Advocacy group for children launches new fundraiser / LJWorld.com

Douglas County CASA will host its inaugural fundraiser, CASABlanca, at 7 p.m. July 28 at Maceli’s, 1031 N.H.

The event will include live music and casino games. Tickets, $40 in advance and $50 at the door, will include drinks, appetizers and desserts.

The organization is deviating this year from their annual CASA for CASA Playhouse giveaway, but the new event will include a People’s Choice Award honoring 20 years of the CASA playhouses.

“With funding challenges and an increase in child abuse and neglect cases in our community, we’re hoping that a new approach will yield positive results at a critical time,” said Douglas County CASA director Diana Frederick. CASA trains volunteers who serve as advocates for abused and neglected children who are under the care of the court system in Douglas County.

Organizers are currently seeking sponsors. For more information, or to vote online for the People's Choice Award, visit dccasa.org.

Alceste 4 years, 12 months ago

Give not dime one to this unctous little tea party outfit. Why not? It does more harm than good. Here are the facts. Do you dare read them?

Throughout the country, local CASA chapters continue to state or imply that they are “a child’s voice” in court. They are not. A CASA advocates for whatever the CASA thinks is best for the child. So if the child desperately wants to go home, but the CASA thinks that’s a bad idea, the CASA pushes as hard as she can against what the child wants; the child effectively is silenced. (While it is much less likely to happen, if a child wants to stay in foster care and the CASA wants the child to return home, again, the child is silenced – and that is equally wrong.)

Children do need a voice in court – a real one. From the age a child is old enough to express a rational preference she or he should get a lawyer to fight for that preference. That doesn’t mean children always should get what they want. But the best way to find out what truly is best for a child is if everyone has an articulate advocate making his or her case. Deciding what is best is what we pay judges for. It’s time we stopped ceding that role to amateurs.

CASA is one of the larger fronts as it is a GIANT aspect of the problem with respect to the distorted "Court" system, families, children, removals, foster care, etc. CASA ain't no panacea and has been allowed to grow and mutate to the point of obscenity. LOTS of Jim Jones like Kool-Aid being drunk around these here parts. Read the truth about CASA and what a joke of an operation it is here: http://nccpr.info/the-case-against-casa/ (if you dare, download and read the complete report here: http://www.nccpr.org/reports/casa.pdf , bearing in mind this report is one that was ordained by CASA itself and then BURIED because CASA didn't like what was found.... )

Here are some basic "bullet points" to wet your whistle: an evaluation commissioned by the National CASA Association itself. As Youth Today noted, the report “delivers some surprisingly damning numbers.”

The study found that CASA’s only real accomplishments were to prolong the time children languished in foster care and reduce the chance that the child will be placed with relatives.

The study found no evidence that having a CASA on the case does anything to improve child safety – so all that extra foster care is for nothing. (The study specifically controlled for CASA’s all purpose excuse for this – the claim that CASAs handle the most difficult cases.)

The study also found that when a CASA is assigned to a child who is Black, the CASA spends, on average, significantly less time on the case. (The study also found that CASAs don’t spend as much time on cases in general as the organization’s p.r. might lead one to believe. CASA volunteers reported spending an average of only 4.3 hours per month on cases involving white children, and only 2.67 hours per month on cases involving Black children). (Continued below):

Continued:

Rather than respond to the findings of its own study by cleaning up its act, CASA tried first to spin the results and then to bury them. Youth Today concluded that CASA’s spin “can border on duplicity.”

In short, CASA is one more thumb tilting the scales of justice against families.

Heck NO the program is NOT very much needed due to incredible failures of Diana Frederick, executive director of the Douglas County Court Appointed Special Advocates and the program.

Want an even more better and amusing aspect of CASA in Kansas in general? Alceste is at your service:

●Then there’s the CASA chapter in Kansas which raised money through an annual Men in Tights drag queen contest. In 2008, a local mayor won after dressing up as a woman he named "Smellishis Poon." The "surname" is, in the words of a story in the paid archive of the Arkansas City Traveler, "graphic slang for a female private part." So is the name the mayor chose for his back-up dancers. They were called the "Red Hot Puntangs." Oh, and one more thing: The mayor did his act made up in blackface.

Lawrence CASA said NOTHING about this obscenity.

http://likeawhisper.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/kansas-mayor-youth-advocates-think-blackface-is-fun/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-02-2120095473_x.htm

http://www.hicktownpress.com/kansas-mayor-apologizes-for-black-face-skit/