After a national search, Dallas CASA, which we wrote about in November, announced that the board of directors has named Kathleen LaValle as executive director and president of the nonprofit organization.
“Ms. LaValle has been actively involved with Dallas CASA for more than a decade and comes into her new role with a deep understanding of the organization’s goals and a passion for its mission,” Dallas CASA says in a press release.
Before leading Dallas CASA, LaValle was a partner at the law firm Jackson Walker L.L.P. for more than 20 years.
Beverly Levy, who is stepping down as president and executive director after serving in that role for over 20 years, says LaValle “has provided remarkable, selfless leadership and service to Dallas CASA and has been a tremendous advocate in the legal community for our children as well.”
Dallas CASA is an organization of volunteers who are trained and supervised to advocate for the best interests of abused children in court. On an average day in Dallas County, more than 2,000 abused and neglected children live in foster care because they cannot live safely at home. To address this overwhelming need, Dallas CASA launched “Abused Children Can’t Wait” a 5-year campaign that will enable the agency to grow its capacity to serve every abused child living in protective care in Dallas County by 2019. This growth requires doubling the number of trained volunteers, increasing the number of staff and doubling the operating budget.
Learn more about Dallas CASA and the “Abused Children Can’t Wait” campaign.
Also, Dallas CASA recently moved to a brand new building in order to accommodate the new volunteers and staff members. The new building is three times the size of its previous building and houses The Rees-Jones Center for Children’s Justice. The space will be used to train more than 300 new CASA volunteers each year and provide continuing education for the more than 1,400 volunteers needed to serve all abused children in Dallas County.
