1,000 per child served.
- Please call the Office of Court of Appeals (518) 455-7700 or (212) 661-6787 (or both if you can!) and urge them not to eliminate funding of the CASA program.
- NOTE: Judge Lippman’s office is balking at receiving the calls. Let them know you’d like to deliver the message anyway.
The message is, “We urge you to stop the elimination of funding statewide to the CASA Program. It has been incredibly successful in helping children who have been abused and neglected to navigate the system of foster care, and grow up in safe, permanent and loving homes.”
After what we just witnessed in Newtown, Connecticut, we need even more services to preserve children’s mental health—not the elimination of vital programs.