BRYAN, Texas — You can help make a difference in the community by working with kids and families through Voices for Children in the Brazos Valley.
“I was looking for more areas to volunteer and I was a huge advocate for kids while the children were in school, being a volunteer parent,” said Faye Lane, CASA volunteer. “I wanted to continue that so this was definitely an avenue to work with children of all ages, even newborns.”
Voices for Children in the Brazos Valley serves five counties, resulting in many children needing an advocate.
“So we serve a five-county area and we’ve got a lot of kids coming into care and a lot of kids that have come into care that we haven’t been able to serve just because we haven’t had enough volunteers,” said Amy Faulkner, executive director. “Our goal is to serve all of the kids who come into child protective services custody in the five counties that we serve.”
Faulkner said they have not served as many children and families this past school year, due to few volunteers.
“Last fiscal year we served just under 600 kids, so 597 last fiscal year and so we’ve served actually a little less than that this year because we haven’t had the number of volunteers that we’ve had in the past,” said Faulkner.
Lane has served as a court-appointed special advocate for nearly 20 years. She says the goal is always reunification.
“Our objective is to try to get them back home and build that family environment of loving, nurturing and caring but sometimes it just doesn’t happen, and the children end up going into foster care of being adopted,” said Lane.
Faulkner said without CASA volunteers, there is no one for children and families to turn to for help.
Volunteers must be at least 21 years old and no specific background is required.
“If we don’t have a volunteer available to serve on those cases then those kids don’t get to have a CASA and those families don’t get to have someone advocating for their kids,” said Faulkner.
If you are interested in becoming a CASA volunteer, visit Voices for Children website here: Become A CASA | Voicesforchildren (vfcbrazos.org)