Boston CASA’s (Court Appoint Special Advocates) Mission
Boston CASA promotes and protects the best interests of children and youth who have experienced abuse and neglect. We train and support community-based volunteers who provide a voice to children in the court system so they may thrive in a stable environment.
Our Work: Boston CASA recruits, trains and supports community volunteers to serve as Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) for children removed from their home due to abuse and neglect, many of whom end up in foster care.
We are Boston CASA
When the Department of Children and Families (DCF) suspects a child has suffered abuse or neglect, they may remove them from their home and place them in the foster care system. The child is pulled from their familiar environment and thrust into a world of case workers, foster parents and attorneys as they face an unknown future. As their case enters the juvenile court system, a judge may request a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) to advocate for the child or sibling group throughout their case. It’s Boston CASA that makes this work possible.
We are the independent nonprofit that recruits, trains and supports community volunteers to serve as CASAs.
We are the independent nonprofit that recruits, trains and supports volunteer child advocates.
Our volunteers:
- Advocate for the child’s best interest in court
- Collaborate with everyone in the child’s life to help ensure their physical, emotional, mental health, and educational needs are met
- Provide a consistent and stable adult presence in the child’s life
- Work on a single case–one child or sibling group–at a time, and stay with that case until it is closed
- The goal for every case is permanency—for each child to find a safe and permanent home, and for teens aging out of the foster care system to transition successfully into independent adulthood.
Every child and youth should benefit from the support of a CASA as they navigate foster care and the family court system.
Boston CASA provides three training sessions a year for community volunteers seeking to make a positive impact on the nearly 3,000 foster children in Suffolk and Middlesex County. The process includes over 30 hours of in person and online training before the volunteer can be sworn in by the judge as an CASA in service of these often forgotten children and youth.