Our Mission & Values

Our Mission

Family Law CASA advocates for children in high-conflict cases across King County so they have the best chance for a safe, more secure home life, advancing equity for low-income families and significantly reducing the risk of abuse and neglect.

Our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) Statement

At Family Law CASA, we recognize our existence is inextricably tied to racist, sexist, and classist systems that disproportionately impact marginalized groups of King County, especially BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and people in low-income communities. Through our critical work championing children’s voices in family court, we seek to continue to mitigate these real impacts by:

Implementing anti-racist and inclusive practices and intentionally participating in ongoing equity and bias training with our board, staff, and volunteer advocates.
Including and elevating the voices of all stakeholders that intersect with our program and hold ourselves and our allies accountable for ensuring access to justice and equitable representation in family court.
Recognizing that authentically engaging with and centering historically marginalized voices will enable us to disrupt systemic harm and transform our practices, programming, and organization to be more equitable.

In addition, we have adopted the Washington Race and Equity Justice Initiative Acknowledgement and Commitments which can be found here (and below).

What is REJI?

The Washington Race Equity & Justice Initiative (REJI) is working to coordinate and grow a sustainable statewide community of legal and justice system partners in Washington State who can more effectively and collaboratively work toward eradicating racially biased policies, practices, and systems. The non-profits and government agencies that make up the legal aid and Access to Justice community in WA state have signed on to collaborate and adopt these commitments.

REJI Commitments

As members of the Washington Race Equity & Justice Initiative, we commit to:

Work together with, take guidance from, be part of, and hold ourselves accountable to community-based movements in communities most affected by structural racialization and structurally racialized systems.
Change structures, policies, processes, and practices in the law, legal profession, and justice system that allow harm and disparate outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and communities of color to continue unabated.
Promote and support legal, systemic & public policy changes that advance race equity & racial justice, recognizing that differently situated groups may require different strategies to achieve more equitable outcomes.
Continuously examine whether we and the organizations we work with operate in ways that align with the race equity and justice values and goals we support. This commitment includes ensuring that race equity is reflected in policies and practices for recruitment and hiring, work acceptance, priority-setting, governance, organizational culture, communications, and community partnerships and accountability, particularly with low-income communities of color.
Continually explore how race and poverty intersect to make worse the impacts of racial discrimination.
Expand and strengthen the REJI alliance to include diverse partnerships and the sharing of our resources with anyone who is committed to dismantling structurally racialized systems.
Ensure our organizations invest in active, ongoing learning that will teach us to see, reveal, and transform structures that create racialized outcomes and push communities of color outside the circle of human concern. This commitment requires that we help members of our organizations and communities to actively and expressly challenge the use of racist language and behaviors, openly listen when we ourselves are challenged, and learn techniques and tools for reducing and eliminating implicit and explicit bias.

Our Values

We recognize that we live in a dynamic, changing world and we approach our work with flexibility and a growth mindset.

We build and maintain authentic and respectful relationships with our volunteers, staff, board, and donors. We listen to and embrace the rich and diverse knowledge, experience and passion people bring to our sharedwork.

We are thoughtful in our approach to working with children and families, understanding that we have a big responsibility. We strive to be open, unbiased, trauma-informed and empathetic as we step into the lives of a diverse group of families.

We celebrate diversity and endeavor to be inclusive and show respect to all people regardless of identities and cultures such as race, gender, ability or sexual orientation. We aim to be conscious of cultural dynamics and continue to educate ourselves. We seek to create a welcoming environment with open communication. With the majority of CASA families being BIPOC, we want to particularly acknowledge the systemic racism faced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and our commitment to embracing and demonstrating anti-racism.

We sincerely appreciate all our volunteers, donors, board, staff and other stakeholders and acknowledge the importance of their contributions. We make gratitude a daily practice.

We embody trustworthiness and transparency in all aspects of our work. We are committed to the highest ethical and professional standards. We hold ourselves accountable for our actions and strive to be responsible stewards of our financial and human resources.

Our mission-driven work can be heavy and stressful, so we strive to bring levity and fun into our work environment whenever possible. We celebrate each other and our accomplishments together and take time to support other organizations doing good work in our community.