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Child health priority for CASA volunteers
Advocates build relationships with children
0714 CASA swearing in
From left, Ineshia Sellers, Lois Talbot, Dona Stuart and Sandra Brown were sworn in July 3 as Atlantic Area C.A.S.A. volunteers. - photo by Photo provided.

Four new Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteers recently were sworn in by Judge Linnie L. Darden III. These new volunteers are part of a handful of CASAs in the area counties that advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children who are involved in juvenile court deprivation proceedings.
“Our goal is to have a CASA for every child,” said Executive Director Petula Y. Gomillion with Atlantic Area CASA Inc. “Without CASA volunteers, many times, these children are voiceless.”
Atlantic Area CASA members advocate for children through training and with the support of community volunteers. Advocates get to know the children they work with, and they speak to everyone involved in a child’s life, including family members, teachers, doctors, lawyers and social workers.
The information they gather and their recommendations help the court make informed decisions on a child’s future.
“CASA volunteers commit to a child until the case is closed and the child is in a safe, permanent home,” Gomillion said.  “They speak for the child who sometimes can’t articulate their feelings in the court system.”
The CASA program is a national volunteer movement that began in 1977, and was started in Liberty and Long counties in 1999. The Department of Family and Protective Services served 162 children from Liberty County and 40 children from Chambers County in 2009. Today, the program has grown to include support for eight local counties.
CASA’s are appointed by a judge as needed, but come January 1, Gomillion said, a new law will be in effect mandating that every child in foster care have a CASA.
“We anticipate a demand for volunteers,” she said. “There is always a need for more CASA volunteers.”
A CASA works on average, Gomillion said, 40 hours a week, without pay, before, during and after business hours building a relationship with the child. The CASA of Liberty/Chambers Counties serves 171 children, but only has 35 active volunteers.  
“Our CASAs have to double up on caseloads because the need is so great,” Gomillion said. “Our goal is to have one volunteer on one case at a time.”
A CASA also ensures that children receive more individualized attention and support.
“A child needs someone who can focus solely on them,” said Paula Hall, Long County CASA volunteer. “They need somebody that has only their best interests in mind.”
Hall has been a volunteer since 2010 and currently is working on two cases. She works with a child’s caseworker to ensure that the child receives the best support possible.
“I try to help the case worker and make sure everything is taken care of for my child,” she said. “I make sure he has a book bag for school or he has his dental records when he changes school.”
A CASA volunteer also attends court proceedings and makes an independent recommendation to the judge about what is in the child’s best interests.
People interested in becoming CASA volunteers must be older than 21, willing to commit to at least one year of service, be able to attend 40 hours of CASA training and pass an extensive background check.
Go to www.atlanticcasa.org for more information about volunteering with Atlantic Area CASA or www.gacasa.org to learn more about the CASA organization in Georgia.

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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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