Context-Specific Service Provision of CASA New York City

Purpose: In certain states, foster youth with challenging cases may be assigned a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) by the case's presiding judge. The CASA is assigned to ensure that these youth get the services to which they are entitled while in care. Studies have shown that CASA-assisted youth receive more services, are more likely to be adopted and are more likely to reach expedient permanency than youth without CASAs. There are approximately 1000 CASA programs in 49 states and each program is unique, responding to the context-specific challenges of youth residing in the communities they serve. Unfortunately, the majority of CASA programs are neither systematically measuring the services they provide nor routinely reporting their findings to a national audience, leaving many guessing about the specific nature, consistency and effectiveness of CASA service provision in the US. In 2013, CASA New York City began measuring service provision and outcomes for the youth they serve. In this study, we explore what services were received in an effort to shed light on the context-specific needs of these youth.

Methods: Our sample included approximately 1000 CASA-assisted foster youth living in NYC. Each quarter, every CASA was asked to report the services they provided for each of the youth they served. We examined nine waves of quarterly data collected between December 2015 (Q6) and April 2017 (Q14). The needs of two distinct groups of youth were evaluated: ages 6-15 and ages 16-21. Descriptive statistics and frequencies were run in SPSS Version 24 to evaluate how service provision differed by age group and explore how it changed over time.

Results: Youth 6-15 were most likely to receive CASA advocacy relating to interstate foster care transfers (ICPC; required by between 50% and 66% of these youth). Youth 16-21 were also likely to receive advocacy relating to ICPC, but they were more likely to receive advocacy relating to education and housing. Education-related services were provided most frequently (required by between 28% to 45% of youth) and housing-related services were provided second most frequently (required by between 26% to 35% of youth). In both age ranges, the most commonly provided service for the parents of these youth was housing advocacy, although it was higher for parents of youth 6-15. Categories of service provision remained fairly consistent over time.

Implications: Some of the services provided by CASA NYC appear to be context-specific. The need for housing advocacy, for example, may be indicative of the lack of affordable housing options available in New York City between 2015 and 2017. The need for ICPC advocacy may also be greater in the NYC area, as NYC residents commonly move to neighboring states in light of their close proximity (and reduced cost of living). There is great utility in CASA programs across the country collecting and sharing similar data on service provision over time, as such data sharing would allow for the evaluation of shared goal attainment and, ultimately, an exploration of the potency of various forms of service provision relating to youth outcomes.