NCCPR Responds to Statements From National CASA Association and Caliber Associates
Greegor
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.
Greegor
UPDATED, NOV 10 2008 AND NOV. 8, 2009: A CASA chapter shows its true
colors
Reader advisory: This post contains quotes that include some uses of
vulgar slang. Reader discretion is advised.
There may be no more sacred cow in all of child welfare than the Court-
Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program. Under this program,
volunteers are assigned to spend a few hours a month on one or two
child welfare cases, talking to all parties and then telling the judge
what the volunteer thinks would be best for the child.
I collected the gooey feature stories that turn up in almost every
newspaper about CASA for a while, until I ran out of file space. In
almost every one, the program is praised to the skies and all of its
self-promotional material is accepted without question. And CASA
itself loves to brag about how much influence the volunteers have over
juvenile court judges when those judges decide if a child will be
placed in foster care, whether a child will remain there, and where
that child will go.
In fact, the CASA model creates enormous potential for bias. Who can
be a CASA? Certainly not a poor person working two jobs, or someone
who has to work seven days a week; they don't have the time. No, a
CASA volunteer is most likely to have lots of time on his or her
hands. And that means CASA volunteers are likely to be
disproportionately affluent and disproportionately white (and, in
fact, 90 percent of CASA volunteers are white). Children who enter the
child welfare system, of course, are neither.
So, good intentions notwithstanding – and like almost everyone in
child welfare, most CASA volunteers do, indeed, mean well – the
potential for racial and class bias is obvious. So it should come as
no surprise that the largest, most comprehensive study of CASA ever
done – a study commissioned by the National CASA Association itself -
produced some truly alarming findings. I'll get to those below. But
first, a case in point.
I first learned about this through a very brief item in the excellent
trade journal Youth Today, after which I checked the local newspaper
and a local news website.
The story is about the CASA chapter in Arkansas City, Kansas, about an
hour from Wichita. Every year, their big annual fundraiser is the Men
in Tights drag queen contest. No problem there. This year, the winner
was the mayor of Arkansas City, Mel Kuhn. He won both the talent
competition and the overall Miss CASA title. Still no problem, it's
not as if they played favorites and gave him the prize just because
he's the mayor.
The problem is the costume that won Mayor Kuhn the coveted Miss CASA
title: He dressed up as a woman he named "Smellishis Poon." The
"surname" is, in the words of the Arkansas City Traveler "graphic
slang for a female private part." So is the name the mayor chose for
his back up dancers. They were called the "Red Hot Puntangs." Oh, and
one more thing: The mayor did his act made up in blackface.
The mayor initially defended his performance. "All this PC is
b-------," the mayor/Miss CASA said. "We go around walking on
eggshells all the time, we don't get anything done." But after a
meeting with officials of the Wichita Branch of the NAACP, the Mayor/
Miss CASA changed his mind and offered what sounds like a sincere
apology.
From CASA, however, there has been only one of those non-apology
apologies, with the executive director of the Arkansas City CASA
program, who earlier gave the mayor's performance rave reviews, later
telling The Wichita Eagle that "We're sorry that anyone was offended
at this show."
But the Mayor/Miss CASA says the local CASA chapter knew exactly what
he planned to do beforehand. According to the Traveler:
He said he ran everything he planned by CASA officials, and that the
audience found it all hilarious. "I didn't spring anything on anybody,
he said.
After the performance, the local CASA executive director, Linda Groth,
did say she was "mortified" by the name the Mayor chose – after a
reporter told her what "poon" meant. But other than that, she thought
the performance was just fine. She told a local website, The News Cow,
(because Arkansas City is in Cowley County, that's why):
"The part of his act I felt was excellent was the dancing. It was good
dancing. The back-up singers were gorgeous and could probably back up
any professional. It was a pretty professional little act. The
audience loved it. The judges must have liked it. We may change some
things. We may not. We certainly don't want to offend anybody."
It's unfortunate that anyone is upset. Kuhn wanted to put on a good
show and worked hard, according to Groth. Other people saw the program
but no one commented on his character's name.
As for the blackface, Groth told the Traveler she didn't think the
mayor was trying to portray a different race: "It wasn't black black,"
she said. "It was all really just tan." (Readers can judge for
themselves by having a look at the photos here and here. )
Groth went on to give the Mayor/Miss CASA another rave review,
praising all the time Kuhn took to prepare and noting that "the judges
and the audience in general seemed very impressed."
Most of the criticism has been directed at the mayor. But that misses
the point. The real issue is this: How much harm is being done to
impoverished children, especially minority children, by placing their
fate in the hands of people who can watch a man dress up in blackface
under the name of Smellishis Poon – and see no problem with any of it?
What kind of child welfare system lets such astonishingly insensitive
white people sit in judgment of overwhelmingly poor disproportionately
black families? And where was the National CASA Association while all
this is going on? I am aware of no condemnation of the Arkansas City
chapter by the national group; certainly there is nothing on National
CASA's website about it. Perhaps they don't know about it, though it
happened a month ago.
UPDATE, NOV. 10: A p.r. person for National CASA contacted NCCPR this
evening by e-mail to say that "Immediately after being made aware of
the incident, National CASA contacted the local Arkansas City CASA
program, which had sponsored the event. We also contacted the Kansas
State CASA program, the office of Mayor Kuhn, and Kevin Myles, the
President of the Wichita Branch of NAACP."
The p.r. person says National CASA's efforts led to a more formal
apology from the the local chapter. He cited this wire service story,
but the story is unclear as to whether the relevant "press release"
came from National CASA or the local chapter. The local newspaper
story on which the wire account is based makes clear that, after a
conference call involving the NAACP, the local chapter and National
CASA, the local chapter issued the press release containing the
apology. If National CASA has issued its own formal public statement
on this matter, I still haven't been able to find it.
None of this, of course, addresses the larger issue of how a CASA
chapter could have allowed this performance in the first place, and
the rave review the head of the CASA chapter gave the mayor's
performance before she was contacted by the national organization.
CASA also got the Wichita NAACP to let them off the hook; another
testament to CASA's sacred cow status. I hope the Wichita NAACP will
take a closer look, starting with the study cited below:
It would be one thing if this were an isolated problem – a local
chapter that had gone rogue. But the disturbing data from that
national study I mentioned suggest that, again, good intentions
notwithstanding, racial bias permeates CASA.
For starters, the study found that when a CASA is assigned to a child
who is black, the CASA spends, on average, significantly less time on
the case. (The study also found that CASAs don't spend as much time on
cases in general as the organization's p.r. might lead one to believe.
CASA volunteers reported spending an average of only 4.3 hours per
month on cases involving white children, and only 2.67 hours per month
on cases involving Black children).
Worse, the study found that CASA's only real accomplishments were to
prolong the time children languished in foster care and reduce the
chance that the child will be placed with relatives.
A Youth Today columnist aptly summed up the findings this way:
"The more rigorous evaluation … not only challenged the effectiveness
of the court volunteers' services, but suggested that they spend
little time on cases, particularly those of black children, and are
associated with more removals from the home and fewer efforts to
reunite children with parents or relatives."
Worse still, the study found no evidence that having a CASA on the
case does anything to improve child safety – so all that extra foster
care is for nothing. (The study specifically controlled for CASA's all
purpose excuse for this – the claim that CASAs handle the most
difficult cases.)
If you doubt any of this, please go see the study for yourself on the
National CASA website – if you can find it. [UPDATE, NOV 8, 2009: THE
LINK IN THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE NO LONGER WORKS. LOOKS LIKE CASA HAS
REMOVED THE FULL STUDY FROM ITS WEBSITE ENTIRELY. I'M SURE GLAD I
DOWNLOADED BY OWN COPY.] Actually, I'd better give you the direct
link, since it's not on the main website at all, instead it's buried
on a second site which, while publicly accessible, appears to be
primarily for CASAs themselves. One can certainly understand why
they'd rather people not see it.
CASA did not exactly spread the word about this study when it was
published. But Youth Today learned about it, and the result was one of
the few clear-eyed assessments ever done of the program, an excellent
front-page news story in the July/August, 2004 issue which was
available on an affiliated website, but now, alas, is available only
on their own site by subscription.
Among other things, the news story concluded that CASA's attempts to
spin the study's findings "can border on duplicity."
I wonder how National CASA will spin the Miss CASA contest, and what
that contest may say about the racial attitudes of CASA volunteers in
Arkansas City? It'll be hard to top that line about "it was all really
just tan." (See update above for CASAs response).