Evaluation Methodologies

Evaluation Methodologies

As with all waiver demonstrations, States with assisted guardianship waivers are required to conduct process, outcome, and cost-effectiveness evaluations. Most States have provided limited cost effectiveness data and have focused instead on their process and outcome evaluations. States have used widely varying approaches in terms of research designs, sample sizes, and case assignment procedures. Four States - Illinois, Maryland, Montana, and New Mexico - implemented random assignment designs for their evaluations; of these, Illinois had the largest sample size and adhered most strictly to random assignment protocols. Two States that implemented guardianship as part of flexible funding demonstrations - North Carolina and Oregon - provided only descriptive analysis of their guardianship programs. These States examined differences in permanency and child safety outcomes at an aggregate, county-wide level. In addition, New Mexico used a comparison group design for the smaller Tribal component of its assisted guardianship program. Delaware relied on a simple pre-post test model to examine differences in permanency and child and family perceptions of well-being before and after implementation of the waiver. Table 2 briefly summarizes the States' approaches to evaluating their assisted guardianship demonstrations.

Table 2
Evaluation Designs of Assisted Guardianship Demonstrations

State	Research Design	Sample Size
Delaware	Pre-post test	Approximately 10 children per year. As of 3/02, 28 IV-E eligible children were enrolled in the waiver project.
Illinois	Random assignment³	3,630 children assigned to experimental group and 3,834 assigned to control group.⁴
Maryland	Random assignment	1,021 children in experimental group and 737 children in control group.
Montana	Random assignment	109 children assigned to experimental group and 24 to control group as of 9/30/03.
New Mexico	Statewide component: Random assignment Tribal component: Comparison group design.	Statewide component: 5,040 children in experimental group and 4,876 in comparison group Tribal component: 17 youth in experimental group and 85 in comparison group as of 10/03.
North Carolina	Descriptive analysis only.	38 assisted guardianships established in participating counties.
Oregon	Descriptive analysis only	Guardianships implemented in 24 of Oregon’s 42 child welfare service branches. 133 subsidized guardianships opened between 7/1/99 and 12/31/01.

States have faced several issues in implementing case assignment protocols for their evaluations. In some states, (e.g., Maryland), the pool of families available for the evaluation sample declined when workers delayed or failed to complete eligibility determinations or when caregivers did not return research consent forms. Other States such as New Mexico have encountered challenges with the timing of assignment to experimental and control groups and the offer of guardianship. New Mexico chose to assign cases to the experimental or control groups immediately upon entry into the child welfare system, leading to high rates of sample attrition as children returned home or otherwise become ineligible for guardianship. The increased statistical "noise" caused by including children ineligible for guardianship in the research sample makes it more difficult to measure the effects of subsidized guardianship on those children who do receive the guardianship subsidy.

As the rigor and scale of States' evaluations have differed, so have the strength of their evaluation results. The following sections explore some of the most important process and outcomes findings that have emerged from States with assisted guardianship waivers.

Back to Table of Contents

State Process Evaluations - Summary of Key Findings and Issues

Number of Guardianships Awarded

States have varied greatly in terms of the scope and magnitude of their assisted guardianship programs. As Table 3 illustrates, the number of guardianships awarded through the waiver demonstrations has ranged from fewer than 30 in Delaware to over 6,800 in Illinois.

Table 3 Assisted Guardianships Awarded⁵

State	Number of Guardianships Awarded
Delaware	28
Illinois	6,822
Maryland	Approximately 326
Montana	38 as of September 2003
New Mexico	Approximately 120 as of October 2003
North Carolina	38
Oregon	133

Procedures for Establishing Guardianships

Processes for establishing guardianships vary considerably among States with assisted guardianship waivers. This section summarizes the procedures that States have instituted to implement their assisted guardianship programs.

Illinois

Illinois' final evaluation report provides an overview of that State's guardianship procedures. Before meeting with a potentially eligible family, the caseworker completes a Permanency Planning Checklist to assess the caregiver's appropriateness and readiness to assume guardianship and a separate criminal background check to ensure that the potential guardian has no felony convictions. At the initial meeting with the caregiver and possibly the biological parent(s), the caseworker facilitates a discussion among participants to develop a permanent care plan that is in the best interests of the child. The caseworker carefully reviews all details of adoption and guardianship, as well as the responsibilities of each for the caregiver. The worker first discusses the option of adoption, as it must be ruled out prior to considering subsidized guardianship. After the caseworker has fully disclosed all components and implications of each permanency option, the caregiver can make a fully informed decision as to whether guardianship best meets the needs of the family. Consent to enter into guardianship is also obtained from any children aged 14 or older.

Once a permanency decision of guardianship has been made and the subsidy and legal screening paperwork are completed and approved, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services' (DCFS) Office of Legal Services files a petition in the Circuit Court to award guardianship to the caregiver. The court appoints an attorney or Public Guardian to represent the child's interests at the guardianship hearing. If the circuit court judge determines that it is in the best interest of the child, an order appointing guardianship is entered.

A variety of administrative and clinical support services are available in Illinois to support and maintain guardianships. As with its adoption assistance program, the State assigns a caseworker from its Post-Guardianship Unit to a family following the award of guardianship. The guardian may contact the worker when difficulties arise regarding subsidy payments, private health insurers, community resources, or Medicaid. When the issues are therapeutic in nature, the caseworker may transfer the case to a social worker for brief crisis intervention, referrals, and phone-based assistance and information. If the Post-Guardianship Unit believes that a subsidized guardianship case is at risk of disruption or has special needs, the case is referred to a Subsidized Guardianship Specialist for extra attention and more intensive services.

Oregon

For the assisted guardianship component of its waiver demonstration, Oregon established Community Involvement Teams made up of representatives from State agencies, advocacy groups, service providers, and parent groups; these Teams meet regularly to receive updates and to provide input and feedback on the guardianship program. Oregon also established a guardianship training program for child welfare caseworkers; trainings consist of informal question-and-answer sessions to address questions about guardianship policies and procedures, including the use of funds.

Delaware

To ensure that the guardianship option receives due consideration, Delaware established a Permanency Committee to review the case of each child in out-of-home care for more than nine months. When a child is deemed eligible for guardianship, a child protection worker prepares a petition to the Family Court to approve the guardianship; this petition outlines the specific roles and responsibilities of the prospective guardian. According to Delaware's final evaluation report, the process for establishing a guardianship lasts an average of nine months.

Maryland

In Maryland, the process of establishing an assisted guardianship begins with a comprehensive home assessment; this assessment covers the quality of the relationship between the caregiver and the child, the caregiver's ability to provide a safe, stable, healthy home environment, and the caregiver's ability to meet the child's educational, health and mental health needs. The assessment includes an inspection of the caregiver's home to identify any potential health or safety hazards. Following a mandatory criminal background check and a review of the caregiver's child welfare case records, the caseworker develops a service agreement specifying the services the family will receive upon approval of the guardianship. Services may include individual and family counseling, child development and parenting skills training, educational services, health care referrals, mental health assessments, and child care referrals. Once guardianship is awarded, the child and family's child welfare case remains open for up to 60 days after initiation of the waiver subsidy. The local social services department monitors guardianships by maintaining all relevant case records through annual guardianship reviews.

North Carolina

North Carolina has developed several forms and guidelines to assist staff members in establishing guardianships under its waiver demonstration. They include a kinship care assessment tool for assessing relatives as potential guardians as well as an on-line manual on options for child permanency.

Montana

According to Montana's September 2002 progress report, the identification of youth eligible for guardianship originally began with the periodic generation of an ad hoc report from the State's child welfare information management system. Child welfare field staff reviewed this list for possible guardianship candidates. Although child welfare staff still use this list, the preferred approach has been for permanency planning specialists to work directly with social workers to identify candidates during periodic case reviews.

Despite similarities, each of Montana's five child welfare regional offices has established a different approach to implementing the assisted guardianship demonstration. Based on population density, geography, and number of staff, each region has flexibility in assigning placement and permanency planning duties to its staff, which includes a Regional Administrator, supervisors, social workers, family resource specialists, and a permanency planning specialist. The State child welfare agency's assisted guardianship project manager works with each regional office to set up the processes for establishing guardianships, training workers, and making regional adaptations to the program. The State also conducts annual trainings to address changes in policy regarding guardianship and to review the process for establishing guardianships.

Caseworker Perspectives on Guardianship

Because no other professionals have as much regular and intensive contact with families in the child welfare system, the attitudes, assumptions, and perspectives of caseworkers exert great influence on the implementation and ultimate success of assisted guardianship initiatives. Caseworkers' awareness and knowledge about guardianship varies widely, and States have reported mixed reactions from them regarding the role and appropriateness of guardianship in case decision making. Doubts have persisted among child welfare professionals about the permanency of assisted guardianships and their impact on other important child welfare outcomes. Some caseworkers have tended to view guardianship as a less permanent alternative to adoption or reunification; other child welfare professionals have expressed the related concern that promotion of guardianships will lead to decreased adoptions. Site visits to county agencies in North Carolina revealed that caseworkers considered adoption to be the overriding goal for children who could not be reunified with their families. Many child welfare staff did not believe that assisted guardianship offered a stable placement option for children or regarded meeting the therapeutic needs of children through continued foster care as a higher priority than securing permanency through guardianships.

Illinois also experienced initial resistance to assisted guardianship, which necessitated a concerted State effort to secure caseworker "buy-in" to the concept. As in North Carolina, caseworker concerns in Illinois centered on the effectiveness of guardianship in ensuring permanency, as well as on a belief that guardianship would lead to decreased adoptions. In Delaware, evaluators attributed the infrequent use of guardianships to caseworkers' failure to discuss guardianship with caregivers, although it was unclear whether this omission was due to caseworkers' philosophical opposition or to a lack of awareness and training about guardianship. In New Mexico and Oregon, concerns about guardianship had less to do with philosophical objections than with the time, effort, and paperwork required to process them.

Caseworker Training

Inadequate training and information dissemination on guardianship has contributed to some misconceptions regarding this permanency option. During site visits in North Carolina, staff in several counties expressed confusion regarding assisted guardianship rules, especially with regard to waiver regulations, Medicaid eligibility, and receipt of Supplemental Security Income payments. Montana and Oregon reported similar concerns about caseworkers' limited knowledge of assisted guardianship rules and procedures. Illinois' final evaluation report cited caseworker turnover, supervisors' failure to disseminate information on guardianship to front-line staff, and under-use of training manuals as obstacles to workers fully understanding and utilizing the guardianship option. States that have expanded and strengthened their training programs have observed a gradual increase in acceptance of guardianship as a legitimate permanency strategy among caseworkers and child welfare supervisors. For example, staff's experience with assisted guardianship in one North Carolina county led to changes in agency norms regarding the use of guardianship in general; staff began to value guardianship, subsidized or not, as a way of expediting permanency without eliminating future options for reunification or adoption.⁵⁽²⁾

States must balance the need for guardianship training with other demands placed on caseworkers' time. Maryland planned extensive training initially, but found that caseworkers had little time to attend because of other mandated trainings, court appearances, and the day-to-day crises of families on their caseloads. Rather than trying to change workers' attitudes about guardianship through training, another strategy involves the implementation of organizational procedures to ensure that guardianship is given reasonable consideration. In response to workers' failure to discuss guardianship with caregivers, Delaware's Division of Family Services created a Permanency Committee to review each case in placement for more than nine months and to ensure consideration of guardianship as a permanency option.

Guardianship Subsidy Amounts

Families that assume legal guardianship often require financial supports and services to support children in their care. An important issue that has arisen with assisted guardianship waivers is whether prospective guardians are willing or able to accept lower subsidy payments in return for expanded decision-making authority and reduced government oversight. Five States - Delaware, Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, and Oregon - began with the assumption that foster care providers would not consider guardianship without a subsidy at least equal to that available to foster or adoptive families. Other States hoped that a lower payment would be sufficient when coupled with the increased autonomy and freedom from child welfare agency oversight offered by guardianship. Maryland offered guardians a $300 monthly stipend, greater than the $188 monthly TANF payment for kinship care providers but $300 less than the $600 monthly payment available to licensed relative foster care providers. North Carolina initially took a similar approach, providing guardians with a $250 monthly stipend that left caregivers with between $65 and $165 less per month, depending on the child's age, than they would have received in foster care payments.

The results of evaluations in Maryland and North Carolina suggest that for many caregivers, financial considerations ultimately outweigh other benefits of guardianship. During the first three years of North Carolina's demonstration, no counties established a single assisted guardianship; county child welfare agency staff reported that many licensed relative foster care providers were reluctant to absorb the financial loss that would result from assuming guardianship. Due in part to these anecdotal findings, North Carolina increased the guardianship subsidy payment to equal the foster care board rate in October 2000 in hopes of making assisted guardianship a more attractive option. Similarly, child welfare administrators interviewed for Maryland's interim evaluation report expressed concern that the payment differential between relative foster care and guardianship could discourage some relative foster parents from choosing guardianship. Evaluation findings from these States suggest that guardianship is not an attractive option for many caregivers if it entails a substantial net loss in family income.

Role of the Courts

Because of their authority to grant or deny the establishment of legal guardianship, local courts have played a vital role in the implementation and success of assisted guardianship waiver projects. States have reported several challenges and have developed a variety of strategies for working successfully with the courts. The experiences of these States reveal the importance of close and early collaboration with the courts in developing streamlined procedures for establishing guardianships. In Illinois, a Subsidized Guardianship Specialist advises the court on the particulars of each family's circumstances that have a bearing on the decision to transfer guardianship. Oregon faced a problem with excessive petitions for additional hearings, which were necessary to ensure a continuous stream of funding to a caregiver while the court considered guardianship. On the suggestion of a judge, the State revised its assisted guardianship procedures to conform to adoption procedures, a change that reduced paperwork, streamlined court procedures, and reduced the number of hearings.

Delaware faced difficulties regarding the legal definition of guardianship and the accompanying rights and responsibilities of legal guardians. In that State, the cooperation of the family courts and the State's department of justice was important to the drafting and passage of an updated guardianship statute that clearly defines the rights, roles, and responsibilities of guardians, specifies eligibility criteria for prospective guardians, and delineates the circumstances under which a guardianship may be dissolved.

Maryland's interim process evaluation revealed that the preferences and prejudices of judges and attorneys often exert considerable influence on the permanency options available to children in out-of-home placement. According to senior social service managers and officials interviewed by the State's evaluators, some judges expressed uneasiness abut placing children with relatives because they believed they were too similar or too close to the biological parent(s) of the child in question. Others reported that judges and attorneys often advised relative caregivers to seek foster care because of the increased funds available, thereby making it difficult for the child welfare system to divert children to other permanency options like guardianship. One interviewee described attorneys in Maryland as telling foster parents to "go for the money."

Back to Table of Contents

State Outcome Evaluations - Summary of Key Findings and Issues

The key questions regarding assisted guardianship relate to its potential effect on child welfare outcomes, namely, the ultimate goal of keeping children in safe, stable home environments that provide for their physical, emotional, and developmental needs. Questions that have arisen with respect to child welfare outcomes include:

Does the availability of subsidized guardianship result in a greater number of children achieving permanency?
Does the availability of guardianship result in children exiting to a permanent placement more quickly?
Are children in guardianship as safe from abuse and neglect as children in other permanency arrangements?
Are children in guardianship less likely to re-enter foster care than children who are reunified or adopted?
Does the availability of guardianship increase placement stability, i.e., does it reduce the number of placement episodes a child experiences over time?
Is guardianship as effective as other permanency arrangements in providing for the physical, emotional, and developmental well-being of children?

Achievement of Permanency

Achievement of permanency is one of the most important outcomes of interest with respect to assisted guardianship programs. Table 4 below summarizes available findings from States' evaluation reports regarding the impact of assisted guardianship on permanency. Although findings across States are not strictly comparable, the available data compare permanency rates, defined as eventual exits to guardianship, adoption, or reunification for experimental and control group children.

Table 4 Exits to Permanency by State

State	% of Children Achieving Permanency
Delaware	No data reported
Illinois	77.9% in the experimental group 71.8% in the control group
Maryland	42% in the experimental group 43% in the control group
Montana	No data available to date
New Mexico	48.3% in the experimental group 44.5% in the control group (data are from State guardianship component only)
North Carolina	No data reported
Oregon	No data reported

Illinois' evaluation provides the most conclusive data regarding the impact of guardianship on permanency. In that State, the availability of assisted guardianship boosted net permanency in the experimental group by a statistically significant 6.1 percent. Although reunification rates were statistically equivalent in both the control and the experimental groups, by March 2002 25.7 percent of children in the control group had aged out or still remained in long-term foster care, compared with only 19.7 percent in the experimental group. Permanency data from other States are less conclusive. Maryland found no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in net permanency outcomes, with 42 percent of children in the experimental group achieving permanency compared with 43 percent in the control group. To date, New Mexico's evaluation of its State guardianship program shows a somewhat higher rate of net permanency for children in the experimental group (48.3%) compared with those in the control group (44.5%).

Time to Foster Care Exit

Another dimension of permanency explored by some States is whether assisted guardianship facilitates more timely exit from out-of-home care. Among States that tracked time in foster care, the available evidence suggests that guardianship may decrease the length of out-of-home placements. For children in kinship care in Maryland's demonstration, eligibility for guardianship reduced the proportion of children still in care two years after foster care entry by between 10 percent (Cohort 1) and 26 percent (Cohort 2). Preliminary data from New Mexico suggest that children in guardianship exit out-of-home placement more quickly than youth waiting for adoption, with guardianship youth spending an average of 519 days in foster care prior to permanent placement compared with 616 days for adopted youth. Delaware, Illinois, North Carolina, and Oregon did not examine length of time in placement as part of their evaluation, while data on placement duration are still pending from Montana.

Maltreatment Recurrence

Some child welfare professionals have raised concerns about guardianship putting children at greater risk of maltreatment due to the withdrawal of administrative oversight and casework services, coupled with the greater potential access of abusive and neglectful parents to the guardian's home. Findings from Illinois' evaluation suggest that guardianship protects children from recurring maltreatment at least as well as other permanency options. In its final report, Illinois stated that subsequent abuse and neglect was lowest among children who were discharged to private guardians: 3.0 percent compared to 3.9 percent for adopted children, 7.7 percent for children who aged out or remained in foster care, and 8.8 percent for children reunified with their birth parents. Although the small difference in subsequent maltreatment between children discharged to private guardians and adopted children was not statistically significant, these results suggest that at a minimum, children in guardianship are just as safe as those who are adopted.

Maryland, North Carolina, and Delaware did not include data on maltreatment recurrence in their final evaluation reports. To date, New Mexico and Montana have not provided data on maltreatment recurrence, although New Mexico listed re-allegations of abuse and neglect as an outcome measure in its original waiver proposal. Oregon reported no safety data for the first phase of its waiver demonstration; however, it does plan to track subsequent maltreatment reports among children who exit to guardianship and other permanency arrangements during its demonstration's second phase.

Foster Care Re-entry

Children who experience maltreatment recurrence or another personal or family crisis may need to return to the custody of a public child welfare agency and subsequently to foster care. Few States reported specific data on the number of children who re-entered foster care following assignment to guardianship. States that examined this outcome generally reported very small rates of foster care re-entry. In Illinois, of the 6,820 children statewide who entered subsidized guardianship between May 1997 and March 2002, only 237 (3.5 percent) were no longer living in the home of the original guardian because of the death or incapacitation of the guardian or due to the legal dissolution of the guardianship. Of these 237 children, 117 (1.7% percent of all children exiting to guardianship) required a return to child welfare public agency custody; the remainder were appointed a new guardian, returned to the biological parent, or were adopted. In Oregon's demonstration, only 4 of 133 children (3 percent) re-entered substitute care during the first year following award of guardianship.

Placement Stability

Related to the issue of foster care re-entry is placement stability, the degree to which children experience multiple placements over time. In the case of guardianship, placement stability may be affected by disruptions, defined as situations in which the child leaves guardianship due to the caregiver's death or incapacitation, or dissolutions due to a finding of child maltreatment or because the guardian cannot meet the child's physical or developmental needs. Available data from State evaluations suggest that children with access to a guardianship subsidy experience comparable rates of placement stability as children in other placement arrangements. For children ever assigned to the Illinois guardianship demonstration prior to January 1999, the proportion of experimental group children still living in the same home in which they resided at the time of original assignment was 68.7 percent compared with 67.3 percent of children in the control group. Maryland's evaluation found that both experimental and control group children had an average of less than one placement change between December 2000 and January 2003, while almost all children placed in guardianship through Oregon's waiver demonstration remained in the same placement twelve months later.

Caregiver Perspectives on Guardianship

The experiences, perspectives, and attitudes of caregivers provide valuable insights into the effects of guardianship on child and family well-being. As with child welfare professionals, many of the attitudes of current and prospective guardians have arisen from a lack of knowledge about the goals of and the processes for establishing guardianship. The Illinois and Delaware evaluations found that many foster caregivers did not know about the guardianship option. For example, Illinois noted in its interim evaluation report that caregivers for 23 percent of children in the experimental group said they were never told about the guardianship option. In addition, foster parents in Illinois expressed initial skepticism stemming from their belief that guardianship was being promoted to save money rather than to promote safety, permanency, and well-being. Once guardianships are established or in process, many foster caregivers express satisfaction with this placement arrangement; in Montana and Oregon, for example, caregivers cited the guardian's enhanced ability to make decisions regarding the child (e.g., around health care, family visits, and education) as a principal advantage of guardianship:

One future Montana guardian noted that with guardianship it will be "easier to discipline and plan for the youth to be part of the family when you know he is going to stay with us until he goes to college."⁶

A relative guardian of two children in Oregon stated that under guardianship "we deal with them like they were our own. Just like the parent would do. This is rewarding because I know I am helping and hopefully they will remember when they are older … We give them consistency and stability which they did not have." ⁷

Despite improvements, guardians in the Illinois study continued to express confusion about the availability of assistance payments and the role of caseworkers following the award of guardianship. Illinois' interim evaluation found that whether or not caregivers decided to enter guardianship, the majority believed their caseworkers would continue to contact them. In addition, most caregivers in the experimental group believed they could vacate the guardianship if the relationship with the child did not work out. These caregivers' attitudes about giving children back raise questions about the manner in which caseworkers explained the parameters and responsibilities of guardianship.

Caregivers in other States have raised additional concerns about guardianship. Some guardians in the Delaware, Montana, and Oregon studies objected to the lengthiness of the guardianship process. Guardians in Montana and Oregon cited the loss of financial subsidies and support services when a youth turns eighteen, as well as poor access to mental health and therapy services for children in their care, as major disadvantages of guardianship. These findings suggest that prospective guardians may need more initial and ongoing training regarding the definition, goals, advantages, and limitations of the guardianship option.

Child Well-Being

Child welfare professionals have questioned whether guardianship promotes the psychological and intellectual development of children as well as other permanency options, and have asked whether special-needs children are better off with the supports and resources available through the traditional foster care system. Although few States have reported systematic findings on the developmental and well-being outcomes of children in guardianship, the available evidence suggests that children with access to assisted guardianship fare as well as those without access to assisted guardianship. Maryland and Montana have reported no significant differences between experimental group children (eligible for guardianship) and control group children on several measures of well-being, including school performance and attendance, engagement in risky behaviors, access to supports and services, and overall quality of life. Similarly, Illinois found no statistically significant differences between experimental group children and control group children in scales that measure self-efficacy, depression, connectedness to the community, social support from caregivers, physical health, and substance abuse.

The individual experiences and perspectives of children may reveal the most about the success of guardianship as a permanency option. Evaluation findings from the Illinois, Delaware, and Montana demonstrations indicated overall satisfaction on the part of children with their guardianship arrangements. Interviews with youth in Montana provide some of the deepest insights into the attitudes of children about guardianship. Youth in Montana's study identified several reasons for pursuing the guardianship, such as maintenance of strong ties with the biological parent, providing relatives with the financial support to keep the extended family together, giving parents time to address personal and legal problems, and providing stability to children who do not want to be adopted. The advantages of guardianship mentioned most frequently by youth include shedding the social stigma of foster care; experiencing an enhanced sense of stability; and gaining more freedom to engage in normal childhood activities, like spending time with friends, having sleepovers, getting a driver's license, or playing sports. Youth interviewed for the Montana evaluation offered these poignant observations on the positive effects of guardianship in their lives:

"Now I can go over and spend the night with my friends just like other people. I tried it once when I was in foster care and they wanted to investigate my friends' parents. It is a lot easier to have friends now." ⁸

"One of the best things about guardianship is that no social worker shows up at school." ⁹

"I used to have nightmares before every court hearing and I could not concentrate in school for a month before each hearing. I was afraid I would have to move. Now I don't have to do that anymore." ¹⁰

³Although Illinois' demonstration was implemented statewide, the evaluation was conducted in only three geographic regions: Cook Central Region, Peoria Sub-region, and East St. Louis Sub-region.Back

⁴These numbers refer to the total number of children ever assigned to the experimental or control group in the geographic regions in which the evaluation was implemented. A much larger number of children participated in the demonstration statewide, with 6,822 children entering private guardianship throughout the State between May 1, 1997 and March 31, 2002.Back

⁵Figures represent numbers reported in final evaluation reports or most recent progress reports for demonstrations that have not yet completed their initial five-year demonstration period.Back

⁵⁽²⁾The rationale for guardianship was quite different in North Carolina than in other States, which have used guardianship only when adoption and reunification have been ruled out as permanency options.Back

⁶Institute for Human Services Research (December 2003). Montana assisted guardianship title IV-E waiver demonstration project third annual report, p. 20Back

⁷Portland State University (March 2003). Evaluation of Oregon's title IV-E waiver demonstration project, p. 102.Back

⁸Institute for Human Services Research (December 2003). Montana assisted guardianship title IV-E waiver demonstration project third annual report, p. 23. Back

⁹Institute for Human Services Research, p. 24.Back

¹⁰Institute for Human Services Research, p. 21-22.Back

Back toTable of Contents