A Voice for Local Abused Children

Monday, March 14, 2011

A seven-year-old child living in Williamsburg with his mom was hit in the head with a hammer by his father. That was Bill Hunnell’s first case, six years ago.

In 2011, there will be about 150 children in the Historic Triangle just like this seven-year-old who will be abused or neglected enough that the court intervenes – children who may live in your neighborhood or attend your child’s school.

Each of those children will get his own knight in shining armor in the guise of a Colonial Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer just like Hunnell, who has donated his time for six years to be the voice for abused and neglected children.

His first case had a “semi-happy ending,” Hunnell recalls. The mother, estranged from the father, was ordered to take parenting classes and was able to keep her son, whose injuries from the hammer strike weren’t too severe.

Working for CASA since then has been an eye-opening experience. “I had never come in contact with abuse or neglect in my whole life, especially not in a town like this, where it seems it doesn’t exist,” he says. “I’ve learned first-hand it does exist.”

“An advocate’s goal is to make sure each child’s needs are defined and met,” Hunnell explains. Volunteers aren’t experts, just average citizens trained to interview people involved in the case and make recommendations to the judge. The big difference CASA workers bring to the table is that they have the extra time needed to make the most contact and keep track of all that’s happening that affects a child’s well-being.

The job entails more than just reporting to the judge. CASA advocates also do things such as helping children get medical insurance and other needed services. Once, Hunnell helped a family living in severe poverty apply to get a new home built through a neighborhood grant program, because their house was falling down around them and they didn’t know how to navigate the application process.

Hunnell generally chooses to work with younger children in the community, “the ones who can’t speak on their own behalf and need me to be their voice.”

In one of his recent cases, he had the chance to be the voice for four homeless children between the ages of two and seven.

The unmarried mother and father of the children had moved the family from motel to motel in town through the winter months. The two oldest children had been moved around to four different local schools over the course of the year, and were struggling to make it academically.

The father, a convicted felon, was a drug dealer, and the mother, who’d had her first child at 14 and had dropped out of school, was a drug user. Neither had documents they needed to find work, namely a Social Security card or birth certificate, nor did they seem to have the desire to find jobs, according to Hunnell.

“Some cases, like this one, get messy,” he says. “When you get in this state [that the parents were in], it’s hard to get out. Sadly, they never did.”

The four kids ended up together in the same foster home, at least. “This isn’t a good case,” Hunnell says, “but the kids are better off and have a permanent, safe place to live.”

This is the ultimate goal of CASA – to find safe, timely and permanent homes for abused and neglected children. But, as with other nonprofits in the community struggling through years of slashed budgets, CASA is finding they need to serve more people with fewer resources.

According to the program’s Executive Director Lisa Gibson, CASA will help 150 children in Williamsburg and James City County alone over the course of their 2011 fiscal year and 180 children in 2012, at a time when the organization has seen cuts of $25,000 in state and federal funding over the last two years.

Their budgets for 2011 and 2012 are about $230,000 each year, and every dollar counts, Gibson says. This is why they went before the York County Board of Supervisors last month to ask for level funding of $250, versus the $125 suggested for next year’s budget.

CASA has only served York County for a few years, and the organization served 40 children there last year.

Williamsburg has given CASA $6,300 over the last two years, down from $7,000 in 2009, and James City County has given the organization level funding of $17,100 over the last two years. The rest of the agency’s funding comes from state and federal money.

Though they have their own budget struggles, Gibson stresses that they serve every child who needs it, and there is no waiting list.

Dozens of volunteers like Hunnell take on these cases, and CASA is always looking for more volunteers. “If you’re going to do volunteer work and you want something that really has a lot of substance, I can’t think of anything that has more to it than working as a CASA advocate,” he says. “You have a chance to make a big difference.”

To learn more about Colonial CASA, including information about their upcoming fundraiser the Blue Elephant Affair and how to become a volunteer, visit the organization’s website.