Iowa Child Advocacy Board, CASA and FCRB

The Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program recruits, trains and supports community volunteer advocates to serve as a powerful voice in court for adjudicated children in need of assistance due to abuse and neglect. The CASA program is instrumental in strengthening efforts to ensure that each child is living in a safe, permanent and nurturing home. The CASA volunteer is typically assigned one case at a time and does a variety of things to promote the child's best interests: investigation, assessment, advocacy, and monitoring.

To provide each and every abused and neglected child with a volunteer advocate. As a CASA volunteer advocate you are a child's confidant, you wield the authority to speak to the courts on the child's behalf, you protect the child's unalienable right to be safe, to be treated with dignity, and to live with a family who loves him.--History:Concerned over making decisions regarding abused and neglected children's lives without sufficient information, Judge David Soukup conceived the idea of having trained community volunteers speak objectively in court on behalf of these children. In 1977, Judge Soukup established the first CASA program. Soon, other judges across the country soon began utilizing citizen advocates. In January 1986, Iowa was the 45th state to adopt the CASA program. The Wapello County CASA program began operations in 1997.