If you’ve felt the need to give back to the community, abused and neglected children in St. Joseph County need your help.
The county’s Court Appointed Special Advocates, or CASA program, pairs volunteers with abused or neglected children as their cases move through the child welfare system. The program’s needs ebb and flow but right now Executive Director Brenda Matuszkiewicz says there are about 200 kids waiting for volunteers.
On June 16 the program will begin its next volunteer training sessions. Matuszkiewicz says volunteers typically spend 10 to 15 hours a month.
She says the best CASAs have a passion for children and meeting their needs, and giving them a voice in child welfare cases.
"There's just so many things that a volunteer can do because they have their eyes kind of on the totality of the case, while a specific provider might just be providing therapy for mom," Matuszkiewicz says. "It's our responsibility to kind of be that hub and look at all the spokes of the wheel to make sure that they're rotating properly and get that information then to the courts."
