Christopher Scott, the founder and CEO of Sun Scholars Inc. a Hartford based nonprofit which advocates college bound children in foster care, knows how it feels to be a child in the foster care system.
Scott remembers being placed in foster care in Connecticut, after his father was deported, and his mother became addicted to drugs.
Scott says he could have been placed with a family member, if a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) had been around at the time. However, instead he lived in a foster home, which ended up warping his expectations of what childhood was supposed to be like.
“I remember asking other kids in my class, like, ‘oh, who's your social worker,’ because I saw everyone was in foster care,” Scott said.
Scott ended up thriving, attending and graduating from several colleges, including Harvard University, but says Connecticut CASA serves an important role.
Scott gathered with other advocates at New Haven’s Flint Street Theater in late-May for a panel discussion and viewing of the PBS documentary Absence/Presence.
The film follows the journeys of two young women in New York City’s foster care system.
Connecticut CASA’s now president Josiah Brown said that the role of a court appointed special advocate has recently become more important, with nearly 8,000 children currently in Connecticut’s foster care system, or under protective supervision.
That number of children that Connecticut CASA handled in the New Haven area was around 50 a few years ago, and according to Brown, is steadily soaring.
“It's continued to increase, so this year it will be over 200 kids in courts around the state,” Brown said.
The rise in the number of children entering the foster care system comes as CASA continues to fundraise, after federal aid program cutbacks led to state funding for the first time in 2025.
Organizations like Connecticut CASA, which state they work with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), are credited for acting as a complement to DCF workers., who are dealing with high staff turnover and caseloads.
Brown said those volunteers with CASA, who are assigned a child removed from parental custody by a judge, interact with the child, and checking in on their living situations.
The volunteers then report their recommendations to the judge on whether or not a child should be placed in foster care, or returned to their families.
According to Brown, those volunteers are not there to rip children away from their parents.
“We try, whenever possible, to help kids stay with their families,” Brown said. “That's not always possible.”
The federal government cut back on Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funds by around $60,000 a year over the last two years according to Brown. The state has given funding to the organization, but it’s now fundraising, and a recent showing of a documentary on the foster care system in New York, he said, is partly about getting more donors and attention to their mission.
Karen Bergin, of New London, signed up as a volunteer a few years ago, and now trains volunteers. Bergin had experience fostering and adopting children and wanted to continue advocating for them.
Bergin said she remembered getting to know a young girl, who had come to school with soiled clothes in her backpack. Bergin also realized she needed glasses, and she was able to prod DCF to help get her a new pair.
“She could see the pictures, it was so powerful, so it wasn't being accomplished, and nobody was following up on it, for whatever reason, and I had the opportunity to do that,” Bergin said.
Bergin said the girl initially ended up being returned to her mother, but was placed in foster care a few months afterwards.
Bergin and Brown were quick to defend DCF, and praised the caseworkers, many of whom they characterized as dedicated and professional.
But the department has faced numerous criticisms especially in a report released late April, after a child who pled to be placed in a foster home, ended up dying by suicide when DCF did not move forward with foster care placement.
DCF has been criticized for its lack of action, but spokesperson Peter Yazbek said it would improve and said partners like Connecticut CASA are crucial to its operations.
"CASA volunteers help to ensure that each child’s best interests remain at the forefront of decisions regarding their permanency and placement, Yazbek said. "As DCF continues to strengthen services in order to improve outcomes for the children and families we serve, partnerships with organizations such as Connecticut CASA remain essential to building a stronger, more responsive child welfare system."
Brown says incidents like these also prove how having a CASA volunteer can spot signs of abuse.
"I think it heightens the attention to the importance of these preventative efforts to supporting children and families where they are, and we hope that we can avert such awful circumstances."
