April’s Child Abuse Prevention Month

To the Editor:
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and our attention turns to ways we can support children who have experienced abuse or neglect.
According to the U.S. Children’s Bureau, 687,000 children lived in foster care in the United States due to abuse or neglect in 2018. According to Kids Count New Jersey, nearly 500 children and youth lived in foster care in Atlantic and Cape May counties during the same year.
 For children to thrive despite abuse or neglect, resilience is the key.
The most common factor in developing resilience, according to the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, is having a stable relationship with a supportive adult.
That is where Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children of Atlantic and Cape May County steps in. We recruit, train and support volunteers who get to know the children and their families, and advocate for those children’s needs in court.
Our volunteers are part of an expansive network of 93,300 volunteers across the country who care deeply about children and are working to make life better for those children living in foster care.
The children that CASA serves have often been disappointed or hurt by the adults in their lives. Parental drug abuse, and child maltreatment that is often associated with drug abuse, accounted for more than one-third of child removals nationwide in 2018.
For children living in these situations, they become accustomed to being overlooked and it is difficult for them to trust or open up to others – even those who may be able to help them.
By developing relationships with these children and advocating for their needs, CASA volunteers can make a major impact in mitigating the long-term damage from abuse or neglect.
A stable relationship with a supportive adult – like a CASA volunteer – can help children do well even when they have faced significant hardships. Because of this, we continue to have great hope for these youth despite the long odds against them.
CASA volunteers undergo training to understand the impact of trauma on children. They advocate for services that promote healing and help children build resilience. The work CASA volunteers do is life changing and sometimes lifesaving.
Especially now, as we are experiencing a global health crisis, foster youth need advocates. Many of our children are from vulnerable populations who will be dramatically affected by this pandemic – losing the meals they depend upon at school, missing school lessons for lack of internet, or simply increasing the anxiety in children already traumatized by their experience.
 Additionally, we have to consider the children not yet assigned a CASA volunteer, or those who will enter the system while this crisis is still unfolding. We need to ensure that those children will also have the benefit of a CASA volunteer to advocate for their best interest – especially during this complex time and long after this crisis ends.