Kinship Caregiver Support Act (S. 985)

Summary of the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (S. 985)
On May 10, 2005, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Tim Johnson (D-SD), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (S. 985). Other sponsors include Senators Norm Coleman (R-MN), John Kerry (R-MA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Barack Obama (D-IL), and Charles Schumer (D-NY). The bill takes three important steps to assist children being raised and cared for by grandparents and other relatives:
establishes a Kinship Navigator Program,


establishes a Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program to provide federal assistance to states for subsidized guardianship programs to assist relative caregivers and their children,


ensures notice to relative when children enter foster care.
Each of these steps is described in detail below.
Kinship Navigator Program
Findings
The 2000 U.S. Census reports that more that 4.5 million children in the United States are living in grandparent-headed households--a 30% increase from 1990 to 2000--and an additional 1.5 million children are living in households headed by other relatives.


Some 2.4 million grandparents reported that they were primarily responsible for meeting the basic needs of their grandchildren; parents were not present in about one-third of these families.


Grandparents and other relatives raising children face a variety of unnecessary barriers, including difficulties enrolling children in school, access to and authorization of medical treatment, maintaining public housing leases, obtaining affordable legal services, and accessing a variety of federal benefits and services. Almost one-fifth of grandparents responsible for their grandchildren live in poverty.


Kinship caregivers can help keep children from entering foster care but need services and supports.
Purpose
To establish kinship navigator programs in states, large metropolitan areas, and Indian tribal organizations to help kinship caregivers navigate existing programs and services to help them learn about and obtain assistance to meet the needs of the children they are raising, and their own needs.


To promote effective partnerships between government organizations, private not-for-profit agencies, and community and faith-based organizations to help them more effectively and efficiently serve kinship care families and address the fragmentation that creates barriers to meeting their needs.


Funding for kinship navigator programs can help kinship care families better use existing programs and services and increase the capacity of government, private not-for-profit, community, and faith-based agencies and related federal programs, such as the National Family Caregiver Support Program, to better serve the needs of kinship care families.
Grantees
Grantees may include states, cities of 1 million or more people, agencies serving a large metropolitan area including counties, and Indian tribal organizations.


Grantees must have experience in addressing the needs of kinship caregivers or children and in connecting children or caregivers with services that address various human service needs.


Grants are for three years. A qualifying grantee would receive annual federal funding for each of these three years. In the first year, 100% of funding would be from the federal government; the federal portion of the grant would be reduced to 75% in year two and 50% in year three. Half of the non-federal part of the matching funds may be "in-kind."
Use of Grant Funds
Activities may be delivered directly by the state grantee, the entity applying for the metropolitan area, or the Indian tribal organization or through grants or contracts with other public or private not-for-profit agencies, including community and faith-based organizations, that have experience in connecting kinship caregivers with the services and assistance they need.


Funds may be used for activities that help link kinship caregivers to the services and assistance required to meet the needs of the children they are raising, and their own needs, such as


Establishing and maintaining information and referral systems that assist, through toll-free access, kinship caregivers, kinship care providers, kinship care support group facilitators, and others to learn about and link to


eligibility and enrollment information for local, state, and federal benefits, including but not limited to education (including preschool, elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and special education), family support services, early intervention services, help with mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence problems, HIV/AIDS, legal services, child support, housing assistance, child care, State Children's Health Insurance Program and Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Supplemental Security Disability Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Food Stamps;


relevant training to help kinship caregivers obtain benefits and services and perform their caregiving activities; and


legal assistance and help obtaining access to legal services.


Establishing, distributing, and regularly updating a kinship care resource guide, website, or other relevant outreach materials


Promoting partnerships between government and private not-for-profit agencies and community and faith-based organizations to help them more efficiently and effectively serve the needs of kinship care families, and to familiarize them about their special needs; policies that affect their eligibility for a range of health, mental health, social service, child welfare, and other services and benefits; and how to make policies more supportive of kinship care families.


Establishing and supporting a kinship care ombudsman with the authority to intervene with state agency staff or service providers to help ensure that kinship caregivers get the services they need and for which they are eligible.


Supporting activities that are designed to help kinship caregivers obtain benefits and services and activities designed to improve caregiving services.


Application and Eligibility Requirements
The applicant must describe the steps it will take during the first six months of the grant to


identify gaps in services for kinship care families in the state, metropolitan area, or area served by the Indian tribal organization, and the specific activities needed;


convene partners to assist in the operation of the kinship navigator program;


use or develop relevant technology;


conduct outreach to kinship caregivers about the kinship navigator program; and


develop a plan for reaching kinship caregivers, ensuring they can access the kinship navigator program, and following up to ensure they actually receive necessary services and supports.


The applicant must specify how it will involve the following on an ongoing basis in the planning and operation of the kinship navigator system:


kinship caregivers and representatives of kinship care support organizations;


relevant government agencies (aging, mental health, mental retardation and developmental disabilities, substance abuse treatment, health, youth services, human services, education, child welfare, child support enforcement);


not-for-profit services providers;


community and faith-based organizations;


educational institutions; and


other state or local agencies or systems that promote services coordination or information and referral services, including the 2-1-1 information systems, where applicable.


The applicant must describe how it will coordinate its activities with other state or local agencies that promote services coordination and referral services for children, families, and seniors, so as to avoid duplication of services and the fragmentation of services that prevents kinship care families from getting the help they need, and how it will encourage regional cooperation among agencies, particularly those in border communities that may cross jurisdictional lines, to ensure that kinship care families will get help.
Administration of the Program
The program will be administered by the Administration for Children and Families (SCF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In administering the program, the ACF will consult from time to time with the Administration on Aging.
Funding
$25 million is authorized for FY 2005, $50 million for FY 2006, and $75 million for FY 2007.


A grantee match of 25% in the second year and 50% in the third year will be required. Up to 50% of the match each year may be in-kind.


HHS may withhold up to 1% of the funds under the navigator program to provide technical assistance to the grantees related to the purposes of the grant.
Subsidized Guardianship Option Through Title IV-E
States may apply to provide kinship guardianship assistance payment through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. This does not require a waiver through HHS but does require a change to a state's plan.


If a state does not provide kinship guardianship assistance payments under this option, then cities with a million or more people within that state may apply to HHS to provide a kinship guardianship program.
Agreement with Guardian
If a state implements this service, it must negotiate and enter a written agreement with the perspective relative guardian. It must provide a copy to the kinship guardian and certify the child will be eligible for health coverage through the state Medicaid program.


The agreement shall remain in effect regardless of state residency of the relative and for the protection of the child in any case where the relative guardian and child move while the agreement is still in effect.
Services and Assistance
The agreement with the kinship guardian must explain how payments, if any, will be provided, the additional services and assistance for which the child and relative will be eligible, the procedures for obtaining such services, and state payment of nonrecurring expenses associated with obtaining the legal guardianship.


Assistance payments to the relative guardian shall be based on consideration of circumstances and needs of the relative and child and be equal to foster care maintenance payments.


Adjustments to the payment may be adjusted periodically based on relevant changes with the concurrence of the relative guardian.


The child must be under age 18 or, if a full-time student in high school or its equivalent, under age 19, or, if the child has a physical or mental disability, until age 21.
Child's Eligibility
The child must have been removed from his or her home pursuant to a voluntary placement agreement or the result of a judicial determination, under the care of a state agency for a 12-month period, and eligible for foster care maintenance payments under Title IV-E foster care funding.


Returning home or adoption are not appropriate options for the child, and the child demonstrates a strong attachment to the relative guardian and the guardian has a commitment to the child.


If the child is 14 or older, he or she must be consulted.


Siblings who may not be covered by these eligibility requirements may be placed in the same kinship guardianship families if the state and the relative are in agreement. The kinship guardianship payments may be made on behalf of these siblings.
Notice of Children Entering Foster Care
Within 60 days of a child's removal from custody of the parent or parents, the state must give notice to all adult grandparents and other adult relatives, including relatives suggested by the parent(s).


Exceptions can be made to this requirement in cases of family or domestic violence.


The notice must provide specifics that the child has been removed and explain the options a relative may have in the care and placement of the child according to federal, state, or local law.
For more information, contact John Sciamanna, CWLA Senior Government Affairs Associate, at 703/412-3161 or jsciamanna@cwla.org.


Contact Us

http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/summarykinshipact.htm

Human Rights Violations in the United States (DCYF/CPS)

Human Rights Violations in the United States (CPS)
Posted: 01 Jan 2010 09:48 PM PST
The United States is the worlds biggest violator of human rights, since the Germans.
How and why do I say this? Any time senators pass laws that allow a person’s children to be removed from a home, with out due cause, it is a human rights violation. When child protective services can enter your home, remove your children, and not allow the parents to see them, it is a human rights violation. When child protective services can have your child placed on mind altering drugs, it’s a human rights violation. When a school wants your child placed on medication, because they will receive funds from the drug maker. It’s a human rights violation. When the person that decides your child’s future has little more that a high school diploma, it’s a human rights violation.

All of this takes me back to Nazi Germany, when families were torn a part in the middle of the night, by SS officers.

No one wants to believe this is happening in this country. Most certainly not in the land of the free.

Since the passage of the Mondale Act in 1974, families have been torn apart, children have been seized, adopted, never to see their parents again.

Anyone can say you are abusing your child, and they will be picked up.

Children are being snatched from loving homes every day, because of this system.
When a child is picked up, CPS is going to receive over 200.000 dollars, which will be divided between specific case worker, counselors, and foster parents.

these children are placed with specific foster parents, because they are to be brain-washed, and taught how to behave, all of this is done in preperation for them receiving mental care. Eventually they will receive mind-altering drugs.

When a foster parent cares for a child classified as having “behavior problems”, the parent receives more compensation. If that child is actually sent to a hospital. they are classified as being “institutionalized”, the pay more than doubles.

Parents that try to fight this abuse, find themselves up against a brick wall, because people believe the state is always right, and you must be a “bad person”.

If your child is in custody for 18 months, they can put them up for adoption. Don’t think someone new will adopt your child, because, that won’t happen. They knew who wanted your child, before they were picked up.

The counselors, case workers, CASA, and GAL, all work to gain your child’s confidence, and they are coached in what to say, but remember, you can’t see your child.

If a school hotlines you, they will get money from the drug company, and payments go to the teachers union.

Usuall, there are specific teachers in schools that work directly with Child Protective Services, these teachers have children identified for the worker, they put a plan in motion to set the parents up. The CPS officer will hot-line you, all of this is done to build a case.

If you know of a child that is being abused, or harmed in any way, try hot-lining the parent. You will probably never have a response to your tip, because the system is not equipped to deal with children in a real crisis. This is most unfortunate, because there a thousands of children that need help.

If you have experienced any of these problems, you can visit the blog legally kidnapped, you will find links there to other sites. One person can’t fight this alone, united we are strong.

States focus on limiting psychiatric drugging of kids

Awareness »Finally, Some Action on This Insane Drugging of Our Children.
April 8th, 2009 | Author: admin
Honolulu Chiropractor: It is unbelievable to me that it is legal to prescribe psychiatric drugs that have not gone through clinical trials for children. I was so glad to read this article and see some states starting to take action.

States focus on limiting psychiatric drugging of kids
The Texas legislature is considering a bill that would require doctors to get prior approval before prescribing atypical antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa, Risperdal, Invega, Abilify, Seroquel and Geodon to children under 11 who are covered by Medicaid in that state, the Dallas Morning News reported on April 1, 2009.The reports on Texas foster childrenin recent years provide evidence to support such a bill.

The atypicals are the most expensive psychiatric drugs on the market and children all across the US have become the target of the off-label marketing campaigns of their makers.

The atypicals are being prescribed more often than antidepressants to children in foster care for everything from ADHD to depression to sleep problems. A report on Texas foster children for the year 2005 has a list of the top ten drugs prescribed to children ages 6 to 12, and Seroquel and Risperdal combined beat out the two antidepressants on the list.

In the three-year-old toddler age group, Seroquel and Risperdal combined were prescribed 115 times.

With infants, age 0 to 2, Risperdal and Seroquel prescriptions had a combined total of 28.

In May 2008, a group of New Hampshire legislators wrote to the state’s attorney general asking for a criminal investigation of the atypical makers after learning about the increasingly large amounts of spending by Medicaid for children on the drugs.

Atypical antipsychotic drugging “of children in the Granite state has skyrocketed from under $300,000 in 2000 to nearly $4 million in 2007,” the letter states.

“As you are likely aware, antipsychotics are psychiatry’s most powerful medications with very little FDA approval for children and include side effects ranging such as early death, diabetes, heart failure, psychosis, permanent muscle spasms and more,” the lawmakers pointed out.

They noted the $515 million civil settlement the DOJ entered into with Bristol-Myers Squibb for illegally marketing Abilify for off-label uses and the settlements between private plaintiffs and Eli Lilly for “causing diabetes in 28,500 people with Zyprexa.”

“Any ordinary citizen would minimally be charged with manslaughter or second degree murder for such criminal negligence,” the letter advised.

“It is very important to take such criminal actions as the civil actions merely appear to be write-offs as business expenses to drug manufacturers in cases like Vioxx, OxyContin, Neurontin, Paxil and those mentioned above,” the lawmakers pointed out.

“A criminal deterrent is needed to protect our children and others placed on powerful medications,” they stated.

Last September, attorney Jim Gottstein, the leader of the patient advocacy organization, PsychRights, filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska seeking to bar the state from paying for off-label prescriptions of all psychiatric drugs to children covered by Medicaid in Alaska.

Evelyn Pringle

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Scoop Independent News and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America)

http://www.patientsarepowerful.org/uncategorized/finally-some-action-on-this-insane-drugging-of-our-children

The high price of Medicare fraud

A Times Editorial
The high price of Medicare fraud
In Print: Sunday, December 27, 2009


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Some scoffed when President Barack Obama said part of the cost of health care reform could be covered by eliminating fraud in the system. But each arrest made by the federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force illuminates how extensive the bogus billing schemes can be. Rooting out that fraud is key to cutting health care costs.

Federal agents swooped into Detroit, Brooklyn and Miami recently to break up schemes the government said had defrauded Medicare of $61 million. They arrested 30 people, including doctors and nurses.

This month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General reported it suspected South Florida providers were fraudulently collecting Medicare reimbursement for treatment of home-bound diabetes patients that was either not delivered or was medically unnecessary. Statistics were the tip-off: In 2008, Miami-Dade accounted for more than half of the $1 billion Medicare paid nationally for home treatment of people with diabetes and related illnesses, yet the county has only 2 percent of the nation's qualifying diabetic patients. The federal government also stopped reimbursing a Miami psychiatrist who wrote nearly 97,000 prescriptions to Medicaid patients over a period of 18 months, nearly twice the number of the second-highest prescriber in Florida.

With providers under scrutiny in Miami-Dade, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force is expanding its reach to Tampa, where it has discovered similarly suspicious statistics. The strike force, created in 2007, claims to have targeted 257 people in a handful of cities who allegedly falsely billed Medicare for $600 million.

That's likely just the tip of the iceberg. Fraud at such a scale impacts the solvency of the Medicare system and enriches criminals with money that could be used to treat the sick. Stopping it is part of the solution to the country's health care crisis.



[Last modified: Dec 26, 2009 03:30 AM]

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/the-high-price-of-medicare-fraud/1061066

Baby Stealer of the Year Award

LK is running a contest on Legally Kidnapped for an award for the absolute
worst of the worst babystealer or system suck on the planet for 2009.

Please go to: http://legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/2010/01/babystealer-of-year-for-2009.html

LK will need judges to help choose a winner and other blogger's to help
promote it, and would appreciate it if you would all link to this specific
post or he will even provide the codes for the form so that the visitors of
your own blogs can fill it out there. Please help to spread the word.

Voting and nominations goes on for 1 week and will end on Friday morning,
January 8th. At which time, he will provide members of this newsgroup, who
have officially been nominated by me as judges, with a link to all who are
nominated, asking you, the members of this group to pick a winner. If a
winner can not be agreed upon and chosen out of a few of the nominees, I
will ask that the group reduce it to 3 or 4 finalists, I will put it up on
LK as a poll and let the readers of Legally Kidnapped decide upon a final
winner.LK will not take on such a responsibility for choosing a winner for
this prestigious award all by himself.

LK
http://www.LegallyKidnapped.blogspot.com

I my self have nominated Anna the Homewrecker. Maybe I'll even nominate retired Judge Cloutier. The Judge who wrote the opposite of all testimony in my daughters TPR decision.

National Coalition For Child Protection Reform - Responds to Statements From National CASA Association and Caliber Associates

National Coalition For Child Protection Reform - Responds to Statements From National CASA Association and Caliber Associates
Posted: 31 Dec 2009 09:52 PM PST
NATIONAL COALITION FOR CHILD PROTECTION REFORM

53 Skyhill Road (Suite 202) / Alexandria, Virginia, 22314
Phone and Fax: (703) 212-2006 / e-mail: info@nccpr.org / www.nccpr.org
For release: For further information,
contact:
Immediate Richard Wexler, Executive
Director (703) 212-2006 /
www.ncpr.org

NCCPR RESPONDS TO STATEMENTS FROM NATIONAL CASA
ASSOCIATION AND CALIBER ASSOCIATES

ALEXANDRIA VA. (June 23) – Richard Wexler, Executive Director of
the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, issued the following
statement today in response to documents released by the National CASA
Association and Caliber Associates:

The National CASA Association has launched a desperate campaign of damage control in an effort to spin a study commissioned by the group itself. But no matter how desperately National CASA tries to divert attention, the organization can’t evade the key findings from its own study:

Children with CASAs were nearly five times more likely to be in foster care than children without CASAs.

Yet children without CASAs were found to be just as well off – and just as safe – as children with CASAs.

Thus, we conclude that the only real accomplishment of CASA is to encourage the needless removal of children from their homes.

BACKGROUND:

At its annual convention earlier this month the National CASA Association issued a summary of the most comprehensive study ever done of the program. It was commissioned by National CASA itself and conducted by Caliber Associates.

NCCPR put out a press release contending that while CASA volunteers are dedicated and mean well, in general the CASA program does no good and may well do harm. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote a story about the study.

National CASA subsequently released the full study, though it is hard to find on CASAs website. National CASA also put out a statement and Caliber put out a response to the NCCPR press release. Links to both were included in a weekly news summary on the website of the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy. NCALP broke with its longstanding practice of using these e-mails solely to send links to news stories in order to rush to CASAs defense.

THE BEST WAY TO EVALUATE THE CASA STUDY: READ IT.

Before getting into specifics about the comments from National CASA and the researchers, however, NCCPR suggests a simple way to settle the matter: People should read the full study for themselves and draw their own conclusions. National CASA has posted the study on one of its websites – though it requires an extremely diligent search to find it. (If the study is as favorable, or at least as neutral, as CASA claims, it’s hard to understand why CASA doesn’t make the study easy to find by posting it prominently on both of its websites). At the moment, the study can be reached directly via this link:

http://www.casanet.org/download/casasurveys/caliber_casa_report_representation.pdf

RESPONSE TO THE STATEMENT FROM CALIBER

The firm hired by National CASA to do the study, Caliber Associates, has prepared a “response” to a press release from NCCPR.

In the document, Caliber responds to our contention that the study does nothing to improve the lives of children and may do harm, by declaring that “as far as we are concerned the most critical facts about the well being of children with and without CASA volunteers” are that the children most in need of a CASA got one and that these children are at very high risk of poor outcomes “when they first enter the program.”

NCCPR’S RESPONSE: We don’t dispute either of these points. But neither tells us if the CASA, once assigned, does any good. We believe that other study findings indicate that, in general, CASA does no good and may do harm. Caliber complains that NCCPR didn’t note that children and parents who received CASAs got more services.

NCCPR’s RESPONSE: There is no indication that the increased services actually improved outcomes. Indeed, the same study also asked caseworkers to assess the percentage of parent and child needs met in cases with and without CASAs. They found “no significant difference,” suggesting that the additional services didn’t do any good. Caliber omits this from its response to NCCPR.

The researchers quote the following from NCCPR’s original press release. “Most important, there was no difference in ‘exposure to violence and maltreatment.” In “response” Caliber takes this quote out of context, implying that it is a reference to the children’s backgrounds before any intervention. In fact, this statement specifically refers to the children’s status after intervention,
comparing children whose intervention included a CASA and those whose intervention did not include a CASA. The results are shown in the study itself, in Table 26, and they do, indeed, show no difference in exposure to violence and maltreatment.

Caliber’s comments here are related to the straw CASA has been trying to grasp since the report’s findings became public: the claim that all the differences are due to the fact that CASAs handle more difficult cases. But Caliber went to enormous lengths to adjust for this in order to come up with an apples-to-apples comparison. On page 40, the report lists eight separate variables for which they adjusted. The report then states: “Inclusion of these variables means that the percentages and mean scores presented in this section indicate the outcomes that would be expected of children who did and did not have a CASA volunteer if the two groups had similar demographic characteristics and prior experiences.” [Emphasis added].

The authors of the report also include a section speculating that, because the results were so surprising they must not have done a good enough job in adjusting for severity. But this is circular reasoning. The argument, essentially, is that “the results are so bad for CASA that we must have measured wrong.” They also cite “tests” they performed in an effort to confirm this. Again, NCCPR suggests that readers examine the report for themselves to evaluate the plausibility of this argument.

We believe the more plausible explanation is that the results reflect racial and class bias built into the CASA model itself. And rather than suggesting flawed methodology, the size of the differences suggests the extent of the bias. Even if one believes that the comparison between the two groups is not perfect, is it implausible that such imperfection would account for the fact that the children with CASAs were nearly five times more likely to be in foster care than the
children without CASAs, and yet there was no difference in safety and well-being outcomes.

Furthermore, if Caliber’s explanation is to be believed, why doesn’t it apply to the so-called “good news” about CASA? Why isn’t the fact that children who have CASAs get more services also simply a function of their cases being more severe?

Please note that NCCPR included Caliber’s explanation, and our response, in our original press release. Caliber, in contrast, has taken NCCPR’s release out of context.

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS FROM NATIONAL CASA

In an unsigned statement, attributed to CASA CEO Michael Piraino, found via a link on the website of the National Center for Adoption Law and Policy, CASA relies almost exclusively on the claim that all negative or “neutral” findings can be attributed to the fact that CASAs handle more severe cases. The statement does not acknowledge the strenuous efforts of the researchers to control for this.

The statement also makes some interesting comments on some other issues:

Concerning the surprisingly low number of hours per month CASAs report spending on their cases, CASA claims that the volunteers actually spend more time, but don’t bother to write it down “…and the last thing we want to do is turn [volunteers] into data input people.”

That’s exactly what poorly- functioning child welfare agencies say when issues are raised about whether caseworkers actually performed required tasks – such as visiting children. “Oh, we’re sure they did it,” we are told. “They just didn’t have time to write it down.”

This also doesn’t explain why, according to the report “cases involving African- American children were associated with over an hour less volunteer time each month…” [emphasis added].

It seems unlikely that volunteers dealing with cases involving African-American children consistently were less likely to fill out time logs. Furthermore, this section of the CASA statement contains a significant factual error. The statement claims the researchers found only that workers spent less time per child in cases involving African-American children. It goes on to
speculate that maybe these families had more children. The CASA statement then poses the question: “Is there a difference in time spent per case?” [Emphasis in original].

But the study itself already supplies the answer, and the answer is yes. Indeed, the study refers to less time per child and less time per case in cases involving African-American children. For example, on page 22, the study says: “The mean number of hours spent on African-American children’s cases was 2.67 versus 4.30 for children of other races.” [Emphasis added]. The CASA statement also goes on to cite a different study, a “National CASA Consumer Satisfaction Survey.”

But the CASA statement leaves out some important findings from this survey, which is available here: http://www.casanet.org/download/casasurveys/CS-survey- final-report-09-03.pdf

· The study included a number of open-ended questions, in which
respondents had to write comments rather than check boxes. In their responses, so
many caseworkers singled out concerns about class and cultural bias in CASAs
that the researcher felt compelled to acknowledge it as a “theme” in survey
comments.

As the author acknowledges, this was not a study of a random cross-section of CASA programs; rather these programs volunteered. That makes it likely that these programs are better than typical CAS A programs.

People who have bad experiences with a program generally are less likely to respond to surveys about it. Thus, those who didn’t fill out the survey forms probably would have given CASA lower ratings. This is especially significant in light of the low response rate from parents, compared with other groups.

Even with all these factors biasing the study in favor of CASA, one of the two questions where, comparatively, CASA “consistently scored low” concerned CASAs’ objectivity.

Though it is not statistically significant, birth parents gave CASAs lower ratings on every single question except one. The one exception is that birth parents say CASAs have more influence on the court -- hardly a compliment.

If CASAs truly were objective, views of birth parent attorneys and children’s attorneys should be similar. In fact, birth parent attorneys gave CASAs lower ratings on every question except two – and most of the time, these differences are statistically significant.

The survey asks respondents to give an example of something a CASA did that was helpful. There is no request for an example of something a CASA did that was harmful. (Although it is interesting to note that on the “something helpful” question enough people specifically wrote the word “nothing” as opposed to just leaving it blank, for this to emerge as a “theme.”)

CONCLUSION

The two studies combined are a clear indictment of the CASA model. But rather than heed the warnings, CASA is burying its head in the sand. Of course some individual CASAs do some good for some children. There are undoubtedly some good CASA programs. And, as we emphasized in our original statement, we do not question the dedication or motivation of CASA
volunteers. But the two studies combined suggest that, on balance, CASA does more harm than good and needs radical reform. At a minimum, these studies should be a wake-up call for the constituency that, according to the “Consumer Satisfaction Survey,” appears least willing to show any skepticism about CASA: Judges. They need to be far more willing to question CASAs closely about how they reach their conclusions and far less prone to rubber-stamp CASA
recommendations.

CASA Data Collection and Evaluation

Data Collection and Evaluation
Collecting and analyzing data enables National CASA and CASA programs to assess our efforts and ultimately improve our services to children. The following surveys, summaries and reports demonstrate constituent satisfaction with CASA and GAL programs.

2008 State Organization Survey Report (PDF)

2007 State Organization Survey Report (PDF)

2008 Local Program Survey Report (PDF)
2007 Local Program Survey Report (PDF)

Caliber Evaluation of CASA Representation Report (PDF)

Judges and Attorney Survey of Volunteer CASA/GALs (PDF): Judges value CASA volunteers but need more of them.

Consumer Satisfaction Survey: A 2003 survey measuring satisfaction with CASA volunteers among parents, judges, child protection workers, child protection supervisors and attorneys

Full Report (PDF)
Executive Summary (PDF)

CASA Effectiveness Manual
The purpose of this manual is to provide CASA programs with an easy to use system for tracking information necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of programs. Emphasis is placed on how to write and measure goals related to child-outcomes. The manual includes easy to follow definitions, instructions, tracking forms and sample surveys.

Introduction
Part 1: Writing and measuring child outcomes and process goals
Part 2: Tracking volunteer and program activities
Part 3: Collecting information regarding outcomes and activities
Part 4: Conducting surveys
Part 5: Using information collected to write reports

http://www.casaforchildren.org/site/c.mtJSJ7MPIsE/b.5466423/k.16B4/Data_Collection_and_Evaluation.htm