Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Santa Barbara County has announced the selection of Tina Fisher as recruiting and training coordinator. CASA is a local nonprofit organization serving children who have experienced the trauma of abuse and/or neglect.
Fisher has the primary responsibility for engaging interested individuals in the opportunity to serve the community as a CASA volunteer, impacting the lives of children in need. She started with the organization earlier this year and has brought much enthusiasm to the team.
Joining the CASA team in January, Fisher was just getting settled in her role when the pandemic hit, and training was temporarily suspended. After a shift to a new online training platform, she Fisher has resumed recruiting and has been enrolling interested community members in the new online training for the past couple of months.
“Tina has been a key part of our organization as a CASA volunteer herself, serving a local youth. When she learned of the opening, she told us this would be her dream job, and we were thrilled to welcome her to our team in this important position,” said Kim Colby Davis, executive director of CASA of Santa Barbara County.
“Her enthusiasm for inspiring community members to become CASA volunteers is inspiring, and she is determined to find the special people who will train to serve our children who so desperately need the advocacy that a CASA provides,” Colby Davis said.
Fisher was previously with Lee Enterprise (Santa Maria Times) as a multi-media consultant, and moved to the Santa Maria Valley in August 2018.
Before moving to the Santa Maria Valley, Fisher owned her own business in the San Jose area. She previously worked at two large national organizations as a digital marketing consultant for local business for 14 years. She was involved in the Santa Maria community by serving as an ambassador to the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce, and served as co-chairperson for the ambassador group.
Fisher is also involved with Santa Maria Women’s Networking group.
Her goal in her new role at CASA is to recruit and train enough volunteers every year so there is a waitlist of volunteers available. She wants every child that needs a CASA volunteer to have one appointed to them right away.
CASA of Santa Barbara County is a volunteer agency with more than 300 local volunteers serving over 500 children. Its mission is to assure a safe, permanent, nurturing home for all abused and/or neglected children by providing a highly trained volunteer to advocate for them in the court system.
Volunteers are always needed and information on how to volunteer or support the CASA mission is at www.sbcasa.org.