‘House’ of care: Volunteers hope to serve more kids thanks to this new JoCo space

An Overland Park-based organization had good reason to move to a much larger office space earlier this year.

More children needed help, so a Kansas chapter of CASA expanded.

Through its volunteers, the organization looks out for the best interests of individual children in foster care via the court system.

“We do some pretty extensive training, not only for new advocates but ongoing continuing education, and so we wanted to make sure that we had a training space that was really more conducive to the amount of training that we’re doing every year,” said Natalie Julien, CEO of CASA of Johnson & Wyandotte Counties.

The idea is that with the new, larger space, CASA can accommodate more staff members, who can in turn supervise and train more volunteers. All this means that CASA, which stands for court-appointed special advocates, can take on the cases of more children.

Julien said she worked with the Cloverleaf Office Park to get the larger space without having too much of a rent increase.

Right now, approximately 230 volunteers are serving about 450 kids removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect. Each staff member supervises 30 of those volunteers.

However, Julien estimates that between the two counties, there are about 1,000 children in foster care, which leaves most of them without a CASA advocate.

To be certified, a volunteer must attend weekly training sessions for six weeks. CASA offers these throughout the year, and each set of classes has about 20 attendees.

With the new office, the meeting space for these classes is four times as big as the old one. It’s especially coming in handy for continuing education classes of 20 to 50 experienced volunteers.

Because they didn’t have much space before, CASA had to rely more on online training sessions.

“We have found that, in particular with our volunteer advocates, we get a better result, more information communicated, better outcomes as far as what they’re learning, when we have those in-person sessions, so we really wanted the opportunity to do more of that in-house,” Julien said.

It’s a place for formal and informal learning. CASA volunteers gather regularly with staff in a coffee shop atmosphere at the office to trade ideas on how to approach different situations.

“We can all put our brains together, brainstorm ideas and learn from each other. That used to be limited in the number of people who could come. Now, there’s plenty of room for anyone who wants to come,” said Denise Gaddy, who has been a volunteer for four years and is this year’s Kansas CASA volunteer of the year.

Having the space to do these informal meet-ups helps all the volunteers get better at what they do.

“With more people, you get more ideas, more input, more education,” Gaddy said. “A lot of times, the questions that are being asked have to do with specific situations: how to deal with different personalities, whether it be a foster parent, a parent or a case worker. It’s nice to pick someone else’s brain that’s had a little more experience in those areas. I definitely think it makes the new volunteers more confident.”

Julien said they’re also in the process of submitting grant applications to get money to boost the technology in the training room.

As they build the volunteer roster, Julien said CASA will be hiring more staff to manage them, with a goal of adding one or two new staff members each year. Grants from both the government and private foundations typically fund the program staff positions.

The new building has other uses, beyond a training center. A back-to-school party for the kids will be held in the new space next month. At the party, volunteers will set up a store environment, stocked with donations from their current supply drive, for families to get items they need.

CASA is focusing on getting donations of underwear, hygiene and sanitary products. Julien said the nonprofit is trying to get a variety of items, from toothpaste to hair-care products, to allow the kids to have choices.

All donations for the drive need to be in by July 28. You can order through Amazon or drop off items in person at 6400 Glenwood St., Suite 100. For more information about the wish list or the organization, visit casajwc.org or call 913-715-4040.