SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — April is Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month, which has a local organization doing what it can to make people conscious of the issue.
CASA, which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates for children, is a national nonprofit program that connects volunteers with abused and neglected children. Paul Phalen has volunteered with them for 3 years.
“I’ve had four different cases over these years, so each case lasts a while, nine months, I have one that went over a year. I work primarily with younger kids. Seven down to– I had an infant,” CASA Volunteer, Paul Phalen said.
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While Phalen could spend his time doing other things, volunteering with CASA is something he feels called to do.
“If you can somehow, in your own way, straighten out a child during their development, that you’re going to, make that child’s life better, you’re going to make the lives for the people that that child interacts with better,” Phalen said.
April is a special month for CASA and its volunteers, as it shines a spotlight on what they are seeing every day.
“April is Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month. So we want to bring awareness first and foremost, because I think a lot of people do not understand the magnitude of the abuse and neglect problem that happens in this community,” Sioux Falls CASA CEO, Stacey Tieszen said.
To help make even more people aware of these issues, CASA is hosting different events throughout April.
“We ask local businesses to sponsor us to wear the capes, do a whole big social media barrage of information and awareness, and then recognize our volunteers at the end of the month. And so then we just do a lot of fundraising in between there. Wwe just did a bingo event. We have our pizza night, Pizza Ranch on the 16th. And so just a little bit of everything to try to build awareness in the community because our kids need help,” Tieszen said.
CASA and its volunteers are helping children who have been in situations many of us couldn’t even fathom.
“They’re all centrally focused on trying to get this child to flourish despite all the strikes that they’ve had against them in their short little time here on Earth,” Phalen said.
