Volunteers Help Juvenile Court’s Wards in Need : Children: An advocacy organization strives to give abused and neglected youths one-on-one support.

Vicki McCormick was introduced to the troubled, mentally disabled boy last year after Ventura County court officials removed him from a home where he was being physically abused.

During the 18 months since then, the boy, now 9, has been bounced from one courtroom to another, one social worker to the next. He was finally returned to his parents after they had received counseling.

Despite the confusing series of Juvenile Court hearings, the boy remained relatively trusting and friendly with McCormick, who was the only constant figure in his life during the episode, she said.

“Things now look pretty good for him,” said McCormick, who faithfully visited the child in his foster home, talking about his troubles and consoling him. “I hope that we will continue to be friends.”

The Ventura homemaker met the boy through her participation in the Court Appointed Special Advocates program, a privately funded organization that works with the court. It assigns volunteers to work with abused and neglected children who have become the court’s dependents.

In a system in which one social worker is responsible for up to 60 children, advocates such as McCormick are giving children the type of one-on-one contact and support that caseworkers often cannot, according to court officials and child-abuse experts.

But like many of the children it supports, the advocacy program is going through an awkward adjustment period.

Gambling that it could generate its own funds and expand the group, CASA broke away from the Children’s Home Society of California in January after a three-year affiliation, said CASA Executive Director Susan Fine.

Fine does not expect the first year of independence to be easy. The organization, which includes 43 volunteers and serves 63 children, must raise at least $85,000 in donations to operate the program and expand it by an additional 57 volunteers. Most of the money is used for training and staff salaries.

The organization began its fund-raising last week with a $19,440 request to the Judicial Council of California. The money would be used to add two part-time staff members to the organization, whose only paid employees are a full-time executive director and a part-time secretary.

The Ventura County chapter of CASA is one of 17 in the state and 366 in the nation.

Volunteers go through a 40-hour course in which they learn about courtroom procedures from judges, lawyers and other court personnel and attend seminars on topics ranging from sexual abuse of children to early childhood development and adolescent behavior.

A total of 764 children in Ventura County are dependents of the court and Fine’s volunteers represent fewer than 10% of them, she said. If the funds are available to train more volunteers, Fine hopes that the program can serve about 130 children by the end of the year.

The group targets children with the most severe physical or emotional trauma.

A volunteer, who is assigned as soon as the child becomes a dependent of the court, acts as friend and adviser as the child goes through the process of finding a permanent home. That can take as long as two years and involve about half a dozen court hearings a year, officials said.

“They are providing the child with the continuity they need,” said Don Henniger, executive director of Child Abuse and Neglect Inc., a private, nonprofit abuse prevention agency in Ventura. “Their sole job is to look out for that child.”

Superior Court Judge Melinda A. Johnson acknowledges that disagreements sometimes arise when the volunteers, who act independently of social workers and attorneys, are called upon to make recommendations that conflict with the advice of professionals.

But Johnson said the advocates are usually well-educated and sophisticated people who are committed to the children they represent.

June Paschen, a Camarillo resident who has been a volunteer for more than two years, has testified in court on behalf of two teen-age girls, both of whom alleged they were sexually abused by family members and eventually were placed in foster homes.

One girl, whose parents died when she was a year old, said she was sexually abused by her uncle when she was 14, Paschen said. The girl has been through three foster homes in the past two years, she said.

The other girl said she was sexually abused by her father at age 10, Paschen said. The man committed suicide just before he was to be charged, she said.

Paschen said the second girl used to run away from her foster home almost every other month. But each time she ran away, the teen-ager would call Paschen, who would convince her to return home.

“You really get close to them,” she said. “They really confide in you and you really hurt for the kids.”