Leveraging community volunteers to advocate for children has always been at the heart of CASA’s approach. CASA was founded in 1976 by a Seattle judge who determined he could not rely on the state’s child protective agency to provide him with all of the information needed to make decisions about the children in his court room. He called for citizen volunteers who could be trained to assess cases objectively, be appointed as advocates for children, and provide comprehensive information to the court to aid decision-making. This started a movement that today consists of nearly 1,000 independently operated CASA programs in the United States. CASA-NYC, founded in 1979, is a member in good standing of the National CASA Association. Annually we served more than 1,000 children throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Our work is accomplished through the efforts of a small staff of social workers and attorneys who recruit, train and supervise nearly 300 volunteer Advocates.
