There are 19 local programs across Oregon that recruit, train, supervise and support volunteers who serve as Court Appointed Special Advocates for foster children and youth. The programs operate independently with their own budgets and are funded through a mix of state dollars, private donations, philanthropic grants and community fundraising.
This fiscal year, they were also expecting to get a one-time allocation of $1.7 million from the federal government, which was earmarked for community project funding in Oregon. But last month, the Continuing Resolution that Congress passed stripped this funding, which would have been disbursed through the Oregon CASA Network to each of the local programs, based on the number of foster children and youth in the counties they serve.
Jennifer Mylenek, the executive director of CASA of Jackson and Josephine Counties, and Mary Collard, the executive director of CASA of Eastern Oregon, join us to talk about how they’re coping with the impact of the loss of these funds within their rural communities.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Court Appointed Special Advocates, or CASAs, volunteer on behalf of foster children and youth. They’re the only people in the foster care system whose sole role is to advocate for some of Oregon’s most vulnerable residents. This fiscal year, the 19 groups that support CASA programs around the state were expecting to get a one-time allocation of $1.7 million from the federal government. But last month, the continuing resolution that Congress passed stripped that funding.
We’re gonna start today with the effects of that cut. Jennifer Mylenek is the executive director of CASA of Jackson and Josephine Counties. Mary Collard is the executive director of CASA of Eastern Oregon. That includes seven Eastern Oregon counties. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.
Mary Collard: Thank you.
Jennifer Mylenek: Yeah, thanks for having us.
Miller: Jennier, first – what’s the big idea behind the CASA program?
Mylenek: The big idea was actually created by a judge in 1977 who just wanted to make the best decision he could for the children in his courtroom, and he couldn’t get all the information he needed to do that. So he thought maybe citizen volunteers, CASA volunteers, who are well trained and supported, could really get to know the child and their situation and bring that forth to the court. And that’s how we got started.
Miller: Mary, why is this necessary? Why couldn’t that information come from, say, the child, if they’re old enough, or even younger, but being asked questions by a really smart judge or maybe people from DHS, foster parents … there are a bunch of other adults involved, so what does a well-trained volunteer provide that no other adult is providing?
Collard: The volunteer provides a non-biased opinion for the best interests of the children. There are people in the courtroom who represent what the child wants, they’re representing the parents. The state’s guidelines that they have to go by. The judge and attorneys, of course, have their guidelines they have to go by.
But an advocate is the one person in the courtroom who is not getting paid to speak from their heart on what is in the best interest of the children. They form these recommendations by visiting the child regularly. Most of the time the advocate is the only consistent person in a child’s life from the beginning to the end of the case. A lot of times, judges change, caseworkers change, attorneys change. But the advocate hopefully stays the same – that’s our goal.
They also are only assigned one to two cases at a time, two at the max. Therefore, they can concentrate on exactly what that child needs, through getting to know them, through their relatives, through where they’re staying, their home environment, their school, any kind of conferences and hearings that are happening. They really stay on top of things.
Miller: Jennifer, can you give us a sense then for what a CASA volunteer signs up for. I mean, we’ve just heard from Mary. It seems like an extraordinary amount of work and time?
Mylenek: We have to carefully interview and orient our volunteers before they come into training. We ask for a two-year commitment. They are going to be a critical person in that child’s life. And as Mary said, probably the only consistent person. But when it all works out in the end, it averages only about 10 hours a month.
Sometimes when a CASA first gets a case, there’s a lot of reading of materials, of discovery materials and catching them up on what the background might have been. And of course visiting the child is very important. But then as time moves on, it’s more just visiting the child and staying up-to-date on what’s happening and informing the court. And it’s not as time consuming as people might think.
Miller: Mary, how much federal money had you been told you were going to get for this current federal fiscal year?
Collard: We were slated to receive $180,000 and had budgeted $70,000 for this current fiscal year. That’s with all the seven counties combined.
Miller: How significant is that for your overall budget?
Collard: It’s very significant. These funds ensure that we have program managers who supervise, get out there and recruit, and support and supervise the advocates in each of their counties. In turn, of course those advocates are speaking up for those children who so highly need a voice. So this will impede us on increasing the hours that our program managers need for that, and possibly reducing them.
Miller: Possibly? You’re not sure yet if this will mean staff cuts?
Collard: We hope not. But at this moment, we are definitely looking at some type of cut. We recognize that our employees work very hard and we don’t want to cut anyone. At this time, I have cut some of my hours just to go ahead and prepare for this next few months. So we’re starting with me.
Miller: Jennifer, what about in Southern Oregon, in Jackson and Josephine Counties? How much federal money had you been expecting and what is this cut going to mean?
Mylenek: We were expecting about $68,000 for our two programs and we serve collectively just under 650 children annually. And for every 20 to 30 CASA [volunteers] you have got to have a staff person managing all of the documentation, the court calendaring, the mentoring, the coaching, the training, and editing court reports … and so much more.
Each one of our case supervisors who manages 20 to 30 CASAs is managing 100 or so children’s cases and all that it entails each year, annually. We just laid off a person who we had hired to help us increase our fundraising, because 80% of our budget does come from the community and fundraising, and we had to cut that position.
Miller: Did that position not pay for itself?
Mylenek: It [did] not. She’d only been in the position a year and we were going to give her three years to show a return on investment. But it was not paying for itself. We would have liked to have given it more time, but with these cuts, it just wasn’t possible. So that also inhibits our ability to do more than we’re already doing, which is five events a year, lots of direct mail appeals and everything you can think of.
But it inhibits us from doing more to help make our programs sustainable. CASA programs operate very close to the wire. We do not have any fat that we can cut. Thanks to the 250 or so volunteers our program has, we’re able to leverage the dollar so far. But it doesn’t leave us with anything to cut other than services, when things like this happen.
Miller: Mary, what does the state require in terms of CASA support?
Collard: We have to meet our state and national guidelines which, as Jennifer stated, for every 20 to 30 CASA volunteers, we have to have a paid staff assigned for that. The Supreme Court mandates that every child is assigned an advocate. So that’s our goal, that 100% of the children who are involved in child neglect and dependency cases receive a volunteer. And right now, we are not meeting 100%. With cuts, it just makes it even harder.
Miller: Jennifer, what would bills being considered right now in the Oregon Legislature do?
Mylenek: Well, it would help restore the Victims of Crime Act funding, the abbreviation which is VOCA. We used to receive that funding. And the funding we just lost was helping us to bridge a year of that loss, until we could work to get a reinstatement of VOCA funding. So one of the bills is to support that.
The other one is to request a sort of a COLA [Cost-of-Living Adjustment] increase in our state funds that come through to us. If these bills passed, we would all be OK for now. So we’re really banking heavily on that.
Miller: Mary, just in the 45 seconds we have left, what are you expecting this to mean – if no new money comes in, what will the effects be for foster children?
Collard: Sadly, the new children coming in will not have an advocate trained and sitting on the bench waiting to serve them. And we will just kind of be at a lull right now. Our waiting lists get longer, which possibly means that a child lingers in the system longer, struggles in school without those extra supports [and], overall, has a tough time in the system. And we are hoping to continue to be able to serve those children that we’re serving now without any cuts. But the ones coming into the system, Jennifer and I could each be assigned children to our programs as we’re on this call.
Miller: Mary Collard and Jennifer Mylenek, thanks very much.
Collard / Mylenek: Thank you for having us.
Miller: Jennifer Mylenek is the executive director of CASA of Jackson and Josephine Counties. Mary Collard is the executive director of CASA of Eastern Oregon.
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