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CASA Val Verde Looks Forward to Expanding Advocacy for Local Youth
CASA Val Verde serves as an advocate for children in CPS custody and represents the child(ren) in court through trained volunteers in collaboration with key agencies, legal counsel, and community resources. Though the CASA Val Verde branch is new to the area, Executive Director and former CPS worker of 17 years, Megan Martinez, shares that the ultimate goal of their organization is to assure safe reunification of the child(ren) with parents/family members or placement in a permanent adoptive family.
CASA Val Verde became an official CASA program in September of 2024, located at 317 S. Main St. in an office space donated by Nick Khoury, and is currently still recruiting volunteers and working to get state funding. Martinez took on a case in order to be eligible for funding, “I took on a case with 5 kids, of course that’s my favorite part, I love working with children and families, and it’s hard with five kids, we’re grateful to the family members that took them in but that grocery bill goes up, so one of the things that we were able to do was gather grocery donations through a call to action on social media, and the whole office was filled to the brim with food for them.”
Through their participation in various events like handing out hot cocoa during the Christmas Parade in December, their booth at the Cookie Crawl they’ve raised awareness about CASA Val Verde and with private donations, they’ve raised $20,000 within 6 months.
As part of their fundraising efforts, CASA Val Verde will be hosting a Loteria Night at Gorzugis located next door to the CASA Val Verde Office downtown on April 12, 2025 from 6-9pm. They are actively accepting donations, event volunteers, and sponsorships from local businesses for the event with different sponsorship tiers/packages available. “This is Del Rio and people love loteria, so we decided it would be fun to do,” Martinez began. “We’re gonna have customized loteria cards, a concession stand with chili bags, elote, hot dogs, and so on.” “We’re really excited about it.”
“National CASA, which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates, started in 1977, there was a judge who recognized a need for another set of eyes on children who were going through foster care, and then in 1989 Texas CASA was formed because they saw a need to support local programs,” Martinez said. “It is a volunteer-driven organization on the local level, there is paid staff but we are in the business of recruiting, training and supervising volunteer advocates who do the work with the children and the families.”
The vision of CASA Val Verde is to work on behalf of at-risk children in Child Protective Services custody in Val Verde County, helping to increase public awareness of child abuse and neglect and community support for the prevention of child abuse and neglect and decreasing the occurrence of child abuse in the community.
CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) and GAL (Guardian Ad Litem) volunteers are appointed by judges to advocate for the best interests of children who have experienced abuse or neglect. They work with child welfare professionals, educators, and service providers to ensure that judges have the information they need to make the most well informed decisions for each child. “CASA volunteers meet the children, meet the parents, it’s working with children that are in foster care, that have been removed from their parents through CPS (Child Protective Services) and they’re placed in foster homes or hopefully, which happens a lot in Del Rio, is there are relatives that take them in and give them a home.”
“Even though CPS is involved, sometimes the needs of the children just kind of fall through the cracks,” Martinez continued. “As a CASA volunteer, they only get one case to focus on.” When asked what the main difference between CPS and a CASA volunteer is, Martinez stated, “CPS gets paid for one, but they also have a huge case load. As a CASA advocate they will only have one, they are to monitor the children’s placement, make sure they have everything that they need to make sure that they feel safe there, they can visit with the parents and encourage them to do what they need to do to get their kids back, because that’s really the main focus of CASA is reuniting families, if the safety and the nurturing of the home can be established for the children, we want the kids to go back to the parents.”
Other responsibilities of CASA advocates include: gathering information, reviewing court documents and records, documenting findings from interviews with children, family members and professionals in their lives and appearing in court to advocate for the child’s best interests for the 12 month duration of the court case.
CASA volunteer advocates do not have to have degrees or experience in social work, child care or early childhood education, they only need to be 21 or over, have to have a background check, complete 30 hours of training, which is provided by Texas CASA, and a desire to work with foster care children and give back to the community. “There is always an advocate supervisor, a volunteer manager, there to help them through whatever they are going through and learning about the family,” Martinez said. “If we can make the children and the families stronger, through safe homes, counseling, getting their needs met, we make the community stronger.”
“I truly believe that the happier a child is, the more they’re able to give back to others as adults, and be successful,” she continued. “That’s a big part of our work is making the family stronger, because usually the parents have to go through counseling on their own and demonstrate that they've made changes in their lives to prove that they can provide a safe home for their children.”
They are currently accepting donations at their physical office, through their PayPal, mailed checks, and more. “We’re always looking for toys and clothing for kids, suitcases. The reason we do suitcases is because a lot of times when case workers remove kids from their homes, they don’t have suitcases, so they’ll pack their things in garbage bags and that’s hard on the kids, so that’s why we take suitcases.”
Martinez shared that they would like to expand CASA into other south/southwest Texas areas that do not currently have a CASA, “We would like to expand and incorporate those counties and come up with a Border CASA and expand our work here in Del Rio and Val Verde County.”
Link to CASA VAL VERDE PayPal:
They are also collecting office supplies through their Amazon wishlist:
Children’s Book Amazon Wishlist:
Resource Library Amazon Wishlist:
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