What Will I Do as a CASA?
Volunteer CASAs gather information and make recommendations to the court about a child’s best interests. A staff supervisor is assigned to guide and support each volunteer throughout the process. Most cases involve the following tasks:
- Review the case with the assigned staff supervisor (in person or over the phone)
- Complete a home visit with the child in each household
- Interview the family members named in the case, preferably in their home
- Interview a limited number of friends and relatives (phone or in-person)
- Interview relevant professionals, such as teachers, therapists or service providers (phone)
- Review records and documents received
- Complete 1 – 2 written reports for the court by the specified due dates using a CASA report template
- Appear in court with the CASA Program Attorney if the case goes to trial (the trial date is specified when the case is assigned)
Can I Volunteer as a CASA?
Volunteer CASAs (court appointed special advocates) encompass all walks of life; no specific experience is required. We strive to increase diversity, inclusiveness and equity because vulnerable children deserve a strong and insightful community of volunteers to help them. To volunteer as a CASA, you must:
- Be 21 years of age or older
- Have no criminal history
- Have the ability to get to and from meetings in King County
- Have reliable access to and be able to use a computer, including email
- Possess strong verbal and written communication skills (English is the required language at this time)
- Commit to at least one case assignment (6-12 months, approximately 10-12 hours per month)
- Complete the required application, interview and initial training
How do I become an advocate?
- Submit application (see link above)
- Complete reference checks
- It’s a good idea to follow up with your references and make sure they received the form, as it often gets caught in spam filters.
- Email admin@familylawcasa.org if you need help.
- Interview to get approved for training
- We will contact you when we have your completed references.
- Complete pre-training materials
- There are 16+ hours of prerecorded material to review before training.
- Detailed instructions are sent out 2-3 weeks before the live training date.
- Attend new advocate training
- This will be held in person at our conference room, if possible.
- This training is about 7 hours long.
- Attend Implicit Bias training
- This will be held in-person at our conference room, if possible.
- This training is about 3 hours long.
- Please note this is an additional date to the new advocate training, usually 2-3 weeks after.
- Complete post-training paperwork
- This will be provided during training.
- Get approved to take a case
- Please note that you will not be fully approved to take a case until training is complete. The training is part of the screening process to become an advocate.
- Get a case assigned
- Depending on how many cases the court appoints us to, it may take a few months to have a case assigned to you.
- We do our best to match volunteers and cases based on experience and preferences.