Skip to main content

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA)

In 2017 CPS workers found 3000 cases of probable abuse and neglect in the three counties we serve,

Child Protective Service investigates over 4500 reports of abuse and neglect in Albany County alone

The sheer number of cases overwhelms the Family Court System

One child suffering is too many

CASA Volunteers Help Children

Contact:  rvaughn@theccj.orf for more information

Family Court Judges appoint Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) to advocate for the best interests of children victimized by abuse and neglect. Family Court Judges need the information a CASA provides to determine what's in the best interests of the child.

Child Protective Services works with enormous caseloads that make it impossible to adequately investigate each case. CASA helps fill the need as our volunteer advocates visit with the child, observing the child and advocating for social services, mental health services, and educational services where appropriate.

Most importantly, volunteers work to find the best permanent solution for each child.

CASA volunteers are the child’s voice in the court and by speaking out CASA volunteers have helped thousands of children in the Capital Region live better lives.

Be their voice. Be their CASA.

All children deserve a safe and permanent home.

TOYS FOR TOTS 

We were blessed with the opportunity to foster a child who had a CASA volunteer. With the help of CASA of the Capital Region and Schenectady County Social workers we were able to adopt this child and raise her. Although the journey was long and sometimes scary, we would do it all again. We cannot imagine our lives without our daughter in it and our family would be incomplete. Thank you CASA of the Capital Region for helping make this happen!

Be their voice. Be their CASA.

Studies have shown that children with CASA volunteers on their side do better at school, at home and later in life.
For three decades, CASA volunteers have helped children at risk of abuse and neglect grow up in a safe, loving and permanent home.
You can make a difference in a child’s life. 
Become a volunteer today!

CASA Training 2017

CASA Volunteer Training

CASA volunteers complete a rigorous 30 hour training and an apprenticeship before they are assigned a case by a Family Court Judge

Madison VanDenburg Hosts Raise Your Voice 2021

  • Your donation will help us achieve our mission.

  • See if there is an opportunity for you.

  • Our door is always open. Let us know what is on your mind.

The Center for Community Justice
144 Barrett Street
Schenectady, NY 12305
Phone Phone 518-346-1281
Fax Fax 518-346-1311
Contact

Regular Office Hours:
Monday-Friday: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
We are closed for lunch: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
We follow the federal holiday schedule and will be closed accordingly
We will close at 3:00 pm on Fridays during the summer months of July and August

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

  1. What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.
  2. Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
  3. Website Use Information Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.
  4. How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us? Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.
  5. What Are Cookies? Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.
  6. How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies? We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.
  7. Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
  8. How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
  9. How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  10. How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
  11. Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.
  12. What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
  13. Permission to Use of Materials The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.
Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.
Back to top

©2022 The Center for Community Justice

Powered by Firespring