Volunteers Become Children's Voices
Court Appointed Advocates Needed
By Chris Reeves - Staff Writer, The Catoosa County News, Dec. 28, 2005

Neglected and abused children need volunteers to offer them a voice within the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. Catoosa and Walker counties currently benefit from the Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children program, while Dade and Chattooga County programs are scheduled to start in the near future.

"There is a huge need for this (program)," CASA program director Carleena Angwin said. "There are around 100 kids in Catoosa County and somewhere around one hundred kids in Walker County that need CASA Volunteers."

According to Angwin, CASA volunteers are appointed to juvenile cases by a judge, and they investigate and research to learn everything they can about a child's special needs to present findings to the court and judge for the child's best interest.

Angwin said every year hundreds of abused and neglected children in Northwest Georgia are placed in foster care because they are unable to live safely at home. It is during this time a child is faced with new and complete strangers while their case is heard in the court system, she said; while in the judicial process CASA Volunteers watch over and advocate for these abused and neglected children to make sure they don't become lost in the overburdened legal system or fade away in a group or foster home.
Angwin said CASA volunteers are "the eyes, the ears and the voice in court," for the children, which helps keep the human element in a case.

"The program is very important, because once (a child) gets to court, (they) are just a file, a case," she said. "This one file is somebody's life, it encompasses so many people, but this file is a child."
Angwin said for a lot of the cases here is only one attorney representing the majority of the children for all of the different counties and the number of children per attorney add up.
She said because there are so many children within the court system there is no way possible that the appointed attorney(s) can focus on each individual child's needs. This is where the CASA steps in and helps alleviate the burden, she said.

"CASA volunteers are not attorneys, they are just regular people who care about the children." She said. "It is refreshing to have (volunteers) because they can say what they think or they feel. (A volunteer) speaks in a more personal, regular voice (rather than normal court lingo). The judges want and listen to the (volunteer's) opinions (about the cases) very heavily."

Angwin has worked with the program for the past two months. She said that the program started up in the Children's Advocacy Center in Fort Oglethorpe. It originally operated out of Lafayette, but there were too many programs functioning at the same time so CASA had to shut down there.
She said a lot of people have already stepped up and donated their time to help with child deprivation cases in the small amount of time the program has been back in operation and more volunteers are always welcome.

According to Angwin, applicants should be 21 years of age, be able to pass a criminal background check, have good verbal and communication skills, have the ability to be objective and non-judgmental, be able to attend all court hearings which are during daily business hours and have the commitment to be in the program for at least one year because some cases last for up to a year.

Someone in their lives.

Shirley Powell, a CASA volunteer for 23 years, said a friend introduced her to the program. During her tenure, Powel said she has witnessed some remarkable cases with excellent outcomes.
"It is a great program," she said. "I have seen a lot of abuse and then I have seen the happy ending with it too, where the children are in a safe and happy place, whether it is with the parents or with a permanent home where they have been adopted."

Powell said most of her cases involved infants, but she has worked with adolescents and teenagers as well. She said her role plays a crucial part in the cases she is appointed to.
"You are out there trying to put it all together and you just want things to be right for the kids," she said. "We are the voices of a child in court, especially for the ones, the babies, who can't talk."
The program has really helped her realize abused and abandoned children need someone, even if they are not family members, in their lives.

Terry Catlett, Catoosa Department of Family and Children Services director, said the department's interaction with CASA during court cases has depended solely on the number of volunteers available to help service the program. The volunteers, when available, act as mediators and offer support for the children within the courts, she said.

"The children that we become involved and go to juvenile court with, many times, have had a lack of involved adults in their lives," she said. "Having a trained CASA volunteer, who can talk to that child and who can be another person with some oversight to what is going on legally in that child's life has got to be good, there is nothing in the world wrong with that."

Catlett said only about 20 percent of Family and Children Services' case during the last few years has had the involvement of a CASA volunteer because the program has struggled to start up in the area.

For more information regarding the CASA program, visit www.gacasa.org, To apply as a CASA volunteer within the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit contact Carleena Angwin at (423) 255-6146.