Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990                   TAG: 9004160323
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: MARIE JOYCE FREDERICKSBURG FREE LANCE-STAR
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG (AP)                                LENGTH: Medium

ABANDONED KIDS GET HELPING HAND IN COURTS

Now the baby has been swept up in a storm of complicated legal and family problems. So many people are concerned with her case: the mother who wants her back, the foster parents who have raised her for most of her short life, social services workers, lawyers, judges.

Her voice is June Whited. Whited has been researching the case for months, visiting the baby and the foster parents, talking with her mother and grandmother, reviewing legal paperwork.

Whited isn't a social services worker or a counselor or a juvenile court official. She's a Court Appointed Special Advocate, called CASA. Whited is a local volunteer in a national program for helping children who get caught up in the court system.

The program, initiated locally by Juvenile Court Judge J. Dean Lewis, saves abused or abandoned children from falling through the cracks in the overburdened legal system. Understaffed social services workers and other officials often don't have time to devote much attention to any one case, and the child is only one piece in a complicated puzzle of family needs.

But the child - and only the child - is the concern of the CASA, who helps the court make decisions about his future.

Whited said she wants to make the court system a little less traumatic for children. She has seen how terrifying it can be to sit in a courtroom listening to adults talk about your future.

"When they're defenseless, that's what really gets to me. These children's lives are really out of control," said Whited, a former teacher who now devotes much of her time to her grandchildren.

Each volunteer reviews legal documents and social services reports, and interviews family, friends, teachers - anyone who can give him more information.

The CASA also spends time with the child, learning about his desires and fears. When the research is done, the volunteer submits a report and a recommendation. A juvenile court judge uses the report in making a decision about the child's custody.

After the hearing, the CASA may follow up on the case to make sure the parents or guardians are keeping their part of the bargain.

"A CASA member is kind of a fifth wheel, put in there to make sure all the other wheels are working," said one volunteer.