About 65% of children in foster care in Oregon have a Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA

 

Advocates for abused and neglected children in Oregon lost more federal funding in late April after the U.S. Department of Justice abruptly terminated grants.

While attorneys and caseworkers are overburdened, CASA volunteers — short for Court Appointed Special Advocates — take on one child at a time and support them during the court process, Yamhill County CASA Network Executive Director Sarah Johnson told the Capital Chronicle. The Yamhill County CASA network, which represents about 150 foster kids in rural northwest Oregon, lost access to a $35,000 federal grant it received to maintain its full-time staff and support its CASA volunteers.

“They are the only voice in the courtroom that speak up for the best interest of the child and not necessarily the wishes of the other parties in the courtroom,” Johnson said. “They stick with the child through the entire life of the case. They also become a stable adult in the lives of these children.”

The Yamhill County network is one of 19 programs across Oregon that lost federal funding after the U.S. Department of Justice on April 22 announced it was cutting funding to the National CASA Network, which had distributed funds and support to local programs. With those funds gone, Oregon programs now face budget shortfalls as they continue helping vulnerable children.

Like Johnson, Marion County CASA Network Executive Director Vanessa Nordyke said her organization had applied for a $50,000 grant from the National CASA Association, and she had “high hopes” for that grant money.

The grant would have gone toward hiring a new employee to help recruit and train more volunteers with the end goal of helping represent an additional 60 children in foster care to the 66 youth it currently serves, she told the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

“This loss of federal funding is devastating,” Nordyke said. “Abused and neglected foster children will pay the price for this loss of funding.”

Federal government cites shifting priorities as it cuts foster care program funds

There are more than 1,800 CASA advocates in Oregon, and 65% of children in foster care have a CASA, according to Oregon CASA Network Interim Executive Director Kat Hendrix. Local Oregon CASA networks train their volunteers and receive marketing assistance from the national CASA organization.

However, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the national CASA organization that it was terminating federal grant awards because the program “no longer effectuates the program’s goals or agency priorities.”

According to the letter, the department is changing its grant priorities to focus on “law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault, and better coordinating law enforcement efforts at all levels of government.”

Oregon CASA programs were already facing budget shortfalls after Congress passed a continuing resolution in March cutting $1.7 million in community project funding, KDRV reported. Federal U.S. Department of Justice grants would have helped offset the loss for those funds, Hendrix said.

“The termination of federal funding to the national CASA organization, which creates grant opportunities for state and local CASA programs, means that a viable funding pathway is no longer available,” she said.

Hendrix said a total of $150,000 had already been awarded to CASA networks across Oregon, but the funds were suspended under the recent Department of Justice’s cuts.

“The other significant aspect of this loss is in current and future grant opportunities that programs were depending on. One program alone was planning to apply for $183,000 in grants from (National CASA),” she said.

Coping with federal funding cuts

Hendrix said the Oregon CASA Network may need to develop new programs to fill these gaps, and that requires more resources “at a time when fundraising has become more challenging.”

In Yamhill County, the CASA organization gets most of its funding from the state of Oregon, private grants and individual donors. But the federal grant it was set to receive would have accounted for 15% of its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, Johnson said.

The Oregon CASA Network is supporting House Bill 3196 and House Bill 5002. Both are state funding requests that would offset the federal funding losses.

“That would be huge,” Johnson said about the legislation, noting that her team in Yamhill County is already increasing its fundraising efforts. “That would be such a relief on our program to have the state step up and contribute that funding.”

The Oregon CASA Network is also awaiting the results of the national CASA association’s appeal related to the funding cuts.