NCJ Number
162570
Journal
Child Welfare Volume: 75 Issue: 3 Dated: (May/June 1996) Pages: 269-284
Date Published
1996
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This study seeks to determine whether the court-appointed special advocate (CASA) program has contributed to positive outcomes in child protection court processes and to assess at which point intervention is most effective.
Abstract
An experimental group that received CASA services from 1987 to 1990 was compared to a group without CASA involvement in the juvenile court during the same period. A second comparison group consisted of CASA referrals that did not receive CASA intervention services because of an insufficient number of CASA volunteers. The CASA program was found to reduce the length of time children spend in out-of-home care, and the percentage of subjects involved in second and third placements was relatively lower than that of the comparison group. The study suggests that additional CASA volunteers should be assigned to child protection cases prior to case disposition or, preferably, at the pretrial period. This implies that child protection services and CASA should begin work together at an earlier stage to identify relevant information from both risk-assessment and social-environmental perspectives to facilitate the court's decisionmaking. Tables, references