National casa/GAL association partners with state and local member programs to support court-appointed volunteers who advocate for a childs best interest and work to strengthen families. 941 state and…

This $8,870,000 Cooperative Agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (CFDA #16.756 - Court Appointed Special Advocates) supports the National CASA Association in providing robust training and technical assistance to CASA/GAL program staff and volunteers across the country. The funding will focus on strategies to recruit and train more volunteers, particularly in preserving or reuniting families. Key performance metrics include increasing the number of children served, improving volunteer recruitment and training, and promoting positive outcomes like family reunification, kinship care, adoption, and legal guardianship. The award also enables the National CASA Association to provide sub-awards to its network of 941 state and local CASA/GAL programs to help them start new initiatives, expand services, recruit diverse volunteers, and enhance their capacity to deliver advocacy services for abused and neglected children in the foster care system.

National casa/GAL association partners with state and local member programs to support court-appointed volunteers who advocate for a childs best interest and work to strengthen families. 941 state and local casa/GAL programs in 49 states and the district of columbia recruit, train and supervise 88,000 volunteers. Funding will provide robust training and technical assistance to casa/GAL program staff and volunteers across the country with a particular emphasis on recruiting and training more volunteers, particularly in strategies to preserve or reunite families. Success will be measured by growth in the number of children served and volunteers recruited, screened, and trained in the pre-service curriculum as well as the increase in the number of children who exit to positive outcomes such as reunification, kinship care, adoption, or legal guardianship. National casa/GAL will undertake several new strategies and activities to address issues faced by children and families in the court and child welfare systems. These strategies include an enhanced core model with a focus on family-centered outcomes and subsequent training for volunteers in a new pre-service curriculum. This curriculum, as well as other new training and development opportunities, will empower volunteers and help them better understand the issues that impact the children, youth, and families they serve. The second strategy is the revision of standards for local casa/GAL programs to make them more outcomes oriented. Following this revision process, national casa/GAL will continue to build on their quality and accreditation processes to achieve outcomes that most benefit children and families. The third strategy is to grow the casa/GAL network and number of local programs, and the number of volunteers to serve children and youth who need an advocate. The primary audience for national casa/GAL is the network of 941 state and local casa/GAL organizations and the 87,500 volunteer advocates recruited, trained, and supported in their provision of best interest advocacy to 227,500 children. The primary stakeholder for information provided by volunteers is the judge. The public and communities across the nation benefit from the improved outcomes for children who have a casa/GAL volunteer.