photo by: Bremen Keasey

Most years, Erick Vaughn says one of the biggest challenges facing his organization, Douglas County CASA, is people not knowing much about it.

The group’s mission is to use specially trained volunteers called Court Appointed Special Advocates to advocate for children who have been removed from their homes and placed under court protection. In Douglas County in any given year, there are about 140 children in out-of-home placements, said Vaughn, Douglas County CASA’s executive director.

But Vaughn said his organization, which had recently been growing steadily, has a new challenge now. The U.S. Department of Justice under the Trump administration issued 360 notices of termination for federal grants in April, and one of the organizations affected is the national CASA organization.

The loss of funding could affect more than 200,000 children involved in child abuse and neglect proceedings across the country. And although Vaughn said Douglas County CASA is in better shape than some other organizations to weather the federal cuts, there will still be indirect impacts that may make CASA’s job harder. Key partnerships with other organizations in the community will become even more critical — both for providing funds and making sure people still know about CASA and what it does.

“A lot of people don’t know about CASA,” Vaughn said. “These partnerships help get the word out about what we do and impact the community in which they live.”

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Vaughn admits that CASA doesn’t have quite the same name recognition as some other local nonprofits, and some of that might be because it’s not immediately clear what CASA does.

“The work we do is complicated,” Vaughn said.

Basically, Vaughn said, CASA’s role is to recruit, train and support volunteers to advocate for individual children who have experienced abuse or neglect and are now in court protection. In about 75% of those cases, the child is removed from their home and placed in foster care. CASA volunteers then serve as a safe, caring adult in the child’s life, and they also investigate and monitor the child’s case and report some information to the court.

That information can be very important, Vaughn said. Oftentimes, CASA volunteers spend more time with the child than other people who provide data to the court, building stronger relationships with the child and allowing them to learn more about the child to better advocate for them. Because of that relationship, Vaughn said he’s heard from multiple people in the Douglas County court system that CASA volunteers’ reports paint a fuller picture of the child’s personality and needs compared to other court reports.

“We’ve found it’s become vital that a CASA person is assigned to the case,” Vaughn said.

So far in 2025, the organization’s team of 76 volunteers has served 83 children, Vaughn said, and they are aiming to serve a total of 120 children by the end of the year.

But the volunteers can’t do their jobs without the support of CASA’s paid staff members. And that’s where the federal grant cancellations will complicate things.

Vaughn said that Douglas County CASA didn’t have much federal money in its budget for this year, and that other CASA organizations were hit harder — Sunflower CASA in Manhattan lost $75,000, which could have helped at least 75 children, while Johnson and Wyandotte Counties lost $100,000. But the cuts will still have an impact on Douglas County CASA’s ability to hire new staff.

Currently, Douglas County CASA has 11 paid staff members, including four people known as advocate supervisors who support the organization’s volunteer case workers. When Douglas County CASA applies for new grants, those supervisor positions are typically what it’s looking to use the funding for.

One of its current supervisors was able to be hired because of a grant from the federal Department of Justice that funded her position for two years. Had the group not gotten that federal money, Vaughn said “we wouldn’t have grown quite as fast” and wouldn’t have been able to manage as many volunteers.

That supervisor position won’t be affected by the cancellations, but they will make it much harder to add more supervisor jobs. A month before the termination notices went out, Douglas County CASA was applying for new grants ranging from $20,000 to $50,000.

Now, Vaughn said, “that’s simply gone.”

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The federal situation may be tough to predict, but CASA has more stable sources of support closer to home — including two at the University of Kansas.

One of them is the Winds Across the Prairie benefit concert, which is organized each year by the KU School of Music.

Dean Paul W. Popiel said the School of Music was approached by CASA in 2020 with the idea of holding an outdoor benefit concert similar to the Symphony in the Flint Hills. They organized the first Winds Across the Prairie concert that year, he said, with the KU Wind Ensemble performing at a “beautiful rural estate.”

Winds Across the Prairie has since become an annual event and has raised over $500,000 for CASA in the last five years. This year, the concert is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 19, at the Triple R Ranch in southern Douglas County, and the goal is to raise $200,000, according to Douglas County CASA’s website. Tickets for the concert go on sale on June 20.

Popiel said that the concerts have raised not just money, but awareness too. Many people who regularly attend KU band concerts, including musicians’ family members, have “become fans, supporters and volunteers for CASA” after learning about it through the concert. It shows the band members that the arts can make the world better in more ways than one, he said.

“We can continually seek ways for our music to serve a greater good,” Popiel said.

photo by: Drone Lawrence

Douglas County Court Appointed Special Advocates’ first Winds Across the Prairie benefit concert featuring the University of Kansas Wind Ensemble, pictured here, took place Sept. 10, 2021. The benefit will return again later this year on Friday, Sept. 9.

Another big source of support at KU is the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, which Vaughn said has been a valuable partner for years.

The national Kappa Alpha Theta organization partners with CASA, meaning all of its chapters work with their local CASA organizations. Since the partnership began in 1989, the national sorority has contributed millions of dollars to CASA organizations around the U.S., according to its website.

Jaiden Rensch, the philanthropy director for KU’s chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta, said this past year, the chapter held two philanthropy events in support of CASA: a pancake dinner in the fall and a cornhole tournament in the spring. As well as organizing fundraisers of their own, Theta members attend CASA events and help spread the word in the community about other people’s fundraising efforts for CASA. For example, if a local restaurant holds an event where a percentage of sales go toward a donation to CASA, Rensch said they are notified by CASA and share that information to other sorority members and friends.

Vaughn said Theta had raised over $12,000 just through its event this spring, which he said is more than most donors give. Annually, Theta normally raises between $20,000 and $30,000 to help the local CASA organization.

The Thetas say that their support for CASA goes beyond just a couple of fundraising events — for them, it’s a point of pride, Rensch said. Even before they’ve officially joined the sorority, Rensch said potential members have already learned about about CASA and its mission, because current Theta members tell them all about it during their recruitment process.

“Douglas County CASA impacts children and families across the community,” Rensch said. “I am grateful for the opportunity to continually learn more about Douglas County CASA and participate in something larger than myself.”

That kind of personal involvement often persists throughout people’s lives. Vaughn said when he was hired, one of the board members at the time had first become involved with the organization through Theta. She moved to Texas a few years ago, Vaughn said, but she still refers people to the organization.

“It’s an amazing group of ladies, and it’s been an amazing partnership,” Vaughn said.

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But donors and fundraisers aren’t the only things in the community that CASA is connected with. CASA is part of a whole web of nonprofits that help vulnerable children, Vaughn said, and if those groups are hurting from the federal cuts, that could make ripples in CASA’s operations, too.

A week after the cancellation of the federal CASA grants, federal cuts to the Americorps program were announced, terminating 10 active projects in Kansas and causing a financial impact of over $400,000, as the Journal-World reported. Vaughn pointed to one organization in particular that was affected by those cuts: the Center for Supportive Communities.

The 20 Americorps volunteers with that organization helped provide support for children and families in crisis in Douglas County. If those volunteers aren’t there, that could mean more problems with truancy, which could in turn mean more cases for CASA.

Vaughn is also monitoring proposed cuts or changes to Medicaid being discussed in Congress. The children CASA serves in foster care are automatically eligible for Medicaid, and many families are eligible for it as well. If any legislation changes eligibility requirements or adds extra hurdles like work requirements, Vaughn said that makes it harder on families and case workers managing those cases. The unpredictability of the current administration has also made it much harder to know if other cuts or changes will come, making it harder to plan for the future.

“We don’t know what’s going to come next,” Vaughn said.

Even though CASA is still operating, Vaughn said the cuts have been jarring in the fact that, at least at the federal level, there seems to be less desire to help people who are most vulnerable.

Vaughn said for many children who spend time in the foster care system, their prospects can be “horrible.” Children who get moved around through the system can lead to an increased likelihood of experiencing homelessness, an increased likelihood of being involved in criminal activity and worse health outcomes, both physical and mental health.

That’s why it’s so important, he said, that people in the community rally around organizations like CASA.

“It really does help our entire community when these kids and families are cared for earlier on to get out of the system,” Vaughn said.