Federal cuts and tightening state budgets means that fewer foster children will have help navigating court, and local staff who work with children experiencing abuse will continue to balance an increasingly heavy caseload.

Both CASA of Marion County and Liberty House saw slashed federal funding this year, and did not get hoped-for money from the state to fill the gap. CASA of Marion County provides volunteer advocates for foster children navigating the court system, and Liberty House works with children who have experienced abuse, collecting evidence and providing supportive services.

In the coming year, the Salem nonprofits plan to expand their nets by applying for grants and asking private investors and individual community members to open their wallets on behalf of children in the community. 

CASA of Marion County

CASA of Marion County received a total of $188,252 in federal and state funds this year, less than half of the $426,556 they’d requested to serve dozens more children in the foster care system.

CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates, the volunteers who meet with children in their homes and accompany foster children to their court hearings to make recommendations to judges for the next steps.

“We’re not just sitting in the back hoping to get noticed by the judge. We are at counsel’s table,” said Vanesa Nordyke, executive director. 

Judges will ask the advocate questions like whether the child is ready to be adopted, or whether parents have taken steps to be reunified. Advocates can also share information with judges about the child’s home life, performance in school and whether they might benefit from behavioral health care.

“All they do is get to know that one child, or that one set of siblings, so that when they walk into the courtroom they know that child better than anybody else in the room,” Nordyke said.

There are over 350 children in foster care in Marion County, said Nordyke, and the program currently serves around half of them. She planned to use the funds to hire additional coordinators, who can train and supervise up to 30 volunteers each.

“(It’s) funding we had hoped to get, we were never guaranteed to get all of that, but now you’re talking about the ability to serve a lot of kids that we cannot currently serve,” she said. “It means that kids will not have a CASA, because we don’t have the funding to hire the staff needed to serve all the children in our county.”

In March, CASA learned that it would not receive $85,000 of anticipated federal funding it planned to use to hire another full-time staff member to recruit, train and supervise up to 30 volunteer advocates, who would work with up to two children each.

The money would have come from the Victims of Crime Act, known as VOCA, federal money which supports survivors of sexual assault and other crimes across the country. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold the $15 million slated for Oregon unless it agrees to assist with federal immigration enforcement efforts, which would violate the state’s sanctuary laws. Oregon is suing the Trump administration over the issue. The federal program had already seen cuts in previous years.

Legislators this year did not pass a state bill, HB 3196A, seeking to backfill the federal grants. That bill would have given CASA of Marion County $113,000.

Another bill, HB 5002, passed with a reduced amount of funding, $188,253 for CASA of Marion County, around $2,000 more than the organization received last year. But it was less than the $228,421 CASA had requested for the year.

Nordyke said the organization will be doing long-term financial forecasting in the coming months to consider the future direction of the agency amid uncertainty.

“We’re going to be tightening our belt this year, keeping a very close eye on our expenses,” Nordyke said.

Her organization plans to apply for every grant it can, she said, and is looking for more donors in the community, along with more volunteers. They’re not alone in that.

“Every nonprofit I know is having some sort of challenge,” Nordyke said.

Liberty House

When law enforcement or the Department of Human Services receives a report of child abuse in Marion or Polk County, that child is brought to Liberty House within a day or two. 

There, doctors conduct a medical exam and staff interview the child to collect evidence of abuse. They also support families through the aftermath and provide mental health care. 

At its north Salem location, workers see up to 30 children per week who range from a few days old to 18, and sometimes young adults with developmental disabilities who experience high rates of abuse.

Facing increasing need, proposals to cut Medicaid and cuts to federal crime victim aid, Liberty House sought $5 million in one-time funding from the state to support its programs, including a recent expansion to a third location in Woodburn.

The bill did not make it out of the legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee, and a subsequent effort to get a lower amount included in an end-of-session spending bill was unsuccessful, said CEO Alison Kelley.

Earlier this month, she said Liberty House was told that it would see an 80% reduction in the amount it receives from federal crime victim funds. That’s a drop from $250,000 to $50,000 for the year.

Kelley said around 800 of the 1,000 children they serve each year use the Oregon Health Plan, and the organization relies on Medicaid reimbursements to provide free health care. She said it’s unclear how federal cuts will impact their revenue.

Already, Kelley said her staff are taking on higher workloads with a lower capacity, including the loss of two medical providers for personal reasons in the past year. Anecdotally, they’re also seeing tougher cases.

“They’re working extremely hard. They do tell me… that the cases that are coming in now are so much more complex,” she said. “It’s all of it. They’re getting physical abuse, sexual abuse, trafficking, all in one child. And we’ve had some cases recently involving multiple broken bones in infants.”

Kelley said her team members are tired, and the work needs more support. She said she’s also concerned that businesses will be tightening their belts and donating less in the coming years.

“Liberty House has always had a pretty unique blend of public grants and private grants and donators and billable receipts, and it’s fairly evenly spread out. But if there are shortages in the Medicaid reimbursement, that’ll be like removing one leg from a three-legged stool, and it won’t be balanced,” she said. “It’s possible that all three legs of the stool that is the revenue blend for Liberty House could become unstable.”

Kelley said that their work, aside from changing lives, is a good economic investment.

“There’s research, now, to support the link between untreated childhood trauma and mental and emotional harm and dysregulation, and that vulnerability can lead some people to become addicted to substances, and that can lead them to lose their jobs, and that can lead them to lose their homes,” she said. “We need to have a vision for our community.”

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.

A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE.