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Advocate of the Month | Alisa Abecassis

Advocate of the Month | Alisa Abecassis

Alisa Abecassis’ journey to becoming a CASA began in the wake of a local tragedy. Her dear friends lost their young son, Blaze Bernstein, when he was murdered by a former classmate here in Orange County. The loss was even more painful since it was classified as a hate crime due to Blaze being both gay and Jewish. The family chose to turn their tragedy into something positive through the Jewish tradition of Tikkun Olam, which calls for healing the world through acts of kindness and positive change.

They launched a Facebook page called Blaze It Forward and asked people to share different opportunities to do good things in Blaze’s memory. Alisa read a post about becoming a Court Appointed Special Advocate and decided to look into it. She says, “I had the time and thought it would be something meaningful, so I did my research, made some calls, and thought, ‘Alright, I can do this!’ I signed up, did the training and have now been a CASA for 6 years.”

Alisa found her experience volunteering with CASA to be so powerful that she started talking to her friends about signing up as well. “My birthday is New Year’s Eve and every few years I throw a really big party. One day I thought, ‘I can turn this party into a fundraiser for CASA!’ So, I requested donations from guests, did a short presentation on CASA at the event, and talked about what it means to me to be a CASA. All the money we raised went to CASA.  It was amazing!” Alisa adds, “We even had a couple of guests become CASAs themselves!”  She repeated the event last year and, between her family and friends, was able to raise close to $50,000 for CASA. Alisa says, “I’m all in for CASA!”

Because Alisa has volunteered as an advocate for so many years, she has a unique perspective that allows her to see the organization from the perspective of both a volunteer and a donor. Alisa says, “I feel that the work really resonates with me because I see it from the inside. I see how the organization is run and how committed the people are who work there. CASA is very transparent and that’s very important to me as a donor. It’s a lean and mean operation; there’s not a lot of fluff. I know that the return on my investment is high because the money is really going where it’s supposed to go.”

When Alisa first became a CASA, she was matched with a young girl for three years until the child was eventually adopted. According to Alisa, “She was adopted by a lovely couple with great parenting skills.” Alisa spent the next three years with *Reuben who was recently reunified with his father. Reuben now lives with his dad full time and gets to see his mom on supervised visits. 

According to Alisa, her worldview has really been expanded by her six years volunteering as a CASA. She says, “You really learn to understand how difficult it is to be impoverished and how far back that sets you. In my recent case, Reuben had a hard time completing his homework, much of which is done online. His family couldn’t afford an internet connection so they were assigned one hotspot by the school. What do you do with a divorced family when you only have one hot spot? Then, his mom got a hold of the hotspot and sold it. Now he’s struggling again to get his homework done. If you don’t have these things in today’s society, you are going nowhere and that's really sad. Technology is great on so many levels but a lot of people are left behind because they don’t have access. I didn’t have any clue about that until I became a CASA.”

Alisa tries to engage Reuben in fun activities to help him learn basic life skills and has created scavenger hunts at local destinations. “We will go to a place like Fashion Island and he has to go ask for help with something and learn how to interact with an adult. The “hunt” may include going into See’s Candies to get a sample. Or going to a pizza place to compare the price of a slice of pizza to buying the whole pie. Or I’ll give him money to go buy something small and ask him to count out the change. We practice little life skills that he may not be getting at home. It doesn’t really cost anything and kids love it.” 

On other occasions, Alisa and Reuben will go out to dinner together. “Just going to a basic restaurant is such a ‘wow’ experience for him even though it’s not a fancy place. I’ll bring along a game like Battleship for us to play together. Other kids in the restaurant will be watching us, curious about what we are doing. I think it’s so important to focus and be engaged with children since I see so many families sitting around the table all looking at their phones,” says Alisa.

Alisa recently had the opportunity to share her scavenger hunt idea with fellow advocates at a CASA-to-CASA event. These events are designed to give volunteers the opportunity to connect with fellow advocates and share ideas such as this. When advocates are sworn in, they are each assigned to a CASA Advocate Supervisor who is there to provide ongoing support and answer questions as they arise. Alisa says her supervisor, Cindy Nydell, is amazing. “Sometimes as an advocate you need help, things happen, and Cindy is always there for me. I love working with her.” Cindy lauds Alisa’s creativity as an advocate, “I remember when I first interviewed Alisa and thought she would make a great CASA. She is so creative in coming up with outings with her youth and has provided him with so much support through all his changes in placements.”

This year Alisa will be honored at the annual CASA Celebration Gala as the Children's Champion for her many contributions to CASA. Alisa is looking forward to the upcoming gala in May and will sponsor a table, as she does every year, for a group of fellow advocates. She says, “I feel like it’s important for CASAs, who are doing the work and sometimes don’t have the opportunity to attend a glamorous event like the gala, to have a chance to attend. They get to enjoy the recognition and see how grateful the community is for the work they are doing.”  

Alisa reflects on the significance of her role as a court appointed advocate, “It’s not lost on me how profound the court’s decisions are on the life of a child. It’s so critical that judges have as much information and insight as possible when making these life-altering decisions, so our CASA reports are really powerful.” She adds, “CASA can provide a relationship for these children that can be incredibly positive and I’m just happy to continue to do this work. It’s such an amazing program and all my friends who have done it feel incredibly fulfilled and blessed to have this opportunity. So I’m going to continue to inspire more people to do it.”

If you’d like to learn more about becoming a CASA, please email Norma Mendoza or sign up to attend an upcoming Information Session

*Name changed to protect privacy