A social work organization that helps guide children in the foster care system is still on the hunt for more volunteers, and sources of funding, as its leadership makes the rounds through Southeast Nebraska.

The Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children team - or CASA for short - helped 55 kids across Southeast Nebraska last year, right in line with their average over the last five years, Executive Director Shelby Pedersen said in her yearly check-in with the Jefferson County Commissioners this week.

But 59 kids in that four-county region were left without CASA's court advocate services. That's partly because they have only one male volunteer in their ranks, and partly because so many kids are located or placed in homes so far away from where the advocates live.

"A big issue is distance, when kids are being placed far away, we can’t find people that are willing to drive to them," she said. "Most people will drive about 30, 45 minutes, but outside of that, they don’t want to go – which, I understand, it’s a volunteer position, and spending that much time on the road makes it really difficult."

Pedersen reported that CASA was cut off from money from a federal grant, and this year the Seward County board has already trimmed off about 15 percent of the money they allotted to support CASA services in years past: Seward is dropping its funding from $41,400 to $35,000, and CASA is maintaining last year's request for $24,000 from Jefferson County's budget for the coming year.

Just as imperative as the funding for the program are the volunteer advocates that do the work CASA provides. 11 Jefferson County kids were served by only three advocates this past year, and Pedersen said they would like to see ten new volunteers, especially men, join the ranks within the next year - and four people have already begun the training process.

"It’s 30 hours over five weeks, virtual or in-person. You do a little bit of ‘homework’ on your own and then you come together and work as a group, and learn how to be a volunteer," Pedersen outlined. "After 30 hours you get sworn in by a judge, and we try to assign a case right away if there’s kids that are waiting. Two of the people in training right now said they’re willing to travel, and that’s huge – if there’s kids in Jefferson County, they said they’d be willing to take those kids too."

Despite these obstacles, CASA is still working to receive approval from the national CASA organization so they can expand their offerings into Butler County, one of a only a couple of counties that is completely unserved but is home to a fair number of what they call high needs cases.