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In an effort to determine the effects of the court-appointed special advocate (CASA) program in child protection court processes, an experimental group that received CASA services from 1987 to 1990 was compared to a group randomly selected from all cases without CASA involvement in the juvenile court during the same time period. A second comparison group consisted of CASA referrals that did not receive CASA intervention services due to an insufficient number of CASA volunteers. The CASA program was found to be effective in a number of ways. The study suggests that additional CASA volunteers should be assigned to child protection cases prior to case disposition, or preferably, at the pretrial period.
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-247), requires states to appoint guardians ad litem to represent children in child protection court proceedings
42 U.S.C. Sec 5103(b)(2)(G) 1976
. The primary purpose of this requirement is to provide a reliable, approachable, and personal channel for the children to voice their concerns to the court. This child-focused movement has been a reaction to the question, "Who best represents the interests of the child in court?"
Poertner & Press 1990: 537
. In 1977, Seattle first implemented the Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program, designating volunteers to represent children in child protection cases. Since then, CASA volunteers have been trained in many states to provide support and advocacy for abused and neglected children. According to a national survey, as of January, 1994, a total of 128,000 children were involved with CASA programs and 38,000 volunteers were assigned to these cases (with a ratio of one volunteer to three children)
Shecket in press
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The 1988 reenactment of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (P.L. 100-294) requires states to evaluate the effectiveness of these child-advocacy efforts. In the child welfare literature, however, only a few studies have reported an the effectiveness of CASA's involvement. One of the difficulties in researching CASA's effectiveness has been he lack of a control group with which to compare results. Control groups are important because confounding factors can be identified and minimized by using an experimental or quasiexperimental design. Another difficulty is the time and commitment from researchers that a longitudinal study requires. Most CASA programs may report...