Voices for Children

Voices for Children (vfc) recruits, trains, and manages over 900 volunteers annually to serve as court appointed special advocates (casas) and is the only nonprofit organization designated by the state of California and the superior courts of san diego and riverside counties to provide these casa services. Vfc was founded in 1980 in san diego county, and since 2015, has also operated the casa program for riverside county. Casa volunteers play an important role in the foster care system, building trusting relationships with Children and interfacing with the professionals in order to identify and protect the best interests of Children in foster care who have experienced abuse,neglect, or abandonment. Currently all of the nearly 2,500 Children in san diego county foster care receive assessment services and 1,734 Children in urgent need of advocacy were served by a casa or case liaison. In addition, 521 Children in riverside county are being served by casas. Casas work closely with vfc staff to prepare reports for each juvenile court hearing, and develop appropriate advocacy plans for the Children. This information helps superior court judges make the most informed decisions to help each child be safe, healthy, and successful. In addition, the case files of all Children in san diego county foster care are reviewed annually, and thousands of reports are written and filed that evaluate, update, and prioritize Children's cases, with the ultimate goal of matching them with trained casa volunteers. In february 2023, vfc became thedesignated casa program for the pechanga tribal court.