CASA Day at the Capitol

We may not be able to meet in person at the Louisiana Capitol, but we still have big plans for Capitol Day and making sure the legislature understands the important work of CASA in Louisiana! We are still having CASA Day at the Capitol, but it will look different this year.

On Tuesday, April 27th, local CASA programs will schedule in-person and virtual meetings with their legislators and send them emails to communicate our mission and our legislative priorities for the 2021 Session.

We will gather briefly to review our priorities, honor our volunteers, select new board members and hold our annual meeting. We will also be making our presence felt on social media—posting videos, tagging our legislators, and making our presence felt across the state and beyond!

Join us on Tuesday, April 27th as CASA volunteers, board members, and staff from across the state gather to advocate for Louisiana’s abused and neglected children during the 2021 legislative session.

Virtual Events

Resources

Check back soon for a chart of legislators and which CASA programs are in their area plus the 2021 CASA Day at the Capitol handout.

Social Media Toolkit

Check back soon for the 2021 CASA Day at the Capitol social media kit. The social media toolkit provides resources to help you amplify and increase awareness during the virtual 2021 CASA Day at the Capitol. These materials can be used for any promotion efforts leading up to and during the event, particularly via social and digital promotion on your program’s channels, newsletters and website. Programs can modify posts and create their own to fit their program’s needs. We also encourage programs to utilize videos and live streaming as much as possible for engaging with their network.

Schedule Your Meetings

STEP 1: Reach out to your legislators to schedule meetings
Each office may have different ways they want to handle meetings. As always, you may or may not be meeting with the legislator – it is very common to meet with staff. You may want to send them information before the meeting, and you will certainly want to follow up with a thank you to the legislator and their staff!

Check back soon for a list of the legislators.

STEP 2: Let Louisiana CASA know when you schedule a meeting
Let us know when you have scheduled your program’s meetings so we can maintain a list of all meetings and which legislators have or have not been met with. Louisiana CASA will send information to each legislative office before CASA Day at the Capitol. Each office will receive: a gift, the 2020 Impact Report, and information about our legislative priorities and program statistics for the CASA programs in their district.

If you have any questions about who your legislators are or how best to reach out to their offices, please contact Amanda at amoody@louisianacasa.org

STEP 3: Send a thank you follow up to your legislator
After your meeting, be sure to follow up with the legislator’s office thanking them for their time. Below is a draft of an email script you can modify to use as your follow up, if you like.

Dear [legislator/staff],

Thank you for meeting with us today. We know you have many competing priorities for your time and we appreciate you taking the time to discuss the work of CASA at your local program and across Louisiana. Legislative support is essential to CASA’s goal of a well-trained volunteer advocate serving every child in foster care in this state. In addition, we encourage the legislature to champion legislation that protects children and supports Louisiana families.

Attached is a document that summarizes the policy and funding priorities for the CASA network in Louisiana during the 2021 Legislative Session.

Please feel free to reach out to your local CASA program or Louisiana CASA when you have questions related to child welfare policy. We would be honored to be a resource to your office.