I went to my sister’s house for dinner last night, and she was all excited about a volunteering opportunity that she had just found out about. It seems that she had been watching Dr. Phil last week, and they had done a show about helping kids. She has always been the type of person who likes to help others, and so when she was watching this particular show, they spoke about volunteers needed for an organization called CASA. In short, Dr. Phil and his wife are becoming spokes people for this organization. She went on to tell me that being a CASA volunteer will allow you to help children whose families are in crisis. A CASA volunteer has to go through 36 hours of training and make a 2 year commitment to the cause. After the training portion, your job is to meet with children who need representation in court and trying to figure out what is their best option. For instance, you will help with decisions on custody and placement for children with bad home lives. You will not only interview the kids but the grown ups involved, check out living conditions, talk to school psychologist, social workers, and teachers, to try and help represent the child’s best interests. Then after the interviews, etc, you will put all your findings into a report, and will need to appear in court to testify if necessary. You are basically the eyes and ears of the court, so as to cut down on the man hours that are needed to make decisions in the best interest of the child or children involved. This does not just mean putting the child where they want to go, but making a tough decision for the child which is in their best interest in the long run.
My sister told me that she already received the application and submitted it. I asked her if she really thought that she had the time to invest in doing something like this, and her answer to me was, how could she not? I should have known. Anyway, after talking about it a little more, I really thought that it sounded like a worthy cause and I told her to get me an application and I would do it with her. After all, life is really about giving back, isn’t it? I just am glad that as a child, I myself had a stable home life and did not have to face a lot of the things that the kids today have to face. I know if I were a child in this tough situation, I would really want to feel like someone was there just to be on my side and to represent me and my interests.
I think that this will be a really worthy cause to work with kids and help them get what they need. I look forward to the challenge of it. We are really hoping that we can do our 36 hours of training over the summer so that it doesn’t interfere with our school schedules. I am sure that Mom can watch the boys while we go to training together. It will be really nice to get to spend this time together as well.