by CASA of Los Angeles | Oct 6, 2014 | Stories
They thought they were just going to see a baseball game. But when six-year-old Jayden and his newly adoptive mother, Shellie, arrived at the minor-league Kane County Cougars’ ballpark, in Geneva, Illinois, over Labor Day weekend, they realized they’d been...
by a1l2f3i4a5n | Sep 10, 2014 | Stories
The seven-day notice. It’s something almost every foster child dreads. It means a foster family wants the child out of their home. By the time Rosalie Benitez was assigned as the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for nine-year-old Diego, in September 2013,...
by a1l2f3i4a5n | Jul 31, 2014 | Stories
A few weeks ago, Monica Hicks-Jenkins got an unexpected phone call at the CASA of Los Angeles office in Monterey Park. It was from Eleanor, the foster mother of three-and-a-half-year-old Darren, for whom Monica is a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA)....
by a1l2f3i4a5n | Jul 7, 2014 | Stories
When Dave Stein first met Rory, at one of Rory’s mandatory six-month hearings in the Los Angeles County dependency court two years ago, he had a simple request for him. “I told him I was his Court Appointed Special Advocate [CASA] and explained what a CASA...
by CASA of Los Angeles | Jun 18, 2014 | Stories
It started with a phone call. “Amy, it’s Elizabeth Moore from CASA of Los Angeles.” “Elizabeth! Nice to hear from you. I have so much to tell you!” The two knew each other from several years before, when Amy adopted Adrian, a medically...
by CASA of Los Angeles | Jun 18, 2014 | Stories
On a cloudy morning in March, two brothers, Jacob, 12, and Dylan, 10, found their way to seats in the vast waiting area of the Edmund D. Edelman Children’s Court, in Monterey Park. Stress was written on their faces. Both had been living in foster care since the...
by a1l2f3i4a5n | Apr 22, 2014 | Stories
It was an unmistakably confident title for a scholarship application essay: Success Is Certain. It’s also an ironic title when you consider that the applicant, Casey Van Ross, 18, has been a dependent of the court for most of the last three years. He has...
by a1l2f3i4a5n | Mar 5, 2014 | Stories
By her own count, Katherine Wheatfall has provided a foster home for about 50 children since 1999. She’s about as seasoned a foster parent as one can imagine. But when siblings Angel and Gene—8 and 6, respectively—went to live with her, in the fall of 2011, she...
by CASA of Los Angeles | Nov 27, 2013 | Stories
What’s one more person when you’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 65 people? To Anita Davis, it’s a really big deal this year, because that one person is her 12-year-old grandson, Jason. For almost all of the last two years, Jason had been living in...
by CASA of Los Angeles | Nov 6, 2013 | Stories
In July 2013, the FBI conducted a national sex-trafficking sting, dubbed “Operation Cross Country,” targeting underage victims of prostitution. The three-day raid rescued more than 100 teens, some as young as 13, including two in Los Angeles. The operation...
