- Judy O’Neill, Executive Director, CASA of St. Joseph County.

Every week, a child in Indiana dies from abuse and neglect. It can come in the form of a young girl being locked in basement alone, hoping to be found in the dark. Or it can come in the form of a baby whose entire body is broken so badly that he will need years of healing. Or in the form of a baby’s body being scalded or covered with bruises. Or worse.

But CASA, an organization aptly named for its service of being a Court Appointed Special Advocate, provides a voice for these children. According to Judy O’Neill, Executive Director of the St. Joseph County CASA, Indiana leads the U.S. in the number of CASA programs, a testimony to the great need in this state.

How CASA works
Judy O’Neill started with CASA as a volunteer in 1996, then as a volunteer supervisor, and accepted her current position as Executive Director in 2000. Across from her desk proudly hangs a quilt with the names of 644 children whose lives she has been a part of changing. Each name has a story, and each story represents a beautiful life that, without CASA’s help, could have ended in tragedy. “I wish I could help every single child in this community. We receive a lot of calls from grandparents that see children suffering physically and emotionally, but unless we are assigned to a case, legally we cannot help them,” says O’Neill.

Legally, CASA can only advocate for children by order of the court. In most cases, the children CASA advocates for have been removed from their homes due to documented abuse and neglect. In St. Joseph County, the Department of Child Services offers services to prevent a child’s case from escalating and ending up in court. However, once Judge Peter J. Nemeth of the Probate Court hears the child’s case and determines that this child’s situation requires third party intervention to determine the best solution for a child’s documented abuse and neglect, a trained CASA volunteer is appointed by the court.

The CASA volunteer speaks with every single person involved with the child, anyone whose life affects that child. O’Neill paints the picture of a wheel with spokes, with the CASA advocate and the child in the hub of the wheel. Says O’Neill, “The spokes represent the constituents that the CASA advocate speaks to: parents, foster parents, case workers at the Department of Child Services, teachers, therapists, relatives, and child care workers. CASA’s role is to keep the spokes moving and to keep the child moving through the system to find the child permanency.” O’Neill is grateful for Judge Nemeth, and adds, “You have to have a judge who believes in the CASA program to have a successful program.”

In fact, a judge founded CASA. According to the National CASA website www.nationalcasa.org,“Concerned over making decisions about abused and neglected children's lives without sufficient information, a Seattle judge conceived the idea of using trained community volunteers to speak for the best interests of these children in court. So successful was this Seattle program that soon judges across the country began utilizing citizen advocates.” There are over 900 national CASA offices today.

CASA’s goal is to find permanency for the child, in a safe and nurturing environment. “We don’t as a matter of course prevent the child from going back to the home. We study and provide a very objective opinion of what’s best for the child. If going home is best, we work toward that end,” says O’Neill. “Or a child may go to live with his or her grandparents, foster parents who adopt the child, or we may support placing the child for adoption.” But O’Neill is quick to point out that this is not the worst-case scenario. “The worst case scenario is the child’s death.”

O’Neill recounts stories where a baby boy was dipped twice in scalding water, once on his head, and once on his feet. And she mentions the little girl who was taken to a dark basement with her mouth taped, left with a dog who bit her badly. “I am outraged by the way our society labels an act as ‘abuse.’ To me, these children are not abused - they are tortured. Why should a child be starved and beaten, ignored and left to die? One little boy was literally ignored for months and when taken to the emergency room was diagnosed with the same symptoms a child starving in a third-world country might have. I’m completely outraged,” O’Neill states. These cases are not the exception – and it often takes significant time to have the child removed from the home.

Here’s how you can give children a voice
There are many ways you and your church can help give the children in our community a voice and a hope.

Be a CASA volunteer. Volunteers are required to complete a background check, drug screen, provide references, complete a one-on-one interview with Judy O’Neill, and attend CASA training developed by its national organization. Says O’Neill, “We deal with so much strife, and many times our agenda is different from what other agencies want. Often we see things happen when we truly believe the outcome should be different, and we talk about ‘standing alone’ by ourselves because many times we do stand alone. I ask volunteers what kind of support system they have, and how they handle strife. That’s critical.”

In addition to this interview, a volunteer must spend at least two hours in juvenile court. CASA monitors volunteers during training per national CASA mandates, to ensure that the volunteers will be able to handle the situations that arise as a child advocate. Upon successful completion of this process, a CASA volunteer is sworn in by Judge Nemeth as an officer of the court, which provides full legal authority for an advocate to perform the necessary responsibilities. Says O’Neill, “Because we have an order from the court stating that we are court officers and legally have authority by the Judge’s order, that gives us the legal means of getting to the information we need to get from teachers and other individuals that interact with the child and to prepare our report to the court.”

The next volunteer training is scheduled for the fall of 2006, but O’Neill is accepting applications now, to prepare in advance. For additional information, contact Judy O’Neill at (574) 233-2272 or at joneill@jjconline.org.

Pray for CASA advocates. O’Neill believes supporting advocates is extremely important. “When I began the program, people weren’t as open about how they handle strife with families. To do this you have to have ability to renew yourself – unless I had faith and balance I couldn’t do this for one minute without the grace of God.” She recounts the story of one CASA advocate’s story of sadness and grief when five children he had been working with were released back to the family, and were taken from town suddenly when the family fled. “The volunteer was sick with worry. It takes a great deal of courage and steadfastness to continue to advocate after a heart breaking disappointment like that. You must love children, be diligent, have integrity and you cannot bring preconceived notions of how a situation should or might work out. Our CASA volunteers are extraordinary people who are devoted to our most vulnerable children.” Judy acknowledges that this advocacy work for children could not be accomplished without the dedication of the CASA staff.

Take a stand. O’Neill encourages everyone in the community to get involved by taking a stand. “When you see an article in the paper about an abused child, and discover that the sentence is light or that the one that victimized a child has not received a sentence, you have a responsibility to write or call local officials and demand answers as to why those responsible are not being brought to justice.” In the above examples of children that have been abused – the girl who was locked in the basement with a dog, the boy who was scalded, the girl who suffered with most of her bones broken, the infant who was starved, and the boy who was tattooed with bruises - not one individual was held accountable or served any time in jail. Says O’Neill, “People need to become aware of what is happening in our courts and the fact that our society does not protect or value our children. People have to wake up to what’s happening to not only the children in
St. Joseph County, but across this nation.”

Create awareness of CASA by inviting Judy O’Neill to speak at your church. She believes this is an important next step for the church locally. “I got started in this work, and always had been aware of what was happening. I would pray about starved and abused children, and had heard about lots of babies being found in dumpsters. I would pray and ask God to help these children. And then it came to me one day - to get up off of my knees - and do the work at hand. It was time to move from prayer to work.”

Judy O’Neill is the Executive Director of St. Joseph County CASA. In 2002 she became one of twelve directors appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to serve on the Indiana Supreme Court Advisory Commission on Guardian Ad Litem/Court Appointed Special Advocate Services. She is located at the Thomas J. Frederick Juvenile Justice Center downtown South Bend, and may be reached at (574) 233-CASA (2272).