● A careful, in-depth comparison of outcomes for children who have CASAs in Florida to children who don’t shows no benefit, and possibly some harm – based on criteria for measuring “influence” set by the program itself.
● Instead of facing facts, the program sends out fear-and-smear emails that ratchet up a climate of foster-care panic in the state.
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| From Prof. Robert Latham's analysis of the Florida GAL (CASA) program: The map shows the variation from region to region in the proportion of children who have a GAL. |
First of two parts. Read Part Two here.
To read the full analysis discussed below, click
here.
I have previously discussed
how the largest, most-comprehensive study ever done of that most sacred cow in
child welfare, Court-Appointed Special Advocates – a study commissioned by the
National CASA Association itself with the specific intent of proving to the
world how great CASA is -- found that the program actually does harm. I’ve noted a second, much smaller study done by
a CASA who has desperate to show success.
She
couldn’t. And I’ve noted case
after case
of racism – and
sometimes worse, in individual CASA programs.
Well, now there’s a
new analysis of a mass of data from what is probably the Cadillac of CASA
programs – a huge program with a large support staff and exceptional lobbying
clout. A program that has spent $600 million in taxpayer dollars over the past
15 years and now has a budget of nearly $55 million per year. A program that’s been called the state’s “second
DCF [Department of Children and Families].”
The analysis is based on the program’s own criteria for measuring
success.
Here’s the (sort of) good
news: Using those criteria, the study found no indication that the program
is doing a lot of actual harm; though it may do some harm.
Here’s the bad news:
The study found no evidence that this CASA program does any good for children
at all – even as it burned through $600 million in taxpayer funds. And that’s the best case scenario.
The analysis was done by Prof. Robert Latham.
Latham is no CASA basher. He’s currently a clinical instructor and associate
director of the University of Miami School of Law Children and Youth Law
Clinic. Before taking that job he was a
senior program attorney in the state CASA program (which, in Florida is called
a GAL program, but it’s the same thing). In 2016, he won the GAL program’s Excellence
in Advocacy award.
Latham emphasizes that correlation is not causation, and he
is not claiming causation. But the Florida
GAL program does claim causation
using these same criteria. So, in effect, Latham is calling their bluff.
The backstory
The backstory behind this research is as interesting as the
findings. Not only had Prof. Latham worked
in the program and received an award from it, in addition, he writes: “I love
the people there. I got started blogging
in child welfare through defending the program against unfair criticism…”
But he has become increasingly alarmed by the fear-mongering
from the program as it flails about trying to fend off a better approach to
representing children. Or, as Latham
writes:
I thought we were past the days when … program leadership and their friends accused children’s attorneys of wanting kids to die. And yet here we are.
That fear-mongering is especially damaging in Florida, where
it echoes the demagoguery of
the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times and throws a little more
gasoline on the fires of foster-care panic
in that state.
Obviously, the program didn’t literally
say children’s attorneys want children to die – and Latham doesn’t claim they
did. He reprints exactly what the program said, and I discuss all that in
part two of this post. But for
now, know that the Florida GAL program’s descent into fear and smear made Latham
wonder: Is there really any evidence that this program works?
Testing the program using its own criteria
The Florida GAL (again, that means CASA) program has a
bizarre way of “proving” its effectiveness.
They post
a list of five child welfare outcomes under the heading “GAL Influence on
Child Welfare Outcomes.” At no point to they provide evidence that the GAL program
actually influenced the outcomes. (In
one of the fear-mongering emails, they take a stab at this by saying that there
are other states where the outcomes are even worse, something I’ll discuss in
detail tomorrow.)
In any event, as Latham notes, “the GAL Program holds these
numbers out as evidence of its impact.”
So Latham decided to try to find out if there really is any
such evidence. He’s particularly
well-suited to the task. He has a
Bachelor of Science degree in computer science.
He knows his way around numbers and
the law.
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| Screenshot of one of the maps created by Prof. Latham to track the placement history of thousands of foster children. |
So when he began to question how the GAL program measures it’s
alleged effectiveness, he knew exactly how to find the answers. Those answers can be found in this
post to his blog. It runs 9,300
words (and you thought my posts were
long). At times, Latham goes pretty deep into the weeds. But it’s well worth the trip.
The post is long because it covers not only his own research
but the controversy that led him to It’s
long because he goes into great detail concerning methodology. He does this in the interests of full
transparency and to allow anyone who wants an intellectually honest debate to
join in. And it’s worth reading in full
so you can assess his findings unfiltered by anyone’s interpretation, including
mine.
But – spoiler alert – here’s his final paragraph:
So, after all this, the question of whether the GAL Program is ethical, effective, or even good for children is all the same: we don’t know. And before we spend another $600 million, we should probably find out.
Prof. Latham’s method
Florida is a big state.
The court system is divided into 20 circuits. Though Florida law says every child should
have a GAL (again, in Florida a GAL is the name for a CASA) that doesn’t
happen. There is wide variation among the circuits in the proportion of
children who have a GAL. So if the GAL
program is right about how wonderful it is, then, by the logic the program
itself uses to measure success, circuits in which a higher proportion of
children have GALs should have better average outcomes that circuits where the
proportion is lower.
Of course in any natural experiment there are what researchers
call “confounding variables.” One reason Latham’s post is so long is that he
goes into great detail explaining how he tried to account for the variables.
As Latham writes:
The plan is to look for significant correlations between GAL appointment rates and the “influence” measures [cited by the GAL Program itself]. This would normally be the time to say that correlation does not prove causation, and in most circumstances we would need to be very careful with that. But here, the causation has already been declared [that is, the GAL program already is claiming causation] and we’re working backwards to test whether it is justified given the existing data. The main question is: Does the public data support a claim of causation, correlation, or “influence”?
Prof. Latham’s results
Latham began with the particular outcomes that the GAL
program says it influences for the better, including time to “permanency,” in
all forms, time to adoption (but not, notably, time to reunification – that,
apparently is not an important goal to the program) number of placements, and a
crucial safety measure “foster-care recidivism” – the proportion of children
sent home from foster care who are placed again within 12 months.
The result: the GALs had no demonstrable effect on any of
the variables except one. Foster-care recidivism actually was worse when a GAL was on the case. Did the GALs cause this? We don’t know. But again,
it’s the GAL program that points to this measure and claims responsibility for “influencing”
it.
Latham went on to look at a whole series of outcomes that
the Florida Department of Children and Families uses to measure progress – or the
lack of it. Writes Latham:
What struck me most is the long list of circuit measures that had no correlation with GAL appointment rates. … I thought for sure that circuit-level GAL appointment rates would correlate with [improved] medical and dental care rates, or with siblings being placed together, or with minimizing the number of moves. They didn’t. …
What’s worse, if you want to measure “influence” instead of correlation, a higher GAL Appointment rate in a circuit was more strongly correlated with worse results in five measures. That was shocking to me: GALs correspond to worse outcomes. …
There were no significant direct correlations between GAL representation rates and any of the DCF Dashboard measures that survived controlling for circuit size. …
Furthermore, if non-significant “influence” is how we’re measuring and we’re assuming causation (two things you SHOULD NOT DO in a normal situation), then the GAL Program is failing and possibly even bad for kids on four additional measures that appear to be core to its mission. [Emphasis in original.]
There’s one more outcome that suggests cause for concern:
GAL representation rates do not seem to have any significant correlation to the percent of kids adopted or reunified in a circuit. To the extent they’re suggestive, GALs may depress reunification and accelerate adoption. [Emphasis added.]
And there was still another alarming finding in Prof. Latham’s
research: One of the biggest problems in foster care is racial disparity – the overrepresentation
of children of color in foster care. Latham
found that in circuits where more children have GALs, that racial disparity is
greater.
Latham writes:
Racial disparity is
the sort of thing GALs have been accused of having very unfortunate effects on,
and a fact that National CASA takes very seriously. Seeing a correlation here
is not good.
On one point here I disagree with Latham: I’ve seen no
evidence that National CASA takes the issue of racial bias seriously – except as
a p.r. problem. For example: I am aware
of no action taken against the Snohomish County, Washington program – the one
that one had
this guy as a volunteer.
But guess what MIGHT improve outcomes
Latham went on to look at factors that might influence these
outcomes, factors that have nothing to do with the GAL program, and nothing to
do with child protective services – at least not as it operates now. He found – surprise! – that on multiple
measures outcomes were better in communities with things like less poverty and better
mental and physical health care.
Latham writes:
If it turns out that the number of community doctors and therapists who take Medicaid has a stronger and broader impact on foster care outcomes than GALs do, then we could have spent the $600 million GAL Program budget in very different ways.
In Part Two, available here: Desperate
to preserve the program in the face of a push for a better alternative, the
Florida GAL program starts fighting dirty.
