Lifelong educator using her skills to help abused and neglected kids as a CASA volunteer

CASA Volunteer Nancy Tucker

Nancy Tucker has been helping children succeed around the country for decades. Her educational work includes helping found the Head Start program in Kansas City and helping found a similar early education program here in Kentucky. 

Today, Tucker continues to help children by serving as a CASA volunteer. The veteran volunteer has been advocating for the needs of local children in the family court system for six years this month, making her one of the longest-serving volunteers with CASA of Lexington. 

This month, she has also been named a CASA Volunteer of the Month, thanks to a nomination from her Volunteer Manager Dennis Stutsman. 

“Nancy has worked effectively with 8 families since being sworn into service in October 2016,” Stutsman said. “On her current case, which she has been working for several years, Nancy has been a tremendous source of support and resource referral for the foster mother, often helping get the attention of the social worker or the court when a child needed treatment but was waitlisted by providers.” 

Tucker said she has found serving as a CASA volunteer to be extremely rewarding. 

“It has more than met my expectations,” she said. 

As a CASA Volunteer, Tucker is assigned to cases of children who have been abused or neglected. She visits the children every month, speaks with adults involved in the children’s lives, reviews educational and medical records, and advocates for the children’s best interests in family court. 

Tucker said CASA works with many of children and families who get judged by others all the time, even though they are often doing the best they can with what they have. 

“You have to be non-judgmental. You never know what people have gone through,” she said. “You're not there to feel bad for these kids. You're there to show them that someone cares about them." 

To learn more about becoming a CASA volunteer, see schedules of upcoming trainings or apply to become a CASA volunteer, click here.