Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Sunflower Children's Collective on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 237
Sunflower Children's Collective operates as an umbrella organization encompassing three vital agencies serving vulnerable children: Sunflower CASA, Stepping Stones Child Advocacy Center, and Sunflower Bridge Child Exchange and Visitation Center. CASA volunteers serve as court-appointed advocates for abused and neglected children, walking alongside them through their court cases to ensure their voices are heard and needs are met.
• CASA volunteers provide crucial advocacy for children in the court system due to abuse and neglect
• New two-Saturday training format launching in October to make volunteer training more accessible
• Recently acquired a dedicated vehicle (nicknamed "CARSA") for staff to visit children placed throughout Kansas
• Successfully navigating funding challenges after temporary loss of federal expansion grant
• Implementing innovative therapy program for children with problematic sexualized behaviors, with 98% success rate
• Currently seeking gas cards or fuel donations to support their outreach vehicle
• Planning to reapply for federal funding in 2026 to continue expansion into underserved counties
We would love to have support from the community for gas money. We've created a Give Butter link on our website and in our newsletters where you can donate to help fuel our outreach vehicle.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. We return with this. What is today? It is August 18th, the August 18th edition of the GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAM, and our guests today are from Sunflower Children's Collective and that may still be somewhat of a new term for a lot of people, but we're going to ask Carson to talk about that address that Our guest, jennifer Anguano. She is the CASA Director and Executive Director. Carson Kober, ladies, good morning, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2:Good morning, Hi. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Well, we have a lot of things to talk about here and let's just address you know, I think that there's still a lot of people trying to get used to what the Sunflower Children's Collective is, because a lot of people are familiar with CASA and the work that's done here. But there's more to what you do at SCC.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, there is. So for about three years now we've been Sunflower Children's Collective, which is an umbrella agency that really encompasses the three agencies of Sunflower Casa and Stepping Stones Child Advocacy Center and Sunflower Bridge Child Exchange and Visitation Center. So those all three existed before. They were just under another name, sunflower Casa Project Inc. And because we wanted to differentiate each agency, we gave it more of a general name. So we've been around Sunflower Children's Collective for a while now and I think more people are knowing who we are because we're right here on points downtown and people are asking who you know people. Who is that? Who, who? And luckily all three of our logos are on the front windows.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a. That's a good explanation of everything that is being done there, and all of it's quite useful. And they all tie in together, don't they? Carson.
Speaker 2:They do. You know, acasa supports child victims of abuse and neglect going through the court system in our 21st Judicial District here and we serve Park County, so we serve a little bit of the 2nd Judicial District County, so we serve a little bit of the second judicial district. The Child Advocacy Center is where we perform forensic interviews of child victims of sexual abuse. That can come from all different areas, but mainly Riley County, manhattan, and our Child Exchange and Visitation Center is also kind of regional people coming from different places meeting here for observed visitations and exchanges in a very safe environment, all of which for children. That's what we do. We're here to make sure that children have a safe place and the support and advocacy they need.
Speaker 1:And Jennifer. I know it's not an easy gig but you rely on volunteers, but it is extremely needed in the community. It's not just needed, but it is something that is heartwarming.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely so. Casa services are all run by volunteers. We have staff that supervises the volunteers, but if we didn't have volunteers we wouldn't be able to serve the children that need a voice. So we specifically serve children who have open child and native care cases in the court system. So that means they've come to the court for reasons of abuse and neglect for no fault of their own and then the judge appoints. So we are court appointed directly by the judge overseeing the case and the judge appoints CASA to really walk with that child through the life of their case, walk beside them, be their champion, ensure their voice is heard, help identify some of their needs, maybe some of their unmet needs and kind of all facets that touch their life.
Speaker 3:So education, mental health, their home life, just anything their physical health, anything outside that we can help identify and get services connected to them to support them, make them successful and ultimately, if they're out of home, return them back home, because that's where children really should be. If it's safe, it's a safe environment for them to be in. Our kids really need to be at home with their families. So it's a lot of work being a CASA volunteer. There's a lot of emotional work involved and we talk a lot about that through our training process and I always say it's one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it's also I've gotten the greatest reward out of this work, or I wouldn't have been doing it and sustaining for as long as I have.
Speaker 1:You have your fall training session coming up and I understand that there's a new format to this. Can you divulge a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're really excited to start our fall training. In the past we've run trainings for six to eight weeks, three-hour sessions for six to eight weeks at a time, which is a lot of time to ask people to come and commit. So we've decided to try a two Saturday format this fall. So we're going to train on October 18th and October 25th from 9 to 3.30. And we're going to try and squeeze as much of our training curriculum outside speakers, some case work, into those two days and then we'll also give our training class things to do on their own and then, you know, meet back with us to ensure that they're tracking what they're doing outside of those two Saturdays. But the goal is to ask less time of people, condense it a little bit more in this two-day format so it doesn't feel like they're giving and giving and giving so much every week just to get through the training when the work is. Also, time can be time consuming and we want to expedite that so we can get those people trained, certified and ready to go on cases.
Speaker 1:I understand a new asset that you have with CASA is a car. I don't know if you call it a CARSA, but it may not be a nice that's. That's a good play on words, I know, but we don't, we should though. Yeah, there you go. It's a CARSA. I don't even need a royalty fee. But but tell us what that is, how that came about, because I'm sure that you know that's not cheap to have, but but what a valuable asset to have, especially for I suppose you know delicate situations with kids.
Speaker 3:Yes, so we have a dedicated person on staff who is a victim advocate and her role is to serve essentially as a paid CASA for the youth that are placed so far outside of our area to ensure that they are actually getting an advocate and their needs are being addressed. So she serves children. I mean she's gone as far as Pratt and Atchison and Winfield. She's currently serving kids now in Wichita, in Winfield, winfield, in Hayesville and that might be it for right now. But that's an extensive period to travel just one way and our kids should be seen weekly but standard is twice a month. So she was putting all of those miles on her own vehicle for a very long time and going all over the state of Kansas. So Carson worked really diligently to try and find some sponsorships and some fundings for the vehicle that and I'm going to let her talk about that that we finally secured and our victim advocate has been able to have since July of this year.
Speaker 2:So that could have been easy, Carson have since July of this year, so that could have been easy, carson, yeah. So we spent a good portion of a couple of years looking for funding for this automobile and because we were reimbursing, you know, on top of it being such a heavy burden for our staff member to put all those miles on her car, we were reimbursing her for mileage of about 20,000 miles a year. So through a very generous supportive grant through Civic Plus and CapFed and the social service advisory funds here in Manhattan, we were able to purchase a Toyota Corolla for her. It gets great gas mileage. It's even kind of cute to drive around. And, yeah, we finally have a car. I've never had a car, so a car. So you see weird to say because it's very close to my name and that's true, and and, and.
Speaker 1:if anybody has any kind of you know reason for conflict over because your name, you know, it's not to confuse, it's just cute.
Speaker 2:It is. It's super cute. So, yeah, we have a car and it's been really wonderful so far. It gets really great gas mileage. Like I said, it is something that we would love to have. Support from the community for gas money Would love to have support from the community for gas money. We're looking. We've created a Give Butter link on our website and in our newsletters, everywhere that you can find. We're looking for fuel for that car. It's the one thing we don't have covered from grants, so, or just gas cards from any gas station around here in the region would be great.
Speaker 1:You talked about grants and funding and obviously one of the most challenging situations that many nonprofits have had is the loss of federal funding. A lot of that got cut off back last spring and that had to have been challenging for organizations like CASA and your others. How has that impacted you and how do you address that shortfall?
Speaker 3:We had written a national CASA grant that was federal dollars through the DOJ and we got it in October of 2024. And that grant was specifically written for expansion of CASA services. So Carson mentioned that we serve the 21st Judicial District, which is Riley and Clay County, and then we were serving the second, pottawatomie County in the second, but only Pottawatomie County and the second also encompasses Jackson, jefferson and Waubonsie counties who had never had a CASA program before and we knew that there was a need there and that there were children that needed an advocate just as much as children needing an advocate in the areas we were already serving. So we wrote that expansion grant. We got it, we hired a staff member specifically to do that expansion work. We got into Waubonsee, jackson and Jefferson counties.
Speaker 3:We met with the county attorneys, the judges, the communities. We started serving children. We specifically held volunteer trainings in those communities. We now have volunteers in all of those communities that never had that presence before. We started serving children in Waubonsee County and then in April, before we started serving children in Wilburn C County, and then in April, really overnight, we found out that those dollars were gone and we had to really immediately try and pivot to keep the staff member that we had hired and continue to serve those communities and those children that were in need. And I'll let Carson speak to how we were able to pivot that funding.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So most people that lose a grant for $75,000 end up losing a staff member. We were able to pivot because we had a little bit of funding we could move around. We were able to keep that staff member, but not in the capacity of which she was serving. So that second judicial district Jefferson, jackson, waubonsee counties have been sort of placed on a back burner, not forgotten but not served like they were, because she had to take on a position and a role more in the Manhattan community.
Speaker 2:Um, we plan to. So the good news is that National CASA appealed this termination and won, and we just found that out last week. There's not enough time left in the grant cycle for us to get back onto that grant, but we will apply for it again for 2026. So the hope is that we can just kind of do a do-over with such a robust five-month start of that grant the first time around. That we will be way ahead of the will be ahead and we'll be able to hire another person to restart that expansion process which we've been trying to do for 10 plus years. So it's a really, really big deal that we got that grant, that we were able to move the needle and really to move the needle as much as we did in the first five months was incredible and a testament to the whole CASA staff. But yeah, so not all is lost, but definitely had to postpone some of that expansion.
Speaker 1:Well, it is nice to hear some encouraging words, and you know not just the work that you do, but also the fact that you do have some more opportunities financially here. So good stuff there. What else is new with you guys? What you got in the works?
Speaker 2:So good stuff there. What else is new with you guys? What you got in the works? Well, we've got some really cool stuff happening with our child advocacy center. So typically when kids come in for forensic interviews maybe alleged sexual abuse sometimes the abuser or the perpetrator is another child and that leaves us feeling, has left us feeling a little helpless, and we were able to get a grant and some training from Oklahoma. There's a model in Oklahoma called this is a whole bunch of acronyms PSBCBT, which is Problematic Sexualized behavior, cognitive behavioral therapy. Basically, we have onboarded Andrews and associates therapists to work with the children that are the alleged perpetrators which we don't really want to call a child that
Speaker 2:perpetrators, which we don't really want to call a child that, but it does happen and getting them therapy so that they don't re-engage in the problematic sexual behavior. So we are building an even more robust child advocacy center model where we're working towards sort of a preventative measure with kids that are coming in that are we're seeing these types of behaviors. But the national statistic on this is that only 2% of children who have been through this PSB-CBT re-engage in these behaviors. So if we can get them while they're young, we can make a change.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, hey, we've got a lot of great things that are happening there. The website, Sunflower Children Collective it's always a delight to have you on and thanks for some good, positive strokes for nonprofits, especially in your arena. It's encouraging to hear some neat things that are happening amidst, all of you know, a lot of fears and frustrations with some federal funding and such.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to speak today. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Jennifer Anguano. She's the CASA director and Carson Kober, the executive director of the Sunflower Children's Collective Up next Vern's going to step back in. We'll get a calendar look and then also a preview of next week's show here on the GMCF Community Hour on NewsRadio KMAN.