Volunteers honored for work with foster children

Justin M. Bowen

Life-size cutouts of foster children holding signs are on display in the Family Court atrium for the Light of Hope ceremony Tuesday afternoon.

By Kyle B. Hansen (contact)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 | 5:09 p.m.

The Clark County Court system took time Tuesday to recognize the work of volunteers who help foster children in Clark County.

KLAS anchor Dave Courvoisier, who was the master of ceremonies for the Light of Hope event, compared foster children to the Lost Boys in Peter Pan.

"We don't want foster kids in Neverland, we want them to have homes," he said.

The event at the Family Court Center, 601 N. Pecos Ave., was organized by the Court Assigned Special Advocate program, or CASA, which uses adult volunteers to help foster children get into homes.

Lorrie Curriden, who has volunteered with the program for eight years, said she's drawn to the fact that its entire focus is on the children.

"The goal is to make sure they get out of the system as quickly as possible," she said.

CASA volunteers receive 36 hours of training before being sworn in as officers of the court by a judge.

"It's a great volunteer opportunity because you can really make a difference one child at a time," Curriden said. "I feel like because their parents fail them, we as a community shouldn't fail them as well."

Las Vegas was the third city in the country to set up a CASA program, which is funded and operated by the court system. A judge in Seattle started the program 32 years ago. There are now 950 programs across the country.

CASA program manager Patricia Thacker said the volunteers fill a crucial role as advocates for children while working with attorneys, judges, teachers, counselors and foster parents.

"The CASAs, out of everybody on the team, know the child best because they have one child or one case to deal with," she said. "A case worker may have 50, the attorneys may have a whole lot, so (the volunteers) are able to focus in on that child and dedicate a lot more individual time."

Each volunteer is assigned one case at a time, Thacker said. A case can include one child or a whole family.

About 200 volunteers are able to help Clark County foster children.

Judge Dianne Steel oversees the Model Court Project, which works to meet national standards for family courts. The CASA program, she said, helps her as a judge when she is making decisions about children.

"The CASA can tell me what is really in the child's best interest," she said. "They are out there really just for that child."

Tom Morton, the director of the Department of Family Services, said Clark County has a large number of children in foster care compared to the national average.

In 2007, the most recent year nationwide data was available, 51 percent of children in abuse or neglect cases in Nevada had to be removed from their parents, Morton said. The national average for removal is 20 percent, making Nevada the second highest rate for such cases in the country.