Monday, Aug. 30, 2010

CASA program gets seed money to hire staff, start operation

Aim is to be up and running by fall to help abused, neglected kid

One day almost 20 years ago, retired teacher Marge Sadler was told by a police officer after class that he was going to put a student of hers into foster care.

When the policeman came the next day, all Sadler's young student owned was her backpack and the clothes on her back as she was led away.

Sadler said the girl had to wear the clothes she borrowed from other kids at the foster home for two days. She didn't even have a toothbrush. Sadler took it upon herself to buy the girl clothes. She and her husband even thought of adopting the girl.

Aside from Sadler, that girl had few people she could look to for help as she was taken from abusive parents and sent into a strange world.

Up until now, that was true for the roughly 4,000 children involved in reported abuse or neglect cases each year in Merced County. Soon this will begin to change -- at least in Merced County.

On Monday, the Merced County Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program's board of directors announced it had received its first seed money and hopes to be up and running by the fall, with a staff and small group of advocates.

Advocates are volunteers who assist abused and neglected children making their way through the court system. But they also look into the child's home life, whether it's with their parents or in a foster home, to make sure the court knows what is really going on.

Sadler is training to become one of Merced County's first CASA advocates.

With its first donation, more than $1,000 from Rep. Dennis Cardoza, and a $30,000 grant, Merced's CASA hopes to be operational by November, said board president Nancy Young.

"I don't think people realize what a huge problem we have in Merced County," said Young about child abuse.

With help from Stanislaus County's CASA program, Merced County Superior Court Judge John Kirihara, Cardoza, District Attorney Larry Morse II and Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, abused children in Merced County will now have one more group of people looking out for them, said Young.

Cardoza, who adopted two children who were saved because of a CASA volunteer in Kern County, said that each volunteer can make a huge difference in the life of abused kids. If there's no one person looking out for kids in the system, then they often cost society in money and pain down the line, said Cardoza.

"We see a lot of sad cases," said Morse. A majority of the folks who are in the criminal justice system now were kids who had no one looking out for them when they were young, he said. CASA volunteers, said Morse, will help kids before they fall off the deep end.

For more information about Merced's CASA call (209) 489-8499.

Reporter Jonah Owen Lamb can be reached at (209) 385-2484 or jlamb@

mercedsun-star.com.