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Our history

The court-appointed special advocate system was formed in the late 1970s in Seattle. A hard-pressed child’s court judge insisted on finding a way to have a better understanding of the children’s cases before him than he could in the 10 minutes per child he was able to give before making a placement decision that would affect the rest of their lives. Throughout the country today, there are over 900 CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) programs involving more than 62,000 volunteers. A CASA volunteer advocate acts as a spokesperson for an abused child, works to find needed services (medical, psychological, educational, etc.) and also makes a recommendation to the Child Protection Court Judge about a safe and permanent home for the child.

CASA of Central Texas began in 1985 with a group of people from Comal County agencies who saw abused children become victimized again in the system. They began to recruit and train volunteers who could provide an objective viewpoint in civil cases. The program expanded into Caldwell, Guadalupe and Hays counties and moved to San Marcos in 1995. In the 21 years since then, the organization has grown to 96 volunteers, who served 228 abused and neglected children in Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe and Hays Counties in 2006.