Community Update, September 2015

September 2015 AN UPDATE FROM YOUR BOARD CHAIR & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Dear CASA/LA Community, Happy New Fiscal Year and special thanks for your contribution to our strong results in the year just completed!  This twofold message is about our short-term focus on...

Advocates are a stabilizing force

This article originally appeared in the Simi Valley Acorn, September 11, 2015. Nonprofit serves county’s foster kids. Every year, roughly 1,000 Ventura County children enter the foster system for reasons beyond their control. Often bounced from home to home, a foster...

The Road to Permanence

At first, he wouldn’t talk to her. He might nod or shake his head, but he used no words. So it was a measure of the relationship they had built when, after several months of weekly visits, twelve-year-old Jack finally started to talk to his Court Appointed Special...

Do Not Remove

On a morning last August, two cars pulled up in front of Thomas Green’s home, in Watts. They were there to pick up Thomas and his three grandchildren for a meeting at the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). The meeting was ostensibly to...

To Life

It was about a year ago. Sarah, then 10, was at home with her mother, Rachel, when she took a terrible fall, hitting her head and gashing her eyebrow. Stunned but aware she was injured, she walked to a neighbor’s house and rapped on the door. “I’m hurt,” she said. “My...