IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v98y2019icp65-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who gets a CASA? Selective characteristics of children appointed a CASA advocate

Author

Listed:
  • Osborne, Cynthia
  • Warner-Doe, Hilary
  • Lawson, Jennifer

Abstract

Prior research examining the effectiveness of Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) as an intervention for improving the outcomes of children in state custody has been hindered by selection bias, because children may be selected to receive CASA representation based on non-random characteristics. Selection bias poses a strong threat to internal validity, and researchers have struggled to isolate the effects of CASA services on child and case outcomes. The present study examines the extent of selection bias in the CASA assignment process over a 2-year period for a full population of foster children in regions served by CASA programs in Texas (N = 32,349), thereby increasing the capacity to control for selection characteristics and supporting causal inference in ongoing studies. This analysis of CASA and state child welfare administrative data examines differences in the baseline child-, family-, and case-level characteristics of children who were appointed CASA representation compared to children who received child welfare services without CASA representation. Mixed-effect logistic regression modeling identifies independent predictors of CASA appointment while controlling for a range of factors and accounting for data clustering in the selection process. Findings indicate that CASA cases in this population have indicators of greater complexity and severity compared to their non-CASA counterparts. By empirically identifying the factors that predict assignment to CASA at the population level, this study lays the foundation for an advanced quasi-experimental outcome evaluation to examine CASA's effectiveness at improving child and case outcomes while minimizing the influence of selection bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Osborne, Cynthia & Warner-Doe, Hilary & Lawson, Jennifer, 2019. "Who gets a CASA? Selective characteristics of children appointed a CASA advocate," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 65-71.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:98:y:2019:i:c:p:65-71
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.12.020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918309976
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.12.020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Felix, Shanna N. & Agnich, Laura E. & Schueths, April, 2017. "An evaluation of a Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program in the rural south," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 48-56.
    2. Litzelfelner, Pat, 2008. "Consumer satisfaction with CASAs (Court Appointed Special Advocates)," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 173-186, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haarberg, Frøydis Lønborg, 2024. "What do we know about children’s representation in child protection decisions? A scoping review," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Jay Miller, J. & Donahue-Dioh, Jessica & Owens, Larry, 2020. "Examining the legal representation of youth in foster care: Perspectives of attorneys and attorney guardians ad litem," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haarberg, Frøydis Lønborg, 2024. "What do we know about children’s representation in child protection decisions? A scoping review," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Vis, Svein Arild & Fossum, Sturla, 2013. "Representation of children's views in court hearings about custody and parental visitations — A comparison between what children wanted and what the courts ruled," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2101-2109.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:98:y:2019:i:c:p:65-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.