The following is a press release.

Pinwheels will spring up in surprising places this month. Pierce County volunteers known as CASAs (Court Appointed Special Advocates) will participate in the “Pinwheels for Prevention” program to raise awareness about child abuse during April, which is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Pinwheels for Prevention began in 2008 by a group called Prevent Child Abuse America. More information is available at www.pinwheelsforprevention.org.

CASA volunteers provide advocacy for children who have been removed from their homes due to abuse and/or neglect. CASAs and CASA Program staff will plant pinwheels all over the county to bring attention to the 1,400 abused and neglected children in foster care locally. A display of 750 pinwheels will be installed on the lawn in front of Pierce County Juvenile Court, home of the CASA Program, to illustrate the number of abused and neglected children who do not have a CASA to advocate for them.

The Pinwheels for Prevention campaign will make use of social networking as CASA staff snap pictures of the blue and silver pinwheels in various places throughout the county and post them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In addition to raising community awareness of child abuse, the CASA Program hopes to recruit more CASA volunteers to speak up for our county’s most vulnerable young citizens as they make their way through the foster care system on their way home.