Alexandria Sees Surge In Need For This Type Of Child Advocate

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Alexandria’s program that supports children in the welfare or justice systems has seen a sharp rise in need this year.

The Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program, which provides advocates for individual children as they make their way through the child welfare or juvenile justice system, has seen a huge increase in cases. The entire system that exists to help keep kids safe and families whole is under strain, the program’s leader tells Patch.

Amy Wilker is the director of Child and Family Wellbeing Services for Northern Virginia, the organization that operates the CASA program for the region. She told Patch Monday that Alexandria is experiencing a spike in the number of children needing advocates.

CASA served 60 children in the city of Alexandria during fiscal year 2025. As of May 2026, they’ve already served 73 and have a waitlist of 11, she said.

This surge in need isn’t occurring in a vacuum, she stresses. Kids are ending up in the welfare and justice systems because the prevention and diversion services intended to break patterns before a crisis can’t meet the current need.

“Typically, child welfare agencies rely first, as they should, on prevention and diversion efforts,” she explained. “However, right now there's really a lack of sufficient funding and community support for those services, which is basically leaving vulnerable families without the help they need before the crisis escalates.”

Early interventions could keep children out of the CASA system altogether. But because preventative services are overwhelmed, kids are ending up in the family welfare system, which is itself being overwhelmed by the need.

While more CASA volunteers are always wanted, “the solution isn't to respond to the crisis, it's investing earlier in prevention and supportive relationships, so that the crisis doesn't happen.”

But the opposite is underway in the region right now.

“We have workforce shortages among social workers, therapists, foster families – all service providers, actually, which then limit families being able to get timely access to those services,” Wilker explained. The severity of workforce shortages can't be overstated, she said.

In 2023, the Columbia School of Social Work called the country’s shortage of social workers a pressing national issue and pointed out that the U.S. government anticipated 74,000 openings for social workers each year. In Alexandria in 2024, there was a vacancy rate for city family services specialists (the city’s term for social workers) of 10 percent. The vacancy rate for all community and human services personnel, the category family services specialists fall under, was 16 percent.

At the same time, families are in crisis. Communities across the country have been affected by federal funding cuts and policy changes. Northern Virginia, which neighbors Washington, DC, gets hit harder, as more of the region is employed by the federal government. The housing, Medicaid and other funding cuts of the past few years are exacerbated by disproportionate job losses, and families who have never needed city services before are suddenly trying to access them, even as the city is struggling to staff those services.

“You have rising family stress, job insecurity, untreated mental health challenges, substance use, housing instability and economic strain. These stressors, each one of them individually, can increase the risk of abuse and neglect.”

More families in need are trying to access fewer resources, which are short-staffed and underfunded, she says. That means more families reach crisis points, and more children end up moving through the court and welfare systems, which themselves lack staff and volunteers. “We are compounding the typical stressors, and that is breaking the system,” Wilker said.

In the meantime, CASA and other programs are just trying to do more with less. But she’s asking for help. “I think there's an old saying, ‘Time, talent, or treasure.’ Whatever you have, if you have the time, if you have a skill, or if you can donate – whatever you can do at this time to support those in our communities who are struggling, I would highly encourage,” Wilker said. “We can't do this alone.”

For more information about becoming a court-appointed special advocate, click here.