For Summer’s sake

My new business cards arrived in the mail recently. They read “Spokane County Court Services, Cindy Hval CASA/Guardian Ad Litem.”

I’d heard about the CASA program many years ago. When a petition has been filed alleging a child has been abused or neglected, the Juvenile Court appoints an individual to serve as a court appointed special advocate.The role of a CASA is to represent the best interest of the child by making independent observations of the child’s situation and submitting a written report to the court.

After 30 hours of training, plus my first in-service, I’ve already been assigned my first case.

But it was another child I thought of as I held the business cards in my hand – she’s the reason I wanted to be a CASA in the first place.

Her name was Summer Phelps and she died on March 10, 2007, at age 4 – her body a broken, bruised and bloody roadmap of the abuse she’d suffered at the hands of her father and stepmother/ Cindy Hval , SR. More here .