The drug epidemic that spread across Greene County has created a rise of dependency cases for children in the area. The judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Greene County enlisted the help of the community, including a Waynesburg University student, sophomore Kara Compton, to help the children of Greene County by bringing a program called Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) to the community.

CASA is a program that trains volunteers who are at least 21 years old to be alongside children in foster care and their family. According to CASA’s website, a volunteers’ job is to help enrich the childrens’ lives and gather information that would be useful to a judge on what the child needs and what will be the best permanent home for them.

Although Compton is too young to participate in the volunteer program, the criminal justice major is doing her best to help bring CASA to Greene County, as she has seen the effects of the drug epidemic on the children in the county with her own eyes.

“I worked at the courthouse over the summer, so the judge was, all the time, having custody hearings, especially emergency custody hearings,” said Compton. “I would sit in on those and see just how the families are constantly, in this area, affected by the drug epidemic, like children being left by themselves.”

Greene County Court of Common Pleas Judge Farley Toothman decided to bring CASA to Greene County and suggested Compton help with the project.

“The judge working at the courthouse here suggested that I become involved because it was something I was interested in,” said Compton. “I love children, and I want to make sure that their best interests are kept in mind and someone’s out there advocating for them.”

Compton said the main reason Toothman decided CASA should be brought to Greene County was because he wanted to be better informed about the children he only occasionally got to see.

“Basically [Toothman] just felt that he wasn’t being informed enough about how these children are,” said Compton. “He was just seeing them in court once in a while. He wanted to know more about them and make sure that they were okay, and our CYS (Children and Youth Service) workers are great, but they tend to have a big load of cases, so just trying to help them out and making sure that the children are taken care of as best as possible.”

CASA has locations all across the United States with nearly 1,000 CASA programs in 49 states, according to the CASA website.

“It’s very big in Pennsylvania,” said Compton. “We are one of the last counties in Pennsylvania, I know, to get a program, and that’s just because we’re a rural community that is kind of poor.”

Last month, those who are helping to bring CASA to Greene County received a grant from PA State CASA, which will help immensely in making the program a reality in the community.

Compton is not the only university student involved in CASA. Senior psychology major Dave Sullivan just finished his training to be a CASA volunteer within the past month and has already been assigned to his first case, said Compton.

“At our next meeting, which is Thursday, [Sullivan is] going to talk about how training went and how all that goes and everything,” said Compton. “He just really loves CASA and loves kids, so it was great to have a student here who knew about it, because a lot of people have never heard of it.”

The next step is establishing a mission statement, then completing a checklist to bring CASA to Greene County.

“So probably next fall is when we will actually start the volunteer program, where we will have CASA volunteers out and about in Waynesburg. Right now, it’s still in the planning process,” said Compton.

As Compton is working with people in the community to bring CASA to Greene County, she is also raising awareness of the program at Waynesburg.

“Right now, what I’m trying to do at the university is kind of just raise awareness and get college students’ [help]. I’ve reached out to the Criminal Justice Program about having CJ majors help out as interns in the CASA office, but especially just having pretty much anyone from any major that’s interested in helping out, maybe like making posters or flyers or surveys to help get community support.”