By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
The Tucker County Commission approved a $10,000 funding request for Court Appointed Special Advocates for Kids (CASA) during the Commission’s March 12th meeting. Crissi Kolb represented CASA at the meeting to present the funding request and explained what CASA did for children in Tucker County. “Its a really amazing and really cool thing to be a part of the growth and the healing of children,” Kolb said. “Unfortunately, we come into their lives at the worst point, but we get to be with them through that.”
CASA is a volunteer organization founded in Monongalia County in 1994, according to Kolb and began serving Tucker County in 2024. The organization is part of a multidiciplinary team that serves the same children as the Child Advocacy Center and partners with the Center to serve children in Tucker County and group recruits community members to volunteer as child advocates, Kolb said. “Those volunteers are tasked with advocating for the best interest of children in care who’ve experienced abuse and neglect,” Kolb said.
According to Kolb, CASA volunteers only have one child that they serve and that allows them to get to know the child in a way that other workers never can. “Our CASA volunteers only have one case or one child that they serve from start to finish, their time in foster care,” Kolb said. “They really get that individualized care, they get to know the kids, their needs, their wants, their desires.”
Kolb said that caseworkers often have overwhelming case loads that do not allow them to get to know the children as well as CASA volunteers do. “Unfortunately, a lot of our caseworkers have overwhelming case loads,” Kolb said. “Our guardians ad litems that we usually work with have overwhelming case loads. But our CASA volunteers only have that one child or that one family and they are really the consistent people in their lives.”
According to Kolb, the child that she works with has been through four guardian ad litems, nine caseworkers and 18 different placement, but only one CASA volunteer “So, I have been with her throughout that time and been able to go with her to each place,” Kolb said.
CASA volunteers also act as the child’s voice in court, Kolb said. “They also give the children a voice within the court,” Kolb said. “The kids don’t go to court. So often times they feel like they’re forgotten, the judge doesn’t want to hear what they have to say or other members don’t necessarily want to hear want to hear it. So we help them provide a voice within the court.”
CASA submitted a grant request of $10,000 to help with expansion efforts in Tucker County and to fund staffing, marketing and supplies, Kolb said. “We did submit a grant request,” Kolb said. “It will help us to continue to expand here in Tucker County.”
When asked by Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau how many children CASA currently serves in Tucker County, Kolb said there are currently between 18 and 20 children in the County being served by CASA volunteers. “I want to make sure that our children, if there are only 18 versus 110, get the same care that Monongalia County may have or a larger county. I’m not pointing them out,” Rosenau said. “Because our children are just as important.”
Kolb said the best thing about working in Tucker County is how much the community comes together to support the children. “What’s amazing about Tucker County is it really shows how well people work together, when they work well together and they are not overwhelmed, how efficient we can be, ” Kolb said. “For me, its been a blessing to work in Tucker County just to see how well the community here just wraps around the children that have experienced these sort of things.”
According to Kolb, the cooperation of Tucker County is one of the main reasons CASA wishes to expand in the County. “It works well here in Tucker County and that is part of the reason why we wanted to expand,” Kolb said. “We don’t want other big counties. We want to focus on small counties because as you said, they are just as important.”
Rosenau said the County provides an office space to the Child Advocacy Center and suggested that CASA works with them if they needed the setting for business or child advocacy purposes. “We provide an office space,” Rosenau said. “So I’m sure you can work together, if you need a place for your files or just to meet with a child or do whatever out of the setting of the home, I’m sure you can work with Child Advocacy to work together because we provide them a space and that’s all working together. That’s what we do in Tucker County.”
Rosenau also thanked CASA for what they do to assist children within the County. “We as a Commission appreciate anything you can do for children, especially neglected and abused and children that actually need the extra boost in school and activities,” Rosenau said. “This Commission appreciates that.”
A funding request by CASA for Kids in the amount of $10,000 was approved by the Commission by a motion made by Commissioner Fred Davis. The money will be appropriated from Opioid Settlement money, Rosenau said.
