CASA, First Judicial District is a non-profit organization dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting community volunteers who speak up for the best interests of abused and neglected foster children in court. These trained volunteers are appointed by a family court judge to collect detailed information on a child or sibling group and act as objective eyes, ears, and voices for the children, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the child lands in a safe and loving home – whether that home is with the biological parents, other family members, or in an adoptive family.

We work in concert with the children’s court judges, lawyers, social workers, parents, teachers, and the children themselves to gather information on the child’s situation and the progress of court-ordered therapies in order to make the best recommendation possible for the long-term health, safety, and well-being of the child.

The CASA, First Judicial District was incorporated in 1995 to serve the northern New Mexico counties of Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, and Los Alamos. We are active members of the National Court Appointed Special Advocates Association and the New Mexico CASA Network. Our three staff members support more than 70 volunteers and annually serve over 200 abused and neglected children from 100+ families in our region. Our goal is to have a trained CASA available for every child that needs one in our region.

Nationally, CASA was formed in 1977 when a Seattle judge, concerned over making decisions about abused and neglected childrens' lives without sufficient information, conceived the idea of using trained community volunteers to speak for the best interests of these children in court. So successful was this Seattle program that soon judges across the country began utilizing citizen advocates. In 1990, the U.S. Congress encouraged the expansion of CASA with passage of the Victims of Child Abuse Act. Today more than 1000 CASA program offices are in operation, with over 68,000 trained women and men serving as CASA volunteers for 225,000 children.