Gina Clement grew up in a culture aimed at preventing child abuse.
"The world of preventing child abuse - and working with children who had been abused - was something I had grown up with," Clement said. "Having a dad who was a social worker and ran an adoption agency and counseled children who had been abused and removed from their homes."
Her father never told her anything she would consider confidential, she continued, but he would talk about clients and the challenges they faced.
"He saw the push and pull on kids. And, they didn't have a voice," she said.
Her father had responsibility for removing children from homes and making recommendations about where they should be placed.
He understood children should have a voice about where they wanted to be. Children needed somebody to speak up for them, Clement said.
In the late 1990s, after moving to Jefferson City, she wanted to educate people about child abuse, and went to work for Prevent Child Abuse Missouri as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer.
Clement then became an administrative assistant at the local Habitat for Humanity. She later became the executive director of the nonprofit, and spent six years there.
After that, she decided to become a stay-at-home mom, while her two boys were in school.
"When they were in school, I could see that things were going to be very quiet," Clement said. "So, I became a substitute teacher at their school, as well as one of the public schools."
In that role, she saw a different side of what was happening in school with children.
"I was doing that, as well as being a CASA (Capital City Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer. That's when it all came together," she said.
In less than one year, she became the organization's executive director.
CASA is a volunteer-oriented organization made up of a network of people who believe society has a fundamental obligation to make sure children thrive and are treated with dignity and are kept safe.
Its volunteers, appointed by judges, advocate for abused and neglected children. They act as a voice for the children, and try to make sure children don't get lost in overburdened legal and social service systems or languish in inappropriate group or foster homes. Volunteers remain on their clients' cases until the children are placed in safe, permanent homes.
It is serving about 130 children this month. That's low for Cole County, which generally has between 140 and 160 children in protective custody on any given month, Clement said.
CASA has only 58 volunteers. Ideally, it would have one for each child's case.
The next class of 11 volunteers began training Tuesday.
CASA's work interested Clement from the start.
"What the organization was trying to do, trying to serve as many people as possible, was just interesting to me," she said. "And it seemed to fit my past experience and my interests."
When the position opened up, she applied. She's been the executive director now for about five years.
"I think it has value. The different information that the volunteers can bring - there is so much that is asked of the other professionals involved in a child welfare case - sometimes without that additional information, decisions are made," Clement said. "The judge makes all the final decisions. We just provide (the judge) information to make the final decision."