Court Appointed Special Advocates

Program goal(s): Ensure youth have court appointed representation
Program goal(s) description: To improve outcomes for children in the foster care system by providing membership and accreditation subgrants to regional, state, and local CASA organizations that support volunteer advocates who represent abused and neglected children in dependency hearings and partner with other public and private child welfare system stakeholders at the local, state, regional, and national levels.
Program objective(s) name: Support court advocates
Program objective(s) description: Provide effective advocacy for abused and neglected children, including foster care youth; expand the national membership and accreditation program for state and local CASAs; make training and technical assistance available to support existing and new local and state CASA programs across the nation and CASA services in communities where representation rates are low, the numbers of abused and neglected children are high, and service systems do not meet the needs of families and children; provide training and technical assistance in volunteer advocate recruitment and retention, volunteer advocate training, data collection and reporting, sustainability, and program standards.

All final award decisions will be made by the Assistant Attorney General, unless a statute explicitly authorizes award decisions by another official or there is written delegation of authority to another official. For successful applicants, JustGrants will send a system-generated email to the Application Submitter, Authorized Representative, and Entity Administrator with information on accessing their official award package in JustGrants. The award package will include key information (such as funding amount and period of performance) as well as award conditions that must be followed. The Authorized Representative for the entity should accept or decline the award within 45 days of the notification.

The review procedure for applications is specified in the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and generally includes eligibility and responsiveness, merit, programmatic, budget, and risk reviews.