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CASA Swears in 1000th Volunteer
By
KSPR News
Story Created:
Nov 21, 2008 at 7:30 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Nov 21, 2008 at 7:41 PM CDT
Every month about 850 Greene County children are taken out of their homes because of unsafe living conditions.
The children’s futures are decided in the courts.
A group called CASA -- Court Appointed Special Advocates -- guides them through the process.
Lately when CASA volunteers talk about numbers, they report record statistics of child abuse and neglect cases.
Friday CASA had some positive numbers to report.
The organization swore in its 1,000th volunteer.
CASA Public Affairs Director Dan Prater says the day was 20 years in the making.
But Prater says they need to double their volunteer base to support all of the children who need someone to care.
"There are homes were children are crawling through meth labs or crawling through tremendous filth," Prater says.
The county's child abuse and neglect numbers have doubled, he adds.
Prater says many children as young as eight or nine are forced to be parents to their siblings.
"They are crawling through trash to get to cabinets to search for something to eat,” Prater says. “These stories are troubling but they do exist."
And that's why CASA exists, he adds.
"One-thousand people are using their passion, giving up their time to step in for a child who has no one," he says.
New CASA volunteer John Hicks is now one of those people.
"I didn't realize the need was so great in southwest Missouri,” Hicks says. “I didn't know the statistics were so much greater here than in many other parts of the country."
Hicks works with young boys for a living.
He's the national communication director for Royal Rangers, a Christian group similar to the Boy Scouts.
"This will help me better understand some of the boys' backgrounds," he says, "and the problems they deal with."
Hicks says anyone, no matter their profession, can fill the same void for a Greene County child.
"They've been hurt, they've been abused and you realize in order for them to be successful someone has to show them the world isn't full of people who want to hurt them," he says.
Several organizations say as the number of volunteers grow, so does the need.
Both CASA and the Child Advocacy Center say the economy is affecting local children.
The advocacy center has seen physical abuse cases jump 107% this year.
Sexual abuse cases have increased 50 percent.
They say the spike makes sense because poverty is often a contributing factor.
For more information about becoming a CASA volunteer, call (417) 875-7413.
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