Have you ever been lost?

Everyone has been lost at one time or another. We all know the sickening feeling of insecurity and self doubt that can accompany the realization that we don’t know where we are or how to get where we’re going.

Multiply those emotions by ten and you have a child who becomes separated from his parents in a large department store or at a Mardi Gras Parade. Multiply that sickening feeling by 100 and you have a child who is adrift in the court system of East Baton Rouge Parish minus the security of home or family.

“I really believe in my work,” Liz Betz said, executive director of CASA of Baton Rouge (Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children) for over 15 years. “Kids deserve every chance they can get, and we try to see to it that a specially trained CASA volunteer is there for them who is dedicated to looking out for their best interests.”

Betz explained that the people at the Office of Child Services are dedicated professionals and public servants with impossibly large case loads that make it impossible for them to know the needs of each individual child.

“The CASA volunteer has one family or one child to care for, and he or she has the luxury of becoming an expert on that kid,” she said. “The taxpayers will never be able to afford the kind of service we provide to children for free. Our carefully trained volunteers are neutral, they have no interest except what is best for the child, and they do not have a supervisor to please.”

CASA volunteers are screened nationwide for any criminality in their background. They must present three personal references, which are checked carefully accompanied by a screening interview.

“Volunteering with CASA is a privilege, and we always err on the side of the child,” Beck said. “Many times parents do not like what the CASA volunteer does, but it is our job to protect children who are in foster care because they have been abused or neglected. Often the root problem is substance abuse of one kind or another.”

Foster care is meant to be temporary, and CASA is dedicated to getting the child into a safe, permanent home as quickly as possible. The first choice is always reunification, which means resolving the problem and getting the child back into their own home.

The second choice is transferring the child to relatives who can care for her, such as grandparents. The third choice is adoption, but there has to be grounds to take this very serious step. The fourth and least favorable choice when all else fails is permanent foster care until the child becomes 18.

“We had one young lady who was three months short of her eighteenth birthday when she was adopted,” Betz recalled. “She said she wanted her children to have grandparents.”

Betz reports proudly that when she joined the organization there were only 12 CASA volunteers. Today there are 273 and almost 100 percent of the children in the 19th Judicial District, which covers East Baton Rouge Parish who have CASA volunteers. There are CASA programs at work in 40 parishes in Louisiana.

CASA can always use more volunteers. Anyone wishing to learn more about the program can check it out at www.casabr.org or by calling 379-8598.