Notes of Gratitude for Child Mentor Volunteers

In 1990, Jerry and Alice Roberts of Irvine decided to give their spare time to the CASA program for abused or neglected children. They initially signed up for a year but found the need for volunteers so great that they decided to stay for another year.

Now it’s been eight years since they first joined up, and the Robertses are more committed to CASA than ever.

Jerry Roberts explained: “We’ve been working with a brother and sister. They’ve made so much progress, we just don’t want to leave them until they are on their own.”

CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. Though mostly privately funded, it works closely with Orange County’s Juvenile Court. The Orange-based group hooks up responsible adult volunteers (advocates) with young people desperately in need of one-on-one mentoring.

Saturday night, CASA will honor some of its most dedicated at its annual fund-raising dinner at the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach.

Among those receiving awards will be Jerry and Alice Roberts. He’s a marketing consultant; she’s a flight attendant. Jerry Roberts said watching the emotional growth of the youths they are assigned to has been the greatest reward.

“We have this one 14-year-old girl living in a group home in Oceanside,” he said. “She told us the other day, ‘What I want to do is break the cycle, so that my children will not have to live like I’ve lived.’ For her to verbalize something like that is just amazing progress to us.”

Even most of those not in group homes have only one parent in the home, Roberts said--or maybe a mother who just drifts in and out of their lives. The Robertses are working with one young woman who has lived in five different places within the past year.

Without outside help like the volunteers, many of these young people don’t stand much of a chance.

“At age 18, the system sort of gives these young people a gentle boot out the door,” Roberts said. “For most of them, there’s no safety net to fall back on. They aren’t ready. Alice and I have decided that we’ve been with it this long, we need to stay until the teenagers we’re working with are ready to leave.”

The Robertses, by the way, have chalked up 2,000 volunteer hours for CASA. As if that weren’t enough, they also helped set up a new program called LINKS in which veteran volunteers help mentor newer ones.

“It’s nice to be honored,” Roberts said of Saturday’s event, “but there are a lot of other volunteers working hard in the trenches who are just as deserving.”

Unwelcome Visitors: Not to alarm you too much, but in the Anaheim City School District, where my family lives, officials are warning about reports of head lice. If you’re a parent and haven’t received such notification in the mail, you might want to check your school to see if there has been a problem.

We were warned by letter that “this condition is quite contagious in situations of close contact as may occur in the home, in some school situations or during neighborhood play.”

The district points out that it’s nothing to be embarrassed about and that drugstores sell special lice shampoos. However, children who have been detected with head lice will not be allowed to return until the problem is eliminated.

Educated Mall Rats: Some people hit the mall to shop for clothes or jewelry. But some people you might run into at the Westminster Mall have loftier thoughts in mind: an education.

In a rare partnership, Coastline Community College has hooked up with the Westminster Mall to offer several classes there: Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese language classes, beginning this week. The idea is to make classroom space more convenient for those seeking special courses. Any of us can find a mall, right?

Coastline President Leslie Purdy said, “Should this partnership work well, future course offerings will be added.”

Lawyering to Lawyers: What happens to state Supreme Court justices after they leave the high bench? Marcus Kaufman, who served on the state Supreme Court from 1987-90, recently joined the Costa Mesa law firm of Albert, Weiland & Golden. Though Kaufman will concentrate on bankruptcy and real estate matters, I couldn’t help but smile at his other role within the firm: “Unofficial mentor to the associates,” the announcement read.

Said Kaufman: “There is a certain level of knowledge that is only attainable through experience.”

Wrap-Up: Others in the CASA program who will be honored Saturday night include Municipal Judge Pam Iles and Fred Port of Laguna Beach, who is president of Callaway Golf International.

Port got involved in CASA nearly 12 years ago through his wife, Linda. They were first assigned two babies whom they took into their own home for part of the time over four years. Eventually, they were able to place the children with a relative in Tennessee. Fred Port went on to become a major fund-raiser for CASA and served as chairman of its advisory board.

Judge Iles has long been involved in myriad child abuse causes in this county. She helped set up a group called CAST (Child Abuse Services Team), which is a multi-agency program for child sexual abuse victims. CASA is a part of the CAST team.

If you’d like to learn more about being a CASA advocate, you can call CASA at (714) 935-6460.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by faxto (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com