Anchorage CINA Therapeutic Court: Process and Outcome Evaluation

Status: current


Research Purpose:

The outcome study seeks to determine whether families who participate in the therapeutic court program have improved outcomes over a comparison group families that received treatment as usual. Outcomes of interest include:

  1. Instances of termination of parental rights and reunification for participants/children
  2. Time in foster care and number of placements
  3. Substantiated maltreatment reports and removals subsequent to CTC entry
  4. Adult criminal recidivism following entry into the program

Project Design:

Year 1 of the study involved a process evaluation including a best practices assessment, pre-court staffing, and court observation, individual interviews with team members, and a focus group interview with program participants. The process evaluation also included a review of program data to assess its utility in the outcome evaluation. In Year 2, the outcome study is using a quasi-experimental design. A comparison group consisting of parents not referred to Anchorage CINA Therapeutic Court for various reasons will be compared to program participants. Analyses will be conducted at the levels of children, adults/parents, and families.

Funding Source: The Alaska Court System has contracted with NPC Research to conduct the evaluation.

Start Date: January 2018

Project Team

Principal Investigator & Project Director

Marny Rivera, Ph.D.

Project Staff

Timothy Ho, Ph.D.

Adrian Johnson, M.S.W.

Kate Kissick, B.A.

David Reinitz, B.A.