CASA, or Court Appointed Special Advocates, are volunteers who work with children that are in the legal system maintain a sense of normalcy, often when their parent or guardians are facing legal issues. More often than not, these issues are drug related creating an unsatisfactory situation in the home. CASA volunteers act as a stable adult figure in the children’s lives but also keep legal officials aware of their needs.
The CASA program works completely by volunteers and has struggled with awareness. It’s launching a nationwide rebranding campaign to help change this. Natasha Weston is the head of CASA’s Cache Valley district.
“National CASA is changing their name, the National CASA Association to the National Court Advocated Special Advocate Guardian ad-Litem," said Natasha Weston, head of CASA’s Cache Valley district. "I think one of the biggest obstacles that CASA faces is that people don’t know about it, because when people do know about it, they want to know how to get involved. The new branding campaign is Change a Child’s Story, so kind of focusing on the positive aspects that being a consistent and caring adult in a child’s life can have.”
The campaign only recently began, so data results aren’t yet available. But Weston said CASA’s Utah division has been working on some initiatives of its own.
“We are trying to come up with some more e-learning," she said. "Each program provides regular in-service training but sometimes it’s not feasible for people to come, so we’re working on developing some e-learning modules that people can complete on their own time on their computers or on their phones.”
More information can be found at utahcasa.org.
