What Is ProKids?
ProKids is a nonprofit organization that trains and supports volunteers to help keep abused and neglected children from slipping through the cracks of the foster care system.
What We Do
ProKids trains volunteers to become CASAs—Court Appointed Special Advocates. Each CASA volunteer is assigned to a foster child, making sure the child’s needs are met and that the child is safe, and helping each child move into a safe, permanent, and nurturing home.
Children in foster care assigned to a CASA volunteer are successful. A national study shows that children with CASA volunteers spend less time in long-term foster care and move less often.
Abuse stopped for 99 percent of the foster children served by ProKids in 2009.
In Cincinnati, more than 2,000 children are abused or neglected so severely they must be placed in the child protection system. Most of these children are placed in foster care. Unfortunately, the system is overburdened, and children slip through the cracks.
For 30 years, ProKids CASA volunteers have been speaking out for these most vulnerable children and helping them find safe, permanent, and nurturing homes.
ProKids is Hamilton County’s CASA volunteer program, one of more than 900 CASA programs nationwide, and part of the National CASA Association.
Average children per CASA volunteer: 2 (The average caseload nationally for a child welfare worker is between 24 and 31 families).
Cost: $2,500 per child per year, which includes training of a CASA and supervision of the Advocacy Team, consisting of paid CASA managers and attorneys.
Results: In 99 percent of the cases where a ProKids CASA volunteer is involved, abuse stopped (2009).
A national study shows that foster children who have a CASA volunteer spend less time in the system, move less often, and do better academically and developmentally when compared to children without a CASA volunteer.
| Address: |
2605 Burnet Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45219 |
| Phone: |
513-281-2000 |
| Website: |
www.ProKids.org |
| Director: |
Tracy Cook |
| Annual Budget: |
$1,027,426 (2010) |
Media Fact Sheet: What Is a CASA Volunteer?
A CASA volunteer is a Court Appointed Special Advocate—a trained volunteer who advocates on behalf of the best interest of a child in the foster care system. A child in foster care has occasional court hearings where important decisions are made regarding the child’s future, including educational and medical needs, visits with family, and, most importantly, where the child will ultimately live. Every adult in the courtroom has someone representing him or her. Who speaks up for the child? This is where a CASA volunteer comes in.
After completing training and an extensive background check, each CASA volunteer is assigned to a child. The CASA volunteer establishes a relationship with the child, investigates and watches over the child, and challenges the system to provide what is in the best interest of the child. The CASA volunteer makes recommendations about services, living arrangements, and who should raise the child. The CASA volunteer makes these recommendations to a lot of people, but, most specifically, to the Hamilton County Court, which makes decisions about these children.
Our hope is to reunite children with parents who have learned to live differently, or, when possible, place them with relatives. The third option is to free these children for adoption.
A CASA volunteer’s primary focus is getting children the help they need to heal. They work to move children out of the system and into a safe, permanent, and nurturing home. When a child’s case comes before the court, a CASA volunteer ensures the child’s needs are heard and that the child’s interests are not lost in an overburdened system.
CASA volunteer training process: 15 two-hour training sessions, a court observation, an extensive background check, and 12 hours of continuing education per year
Number of CASA volunteers: 147 (2009)
Number of children served: 436 (2009)
Media Fact Sheet: Statistics
From the ProKids white paper: Debunking the Foster Care Myth (2006)
Fact: Foster care is not always safe.
Children in foster care are 10 times more likely to be abused than children in the general population.
A child is nearly twice as likely to die of abuse in foster care as in the general population. 2
Children in group homes are 28 times more likely to suffer sexual abuse than children in the general population. 3
Fact: Foster care is supposed to be temporary, but…
Almost half of foster children will spend at least two years in care, while almost 20 percent will remain in the system five or more years. 4
On average, children in foster care move through three different foster care placements, 5 frequently with little or no warning.
This lack of stability and permanency is part of the reason children in foster care are two to three times more likely to suffer mental health problems than children in the general public. 6
This year, 19,000 children across the U.S. will turn 18 and “age out” of the system without ever finding a permanent home. 7
Fact: Children in foster care struggle academically.
Many students in foster care are academically behind early in their school careers and remain at risk for educational failure throughout their teenage years. 8
Less than half of foster children graduate high school; only 38 percent find a job within 18 months of leaving the system; and only one in eight graduates from a four-year college. 9
Children age 5 who were exposed to high levels of domestic violence have IQs about eight points lower than unexposed children. To put this number in perspective, consider that chronic lead exposure decreases children's IQs three or four points. 10
Fact: Social workers have large caseloads.
The Child Welfare League of America recommends caseloads of between 12 and 15 children per worker. Across the nation, the average caseload for a child welfare worker is between 24 and 31, twice the recommended number. 11
Fact: Turnover is high.
Nationally, the annual turnover rate in the child welfare workforce is about 35 percent. 12 At a time when children need consistent, positive adults in their lives, they frequently are presented with a revolving door of workers.
Fact: Teens in foster care are more likely to become pregnant.
Almost half of teens in foster care become pregnant by age 19 (compared to 20 percent of other teens). 13
Media Fact Sheet: A Typical Scenerio—How Children Are Removed from Their Homes.
Sophie was 5 years old when someone in the apartment below her called 241-KIDS (the child abuse hotline in Hamilton County) to report suspected physical abuse.
From Sophie’s perspective, this is what happened next: There was a knock at the door, and a police officer and social worker entered, looking grim and determined. There was confusion, then angry conversation between her mother and the adults. Sophie watched from a corner as one stranger talked to her mother and then sorted through the clothes, toys, and debris scattered throughout the apartment.
A few clothes and belongings were thrown together and Sophie’s mother said good-bye. There wasn’t much time to think about what to pack or to go searching for a favorite blanket or stuffed animal. There was definitely not enough time for Sophie to truly understand what was going on.
Before she knew what had happened, Sophie was in an unfamiliar car, looking through the rear window as her home disappeared from view. Where was her Pooh Bear? She wanted to ask for it, but she kept quiet because she was scared.
Sophie saw many new people that night. As she sat in the caseworker’s office, someone brought her a sandwich in a triangular packet sealed with film. Sophie poked the film with her fingertip and saw her own reflection too easily drain away and reappear. The caseworker made four phone calls, finally contacting an aunt who was willing to take Sophie.
How a CASA volunteer can make a difference: Several days later, the court assigned Kathy, a ProKids CASA volunteer, to advocate on Sophie’s behalf. Kathy immediately went to meet Sophie and find out how she was coping.
“From the moment I walked in the door, I noticed that Sophie looked afraid,” remembers Kathy. “Something wasn’t right.” In the two hours she was there, several young men were in and out of the apartment. Even though it was Kathy’s first case, she felt something was going on.
On a hunch she called the police. It turned out the police had been watching the aunt’s home as a suspected crack house. Just days earlier they’d responded to a call and arrived at the house to find a domestic violence incident—involving two intoxicated adults—going on full swing in front of Sophie. It turned out Kathy’s “hunch” was right. She immediately called the caseworker and insisted Sophie be moved to a different home. And she was. Today Sophie is a safe, happy 6 year old, far away from drugs and violence.
A CASA volunteer can make a powerful difference in the life of an abused or neglected child.
For more information, please call Jennifer McKettrick at 513-487-6445, or visit the Contact Us page.
