Abused children might feel all alone on the world, but a group here at NIU is trying to remedy that situation.

The Woman’s Law Caucus is currently planning to start a country-wide program that provides abused children with a volunteer guardian. The program is called CASA which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate.

“The volunteer, called a ‘guardian ad litem’, looks out for the child’s interests,” said NIU Law Professor Kathleen Patchel.

“Normally volunteers are from the community, but in this case an NIU law student would be teamed up with the volunteer in order to provide them with their legal knowledge,” she said.

CASA is a nationwide program that began in Washington state in 1976, said Bradner C. Riggs, a retired Winnebago County Juvenile Court Judge.

“In the past children were held as wards of the state for far too long. With CASA, if a child is still in foster care for two years, the volunteer will either determine if the child should be returned to his or her parents or allowed to be put up for adoption,” Riggs said.

Riggs first proposed the CASA program to the Winnebago County Junior League in 1985. “Since that time, Winnebago County’s program has become the model CASA program,” Patchel said.

Riggs said the volunteers go through 30 hours training and at least for hours of actual courtroom observation in cases where CASA is involved.

Currently, DeKalb County is does not have a CASA program, so the Woman’s Law Caucus is trying to start one here. “The program is still in the proposal stage, so we have a lot of work ahead of us,” Diane Doyle of the Woman’s Law Caucus said.

Doyle, an NIU law student said, “It will be good for law students, since it will familiarize them with Juvenile Court proceedings and how to present legal paperwork to a judge.”

“However, we want the whole university to get involved in the program, if possible, in some of the training of the volunteers but, again, this is still a proposal,” Doyle said.

Patchel said, “A local social service organization has been informed of the proposal and is very excited about the program.” The organization, Four-C, could not be reached for comment.