Step Up for Kansas Kids is an information and action community that engages caring people like you to take action for kids and families in the overburdened Kansas child welfare system. Join Douglas County CASA's movement of support for Kansas kids in foster care!
Every year, dozens of Douglas County children who have experienced neglect, abuse, violence, or abandonment are removed from their homes and placed under court protection for their own safety. Regardless of the troubles in their home lives, being removed from the only home they know is a traumatic experience for these children, and they are often left feeling confused, frightened, and uncertain about their future. Many are placed in foster care.
Douglas County CASA is a Kansas nonprofit organization with the mission to recruit, train, and support volunteers to advocate for children in the child welfare system. These specially trained and supported volunteers — Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) — become a critical part of the team helping kids find safe, permanent, and loving homes.
For more than 19 years, Douglas County CASA Executive Director Vaughn has served as a licensed social worker with a specialization in administrative and advocacy practice. Throughout his career, Erick has supported programs that serve children and their families. In this Q&A, Erick discusses the difference CASA makes in a child’s life, why he is passionate about community collaboration, and what supporters can do to make a difference for Kansas kids and families.
First, kids in the child welfare system are not some distant problem. These children are part of our communities. They are the kids we see at the grocery store and the park. They go to our own kids’ schools. They are members of our faith communities and community groups.
I also wish more people understood how deeply traumatic it is for a child to be removed from their home — and how that trauma can profoundly shape their long-term outcomes in areas like health, education, future success, and even increase the risk of entering the child welfare-to-jail pipeline, as research has shown. Most children come into the child welfare care system because their families are struggling with issues like economic challenges, substance use, mental illness, homelessness, and sometimes domestic violence. Ultimately, many of the kids end up being placed in foster care. They’re pulled from their own homes and moved into a stranger’s home. Even if home life was challenging, being removed from everything they know is a traumatic experience. Now they’re also involved in the court system — attending hearings with little certainty or control over what’s happening.
The difference for kids with a CASA is that while they’re going through all of this, they have one consistent adult who is there — just for them. CASAs act as one-on-one representatives for kids in the foster care system. When children have CASAs, their cases tend to progress faster, they get access to more and better services quicker, and they are able to return home or get into another stable situation more quickly.
Everyone in the system is there to help these kids, but most have large caseloads — often 15 or 16 kids, sometimes more. Kids whose situations aren’t immediately critical may not get the focus they need. Our volunteers help prevent that — reminding and supporting case managers, providing accountability, and keeping things moving. CASA volunteers truly get to know the child and their family and advocate on their behalf, and are often the only consistent adult involved in their life over the course of the case, which on average lasts two and a half years.
The biggest thing people need to know about CASA is the beauty of having a caring adult who's solely focused on one kid. People often think first about a kid not having somebody to go to when negative things happen, being able to say, “Somebody's bullying me at school,” or, “I’m thinking bad about myself,” and having an adult who can help normalize and validate their experience. “This is tough.” “This will get better.” “I went through something like that, too.”
But then there’s also celebrating good things and modeling hope. Because of the trauma they’ve been through, many of our kids don’t have the capacity to see hope for a better future. In many cases, we find that after CASA volunteers model hope, there’s a switch when the child realizes, “The choices I make can impact my future.” They start to see, “I do have some control — maybe not as much as I’d like, but some.” They start realizing, “I can graduate from high school, I can get a job, I can look beyond this moment, this situation.” None of that is required in the official standards for being a CASA, but that’s where the magic happens — a safe, caring adult being there for the kid.
People also may not realize the seriousness and importance of CASA’s role. Our volunteers are appointed by the court — we’re collecting information-”investigating the circumstances of the case” — talking to all the stakeholders, reporting back to the court, and working closely with the case manager along the way. Through a CASA, the court gets a detailed report about what’s going on with the child in various domains — school, health, family — with much more information to make better decisions about what services are needed to help that kid and family succeed and exit the system. We end up being a vital, necessary part of the team helping kids get back home or find whatever permanence is right for them.
Community connection plays an essential role in supporting the well-being of EVERY person, including kids at risk and families in the child welfare system. These are local families — yet it’s easy to overlook them. Raising awareness helps us engage more people so no child goes without support. With more community involvement and support, fewer kids will end up in foster care, and they’re better prepared for life: education, health, and eventually meaningful work. Without CASA and this support, research shows kids aging out of care are much more likely to become involved with the justice system.
Community support is essential because we can’t do this alone. At any time, about 200 kids in Douglas County need a CASA, and we’re only serving about half. We need more volunteers — as advocates, office helpers, or event support — and fundraising to keep our programs strong and grow to serve all the kids who need a CASA.
But CASA is just one of many nonprofits and groups serving our community, and more community involvement means better matching of people’s time and passion to resources that help kids and families. By intervening and strengthening community connections, we see better educational and health outcomes. Families use available resources more effectively — from doctors and schools to libraries and parks — and are more likely to give back later. That’s the long-term impact of supporting CASA and similar organizations.
The first step is for folks to learn about the child welfare system and how big the need is for support across our community. Then, hopefully, it becomes something they find important enough to share with family and friends, and they act as advocates, ambassadors, and concerned citizens and neighbors.
Next is to get engaged, whether with CASA or other partners in the community — your local school, Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters, KVC, FosterVillage, 100 Good Women, this list goes on! Many of the families we serve at CASA are involved in or supported by these organizations as well, and if those agencies are supported, they have better capacity to serve more of those kids. We’re working to build partnerships with other advocacy organizations, so instead of pushing separate agendas, we can unite on strategies and policies that make real progress for kids and families. As we work on building this network, we will hopefully grow our partnerships and collaborations so we can share more opportunities and resources among partners here in Douglas County.
Ultimately, we hope people will get engaged in systems-level advocacy, whether locally, at the state level, or even federally — educating representatives and commissioners. Frequently, we Executive Directors of nonprofits expect our elected officials to understand about these dire needs, but this population can be so hidden that they often simply don’t know. If we had more people saying, “Hey, this is important to me,” I think we would see better systems-level support, not just for CASA, but for other folks serving kids and families. We need to build an understanding that this is something we, as a society, want to do — to care for one another.
We want to help people be informed and take action to support kids and families in their communities. We want to be a hub for information and ways people can get involved with us and other groups involved in these systems. We will share timely emails. We will inform people about specific legislative actions and provide them the resources to make a call or send an email. We want to provide support so people can respond to the issues that affect kids in the system.
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