We have exciting news to share! We are embarking on an innovative, cost-effective new service delivery model. With only a modest increase in resources, over the next five years we will more than double our capacity in order to provide a powerful voice for every abused child in Lane County.
Amazing! How will we do it? Through the power of volunteers.
Click here to watch Executive Director Megan Shultz as she introduces the new model to our CASA volunteer community.
Those of you familiar with our current program model know that our ability to change children’s lives has been limited by staff capacity. For every 30 CASA volunteers we recruit and train, we have needed to fund one staff supervisor to support the volunteers throughout their cases. We serve approximately 300 children each year, but 400 more children are still on our waiting list.
In our new model, we will be able to serve 702 children each year - 100% of the need in Lane County – by recruiting and training seasoned, experienced CASA volunteers to support other CASA volunteers. Starting now, when new CASA volunteers graduate from training, they will be supported by volunteer Peer Coordinators rather than staff. These Peer Coordinators have been CASA volunteers themselves for several years. They have been hand-selected and specially-trained to support other CASA volunteers throughout their cases.
Click here to watch the self-introductions of our first six volunteer Peer Coordinators as they talk about why they have taken on this work.
This new model will reduce the cost of advocacy by 50% while maintaining our high level of dedicated service to children. To be successful in meeting 100% of the need for Court Appointed Special Advocacy, we will need to recruit and train 60 new CASA volunteers each year and raise an additional $100,000 annually.
Here is a visual representation of our old vs. new program models:
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