What We Do

The CASA Vision

Every abused or neglected child in Sacramento County who needs an advocate has one.

The CASA Mission

Our volunteers are the eyes and ears of the court, advocating on a one-to-one basis for the best interest of children in the Sacramento County foster care system.

What is CASA?

We believe that all children have the right to a home with loving people to care for them. But each year in the United States, children are abused, neglected or abandoned by their families. They are removed from their homes and placed in foster care or institutions. Eventually, they end up in court. Their only “crime” is that they have been victims. It is up to the judge to decide their future.

Should they remain in foster care? Be reunited with parents? Or be adopted? In these cases, many children also become victims a second time, lost in an overburdened child welfare system that cannot pay close attention to each child.

That’s where CASA comes in. CASA volunteers are Court Appointed Special Advocates for children – trained community volunteers appointed by a judge as Officers of the court to speak up for children in juvenile court, and to help to humanize the often frightening and confusing child welfare and legal systems for these children.

What We Do

124,000 of California’s children are in foster care because they have been abused, neglected, or abandoned. In many cases these children become victims a second time — in an overburdened child welfare system that cannot pay close attention to each child whose life is in its hands.

The volunteer gets to know the child and then lets the judge and others in the child welfare system know the child’s perspective and the child’s needs.

For additional information regarding the work of a CASA see the Everyday Heroes video.