Brightside Child & Family Advocacy, Inc.

Brightside Child & Family Advocacy provides services to prevent child abuse and neglect by strengthening and supporting healthy family relationships.  We believe in a community where every child is given the opportunity to thrive in a safe and loving home. 

Our Programs:

1. Savannah Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) recruits and trains volunteers to advocate for the best interests of children who have experienced abuse and neglect. 

2. The Bright House provides court-mandated supervised visitation and family support services in a home-like setting. 

The CASA program takes a holistic approach of the child’s psychological, physical, and educational needs and well-being to advocate for permanency in the child’s life. While the proceedings of permanency can be anywhere from six months to a year or more, the CASA program engages the child and provides consistent case management to make sure the child’s needs are addressed.

After 30 years of providing exceptional advocacy, Savannah CASA became Brightside Child & Family Advocacy to meet additional community needs identified by our CASA volunteers, the Chatham County Juvenile Court, the Chatham County Superior Court, and the Chatham County Department of Children and Family Services (DFCS).

A child enters foster care due to abuse or neglect, which is often caused by generational trauma, mental health concerns, stress caused by poverty, or the parent's substance use. These causes can be addressed, and the child can return home. More than 50 percent of the children that enter foster care in Chatham County are reunified with their families.

While the child is in foster care, quality supervised visitation is crucial to strengthening parent-child attachments and decreasing the sense of abandonment that children experience. Family visitation is linked to positive outcomes, including improving a child's well-being, less time in out-of-home care, and faster reunification.

Brightside Advocacy opened The Bright House – a supervised visitation and family support center – in February 2022. Parents develop healthy relationships with their children in a warm, home-like environment while participating in court-mandated supervised visitations. Through parental coaching, referrals to community services, and case management assistance, The Bright House will support families to heal and grow despite the many barriers that arise from difficult circumstances.