January Volunteer Announcements

Happy New Year!

Happy 2019 everyone!

CASA wraps up our 25th anniversary celebration over the next few months, and we hope to keep you engaged with interesting continuing education opportunities, specialized training, and opportunities to engage and socialize with your fellow volunteers. Just a few things coming up:

Best for Babies certification training - our long awaited cirriculum is just about finished, and we will have the dates soon for this special 6 hour training and certification program, which was designed with the help of your fellow CASA volunteer, Lisa Murray. We will let you know the dates as soon as we set them!
Save the date for our annual volunteer appreciation dinner - (April 12, 6pm) You won't want to miss this special celebration!
The first every CASA Rubber Ducky Derby!!! Race date is May 19, and the ducks will race at CMT ranch in Orcutt - sliding down a massive slip n slice - racing for one lucky person to win a special grand prize. This event will be high profile, and the 6 weeks prior to the race you will find us all over the county with opportunities to "adopt a duck" and get in the race. You can even have your own "duck adoption team" and compete for more prizes! Watch for details to come and join the fun!! (We are still accepting sponsors for the event - so if your company wants to sponsor... you will be in on the most high profile event of the year, and support CASA in the process! Contact [email protected] for a sponsor packet today)
We have volunteer training in process right now in Lompoc, and 3 more classes happening before our fiscal year ends in June - Santa Maria, Santa Ynez Valley, and Lompoc - we hope to bring 45 more volunteers to CASA - so please remember to tell a friend.

Thanks for all you are doing to support the vulnerable children in our community. We saw a 35% increase in children being assigned by the court in November and December, so our waitlist has ballooned up to about 60 kids. We hope if your case closes soon you will consider taking another case and help us end the waiting list once again!

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Christmas Wishes Project was a success - so was the Santa Store!

With your help, we were able to make sure that the kids all had special wishes granted this holiday season.

19 groups - businesses, schools, and county agencies like probation and child support services, the DA's office, and VAFB 30th space wing - and AMAZING number of people made the magic happen.

And then you either brought your case child to the party or delivered the gift. It's a team effort, and we got it done!

And then, more than 50 kids came by to shop for their friends and family in our Santa Shop. What a success!

Continuing education notes

Thanks for the feedback on the recent survey and the record attendance at the January volunteer meetings

Based on the survey results there is significant interest in adding an evening meeting in Santa Maria and having monthly inservice training available via webinar. We are working on a plan to implement those changes soon.

Next months meetings will be on the topic of Gender and Sexual Diversity presented by Dave Selberg, Executive Director of Hospice of Santa Barbara. Dave is a former CASA volunteer and former Executive Director of the Pacific Pride Foundation. As a big supporter of CASA he is excited to share his story with our current CASA volunteers.

Please remember that It is important that we receive your RSVP either by telling your advocate supervisor that you will attend or by responding on the link in the email. We want to make sure we order enough lunch/snacks to serve all CASA volunteers, without spending $$$ unnecessarily

Continuing Education Opportunities - to compliment Dave's presentation next month, consider watching these videos to hear stories from LGBTQ foster youth:

LGBTQ former foster youth stories.

Click on the links below to watch these stories. If you watch all five, it counts as 1 hour of Continuing Education. Don't forget to let us know so that we can record it towards the goal of 12 per year.

Kevin’s story -- Darryn’s story -- Danielle’s story -- George’s story -- Nicky’s story

Looking for more on line continuing ed- go here:) https://sbcasa.org/on-line-training/

Refer a friend to CASA and win a movie night prize!

We just finished a small class in Santa Maria - they completed training in one week by meeting daily and will be sworn in this week, and we have training in session right now in Lompoc. The next training is in Santa Maria in March, and we need your help to fill the class! Each person you refer gets you an entry into the drawing.

Invite someone to attend one of our upcoming information sessions - and you can come too, and be one of our guest speakers!

Lompoc:

Wednesday

January 30

Noon

LaunchPad

1010 N H St.

Lompoc, CA 93436

Santa Maria:

Friday

January 25

Noon

CASA office

2125 S Broadway Ste 106

Santa Maria, CA 93455

You can always find all planned CASA events and educations opportunities on the website:

https://sbcasa.org/volunteer-meetings-and-events/