Evidence Rating: No Effects | One study
Date:
This is a neighborhood-based, intensive case-management approach to prevent drug use and delinquency for high-risk adolescents living in distressed neighborhoods. The program is rated No Effects. While treatment group youths had statistically significant reductions in the frequency of total violence and drug sales, there were no statistically significant effects on delinquency, property or status offenses, arrests and tickets, truancy, and disciplinary incidents or suspensions.
A No Effects rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s) and may result in a negative outcome(s).
This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.
Program Goals
CASASTART (Striving Together to Achieve Rewarding Tomorrows), formerly known as Children at Risk, is a community-based, intensive case-management model designed to keep high-risk 11- to 13-year-old youths free of substance abuse and delinquent involvement. The goals of the program are to prevent and reduce drug and alcohol use, promote good school attendance and academic performance, lower the incidence of disruptive behavior at school, reduce drug-related crime and violence, and reduce delinquent behavior among high-risk youths, while increasing their opportunities to gain skills and achieve positive goals.
Program Components/Key Personnel
The program is designed to operate at three different levels: 1) building resiliency and skills in children, 2) strengthening families, and 3) making neighborhoods safer for children and their families. The program reaches children early to reduce their chances of substance use. CASASTART delivers integrated services to high-risk youths and their entire families. Case managers work closely with personnel from criminal justice agencies, schools, and other community organizations to provide services that target a youth’s individual, peer group, family, and neighborhood risk factors.
Each case manager serves 13 to 18 children and their families. Case review conferences are held every other week—along with quarterly administrative and advisory council meetings—to ensure all partners are up to date on the program and individual case status. The case conference ideally consists of the case manager; a police officer; school personnel such as the school guidance counselor, a principal or assistant principal, a school psychologist, a school social worker, and/or a teacher; parents or caregivers; and any other service providers who may be involved with the child. In addition, quarterly administrative meetings identify and resolve problems serving children and families that cannot be resolved by frontline staff because they involve larger agency policy or practice issues. Finally, the advisory council meeting links CASASTART with decisionmakers in the political, public, philanthropic, and private sectors to discuss client progress, service delivery, and program sustainability.
Each CASASTART program is managed and planned locally to be consistent with the values and cultural backgrounds of each community. Every participating youth receives all program services with the exception of juvenile justice services (if they are not in trouble with the law). Although each program is locally tailored, all programs provide eight core service components:
- Social support and intensive case management: to allow case managers to develop individualized service plans and provide ongoing support to the youth and family
- Family services: to include the youth’s family, identify service needs, and provide service referrals
- Education services: to provide support such as tutoring and specialized programs
- Afterschool and summer activities: to provide recreational and cultural opportunities and facilitate positive peer group experiences
- Mentoring: to facilitate caring relationships with positive adult role models
- Incentives: to reinforce positive achievement and encourage participation in youth development activities
- Community-oriented policing: to foster a safer neighborhood environment
- Criminal justice intervention: to support justice system-involved youths and refer them to neighborhood resources
CASASTART is a 2-year program. During this time, the case manager, who typically works within local schools, arranges for and provides the aforementioned services to the high-risk youth.
Although Mihalic and colleagues (2011) found that youths in the CASASTART treatment group had statistically significant reductions in the frequency of total violence and drug sales at the posttest conducted at the end of the 2-year program, there were no statistically significant differences in the frequency of total delinquency, total property offenses, status offenses, arrests and tickets, truancy, disciplinary incidents, and suspensions. Overall, the preponderance of evidence suggests the program did not make the intended impact on youths in the treatment group.
Study 1
Total Delinquency
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of total delinquency (including serious and minor violence, serious and minor property offenses, drug sales, and public disorder items) between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest conducted at the end of the 2-year program.
Status Offenses
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of status offenses between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest.
Arrests and Tickets
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of arrests and tickets between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest.
Disciplinary Incidents
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of disciplinary incidents between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest.
Suspensions
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of suspensions between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest.
Total Property Offenses
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of total property offenses (the summation of serious and minor property offenses) between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest.
Total Violence
Youths in the CASASTART treatment group engaged in less total violence (the summation of serious and minor violence), compared with youths in the control group at the posttest. This difference was statistically significant.
Drug Sales
Youths in the CASASTART treatment group engaged in fewer drug sales, compared with youths in the control group at the posttest. This difference was statistically significant.
Truancy
There was no statistically significant difference in the frequency of truancy between youths in the CASASTART treatment group and youths in the control group at the posttest.
Study 1
Mihalic and colleagues (2011) conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of CASASTART on youths’ crime and delinquency, violence, and drug- and school-related outcomes after completion of the 2-year program.
Seven sites that agreed to random assignment of eligible youths to the CASASTART program or a control group were selected for the study: Trenton, N.J. (six schools); San Antonio, Texas (four schools); McKeesport, Pa. (four schools); Baltimore, Md. (two schools); Bridgeport, Conn. (two schools); Livingston, Ky. (two schools); and Portland, Ore. (one school). Almost all of the schools were new to the CASASTART program. Half of the schools in San Antonio and both of the schools in Bridgeport had previous experience with CASASTART. The San Antonio, McKeesport, Baltimore, and Bridgeport schools began the implementation and referral process in fall 2007, while the Livingston, Portland, and Trenton schools began the implementation and referral process in fall 2008. Eligible youths at each site were ages 11 to 13 and had at least two risk factors in the school domain and at least one risk factor in both the family and personal domains. School risk factors included grade retention, poor academic performance, truancy, suspensions, and disruptive behavior; family risk factors included a history of family violence or drug use; and personal risk factors included involvement in drug use or sales, delinquency, gang membership, and being the victim of abuse or neglect.
The total evaluation sample consisted of 382 youths. These youths were randomly assigned by computer program to receive the CASASTART program (n = 197 youths) or assigned to a control group (n = 185 youths), whose participants could receive services as usual but could not receive all CASASTART services (control group participants did not receive the intensive CASASTART case management service component that was received by the treatment group). Owing to the nationwide economic downturn, the McKeesport and San Antonio sites and one school in Baltimore lost funding, and only 1 year of data was available instead of 2.
Both the CASASTART treatment group and the control group consisted mostly of minority youth. The treatment group was 37.9 percent Black, 34.2 percent Hispanic, 18.4 percent other ethnicities, and 9.5 percent white, and the control group was 42.0 percent Black, 27.6 percent Hispanic, 15.5 percent other ethnicities, and 14.9 percent white. The average age of youth in both the CASASTART treatment group and the control group was 12 years old. Both groups were predominately male (64.2 percent of the treatment group, and 56.3 percent of the control group). Even though both the treatment and control group youths showed no statistically significant differences in measures of risk factors for delinquency (e.g., poor academic performance, suspensions, history of family violence, gang membership), baseline assessments revealed statistically significant differences in measures of delinquent behavior. CASASTART treatment group youths had statistically significantly higher frequency measures for serious delinquency (1.97 for the CASASTART treatment group, compared with 0.89 for the control group), total violence (1.78 for the treatment group, compared with 0.88 for the control group), and drug sales (0.17 for the treatment group, compared with 0.01 for the control group). CASASTART treatment group youths also evidenced higher frequency measures for serious property offenses, other drug use, and sexual activity, compared with control youths. Among the three official school records measures, CASASTART youths had statistically significantly more total days absent than control youths (an average of 12.34 days for the treatment group, compared with 9.56 days for the control group). Baseline differences in problem behaviors were controlled for in the analyses.
Data were collected three times during the evaluation: 1) at pretest after randomization, 2) in the fall of the following school year, and 3) during a posttest survey after the second school year. Delinquency was measured by the Self-Reported Delinquency Scale, adapted from the National Youth Survey and the Denver Youth Survey. Youths were asked how many times in the last year they had engaged in a wide variety of illegal behavior, measured through a number of scales: Total Violence, the summation of serious violence (four items indicating the number of times youths “attacked someone with a weapon or with the idea of seriously hurting or killing them,” were “involved in gang fights,” etc.) and minor violence (four items indicating the number of times youths “snatched someone's purse or wallet or picked someone's pocket,” “hit someone with the idea of hurting them,” “had or tried to have sexual relations with someone against their will,” etc.); Total Property, the summation of serious property (seven items indicating the number of times youths “purposely set fire to a house, building, car, or other property or tried to do so,” “stole or tried to steal money or things worth $50 or more,” etc.) and minor property (five items indicating the number of times youths “avoided paying for things such as movies, bus or subway rides, food, or computer services,” and “stole or tried to steal money or things worth between $5 and $50,” etc.); Drug Sales consisting of two items indicating the number of times youths sold “marijuana or hashish” and “hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine and LSD;” Total Delinquency, which included items from serious and minor violence, serious and minor property, drug sales, and four public disorder items indicating the number of times youths had “been loud, rowdy, or unruly in a public place,” “begged for money or things from strangers,” etc.; Arrests and Tickets assessed by “how many times in the last year were you arrested,” or “given a ticket for a delinquent offense?;” Truancy, the number of times youths skipped 1 day or more of school without an excuse; and Status Offenses, four items indicating the number of times youths ran away from home for overnight or longer, were truant, lied about their age to get into someplace or to buy something, and broke city curfew laws. Additional self-report survey measures included personal characteristics, peer association, and family risk and protective factors, and neighborhood risk and protective factors. Official school records were also collected to assess academic performance, absences, disciplinary incidents, and suspensions.
Two kinds of analysis were used to determine CASASTART’s effectiveness. The first tested mean differences between treatment and control participants; the second estimated treatment effects on outcomes in linear models that controlled for other variables (participation in CASASTART, baseline measure of the outcome variables of interest, age at baseline, and race/ethnicity). Multilevel regression models (hierarchical linear modeling) were used to account for the nested nature of students within sites. At the end of the 2-year program, posttest interviews were completed with 272 of the original 364 eligible students to assess changes in the frequency (the number of times youths engaged in the problem behavior) of the outcomes of interest. Subgroup analysis was conducted by gender.
Subgroup Analysis
Mihalic and colleagues (2011) conducted subgroup analysis by gender. They found that adolescent boys in the CASASTART treatment group reported less total delinquency, total violence, serious property offenses, and arrests and tickets, compared with adolescent boys in the control group at the posttest. These differences were statistically significant. However, adolescent girls in the CASASTART treatment group reported higher total delinquency, status offenses, arrests, and suspensions at posttest, compared with adolescent girls in the control group. These differences were statistically significant and in the opposite-from-expected direction.
These sources were used in the development of the program profile:
Study 1
Mihalic, Sharon F., David H. Huizinga, Amanda Ladika, Kelly E. Knight, and Chris Dyer. 2011. CASASTART Final Report. Princeton, N.J.: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
These sources were used in the development of the program profile:
Harrell, Adele V. 1996. Intervening With High-Risk Youth: Preliminary Findings From the Children at Risk Program. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.
Harrell, Adele V., Shannon E. Cavanagh, and Sanjeev Sridharan. 1998. Impact of the Children at Risk Program: Comprehensive Final Report II. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Harrell, Adele V., Shannon E. Cavanagh, and Sanjeev Sridharan. 1999. Evaluation of the Children at Risk Program: Results 1 Year After the End of the Program. Research in Brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice. (This study was reviewed but did not meet CrimeSolutions criteria for inclusion in the overall program rating.)
Perdue, Joshua, and Christina Ethier. n.d. Adams 14 CASASTART Program Evaluation Report. Commerce City, Colo.: Adams County School District 14. Accessed Oct. 11, 2012. (This study was reviewed but did not meet CrimeSolutions criteria for inclusion in the overall program rating.)
Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:
These interventions are designed to increase attendance for elementary and secondary school students with chronic attendance problems. The practice is rated Effective for improving attendance.
Evidence Ratings for Outcomes
Education - Attendance/truancy |
School- or community-based programs targeting frequently absent students or students at risk of dropping out of school. These programs are aimed at increasing school engagement, school attachment, and the academic performance of students, with the main objective of increasing graduation rates. The practice is rated Effective for reducing rates of school dropouts, and rated Promising for improving test scores/grades, graduation rates, and attendance.
Evidence Ratings for Outcomes
Education - Dropout | |
Education - Academic achievement/school performance | |
Education - Graduation | |
Education - Attendance/truancy |
In 2012, CASASTART received a final program rating of No Effects, based on the reviews of studies by Harrell, Cavanagh, and Sridharan (1999), Mihalic and colleagues (2011), and Perdue and Ethier (n.d.). In May 2022, CrimeSolutions conducted a re-review of these three studies, using the updated CrimeSolutions Program Scoring Instrument. The program maintained the rating of No Effects.
Age: 11 - 13
Gender: Male, Female
Race/Ethnicity: White, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander
Geography: Suburban Urban
Setting (Delivery): School, Other Community Setting, Home
Program Type: Alcohol and Drug Prevention, Afterschool/Recreation, Cognitive Behavioral Treatment, Family Therapy, Leadership and Youth Development, Parent Training, Truancy Prevention
Targeted Population: Truants/Dropouts
Current Program Status: Active