Continuing Education
Learning Opportunities for CASA Volunteers
Detailed continuing education updates are emailed to current volunteers. If you’re not receiving them, contact CJ Spencer to be added to the list.
Podcasts
CASA on the Go
Continuing Education for CASA Volunteers
Child Welfare Information Gateway
This podcast series, produced on behalf of the Children’s Bureau, presents a series of interviews and group conversations intended to provide beneficial information for busy child welfare and social work professionals. The podcasts cover a wide range of topics and provide perspectives from communities served by child welfare agencies, along with tips and stories from professionals about implementing new services and programs, working across agencies, and improving practice.
Aged Out: The Stories that Built Us
This podcast by the SMU Child Advocacy Clinic was created to raise awareness regarding the child welfare system while giving youth who aged out a voice to transform it.
reFRAMED podcast
Presented by the Gladney Center for Adoption, this podcast is created to educate, encourage, and inspire parents and professionals who have a love for children and want to meet their needs. Each episode has a special guest who is an expert in their field. Listen to real conversations about how to reframe parenting skills, expectations, and practices from traditional parenting into mindful parenting.
Working with Teens, Episode 9
From the podcast on Crimes Against Women, domestic violence affects 1-in-3 women in the United States. While we have come to understand that forms of intimate partner violence can range from the physical to the lesser recognized forms of verbal, financial, and spiritual abuse, the impact of any form of domestic violence on children in the household is sometimes overlooked. Jordyn Lawson, senior director of Residential Services at Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support discusses the impact, specifically among teens, and how domestic violence can disrupt their home life, physical, and cognitive development.
Expert On: Domestic Violence
From the Crime Junkie podcast, Ashley Bendiksen discusses her story of survival, what signs to watch out for and how to safely leave a toxic relationship. Ashley Bendiksen is an acclaimed survivor speaker and award-winning activist, speaking and training nationally on the topics of domestic violence, teen dating violence, sexual assault, and bystander intervention.
Films & Documentaries
Foster Care: Aging Out (PBS)
This program explores the importance of preparing teens in foster care for a successful transition to adulthood. Through the lens of an independent living program in Alabama, it highlights the challenges and support systems involved in their transition.
Short Term 12 (Amazon Prime and more)
This movie explores the lives of at-risk teens in a foster care facility, focusing on one youth’s struggles as they near aging out of the system, as seen through the eyes of their supervisor.
UnAdopted
This short documentary explores what happens to teenagers in foster care as they approach the point of “aging out” of the system.
The Social Dilemma (Netflix)
This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.
All Rise: For the Good of the Children
This 75-minute documentary takes you inside the courtroom of an unconventional East Texas judge who uses a trauma-informed, trust-based approach to healing broken families in the child welfare system. Two families share how they transformed their lives through the support and intervention of Judge Carole Creek and her team of lawyers, mental-health experts, and child advocates.
Right to Fail
This PBS/Frontline documentary examines the challenges and risks to people with severe mental illness who are moved from adult homes into apartments.
The Fosters (Hulu, Amazon)
This fictional series is about two women and their adopted, biological, and foster children.
Recommended Reading
Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter (Amazon, Simon & Schuster and more)
Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s powerful memoir recounts her tumultuous journey through the foster care system after being taken from her mother at age three. Moved between multiple homes under the oversight of Child Protective Services, Ashley endured years of neglect, abuse, and instability. Yet amid the darkness, she also encountered unexpected kindness and resilience.
The Child Catcher by Andrew Bridge (Amazon, Barnes & Noble and more)
Andrew, a New York Times Bestselling Author, will launch his powerful new book in September. This is the true story of his journey from foster care to Harvard Law School and the fight to rescue children confined to a secretive institution in the rural South. Pre-orders will support CASA. Book Club selection for May 2025.
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz (Amazon, Audible, Goodreads, and more)
This series of stories from a child psychiatrist, Dr. Bruce Perry, and Maia Szalavitz reveals how traumatic experiences affect children and outlines the path to recovery.
Misplaced Childhood by Joan Ulsher
This is a powerful memoir of resilience and advocacy. Drawing from her own experiences with poverty, abuse, and foster care, Ulsher shares her journey toward healing and purpose. Now a dedicated CASA volunteer, she intertwines her past with her present, championing the rights of vulnerable children while reflecting on her own.
Dumpster Doll: The Early Years by Michelle Mays and Michelle Moon (Amazon, Walmart, and more)
Michelle Mays was born into an abusive family in the Midwest. Through powerful vignettes of a life disjointed, Mays’s story is a journey of hope and, ultimately, the grit and tenacity that thousands of children exhibit each day just to make it through.
I Speak for This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate by Gay Courter (Amazon, Goodreads, and more)
Courter, a bestselling novelist, recounts her heartbreaking, heartwarming, and inspirational story as a CASA volunteer.
Brave: A Personal Story of Healing Childhood Trauma by Jayne McConnaughey (Amazon, Thrift Books and more)
This is a personal memoir describing a woman’s journey through psychotherapy, which pays tribute to how a therapist and client worked together to heal attachment wounds.
A Place Called Home: A Memoir by David Ambroz (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more)
The author, a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate, takes readers on a journey through hunger and homelessness– and the forces of hope and willpower that keep him alive.
The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble and more.)
This book provides insight and research into the prevalence of childhood trauma and the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES).
Growing Up in the Care of Strangers: The Experiences, Insights and Recommendations of Eleven Former Foster Kids (Amazon, Goodreads and more)
Products of foster care themselves, 11 college-educated adults share their insights about their experiences and provide recommendations for professionals about what would improve foster care. This book can be found on Amazon, Goodreads and more.
