Welcome new Court Appointed Special Advocates!
September 25, 2019 (Colorado Springs, Colo.) – Eleven new Court Appointed Special Advocates were sworn in as officers of the court by Chief 4th Judicial District Court Judge William Bain during a CASA of the Pikes Peak Region swearing-in ceremony at the El Paso County Combined Courts on Tuesday.
These eleven community volunteers just completed a two-week training course that covered topics like trauma, resiliency, poverty, mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, the role of a CASA volunteer, and more. The swearing-in ceremony was the final step to becoming a CASA volunteer and they are now ready to begin the important work of advocating for children who have become caught up in the court system after being removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect.
Congratulations new advocates! Pictured from top left: Alexander Geng, Cindy Venturin-Salber, Claire Williams, Darnell Fawcett, Heather Ulibarri, Judge Bain, Kylia West, Levanie Wintermute, Susan Varnier, Tanya Matarazzo, Taysie Devore, and Timothy Perkins.
Last year, CASA volunteers served 710 children in the Pikes Peak Region. However there were at least 200 children that CASA could not advocate for due to a shortage of volunteers. These new volunteers will help CASA meet its goal to serve all of the children in need in the Pikes Peak Region by the year 2020.
To learn more about how you can become trained as a CASA volunteer, attend CASA’s next Volunteer Information Session on October 2, 2019. More information is available here.
About CASA of the Pikes Peak Region
CASA of the Pikes Peak Region is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded in 1989 as a local program of the National CASA Association. Serving El Paso and Teller Counties, the organization’s core mission is to recruit, train, and support citizen volunteers in its Dependency & Neglect program to provide a voice and advocate for victims of child abuse and neglect. The nonprofit also operates a Supervised Exchange & Parenting Time (SEPT) program, Milton Foster Children’s Fund (MFCF) & the Hanger, Life Long Links, and Children & Families in Transition. With more than 400 volunteers who put in roughly 19,000 hours in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, CASA of the Pikes Peak Region provided advocates for 710 children and served more than 900 children through additional programming. For more information, visit www.casappr.org.