Mississippi’s experience implementing a statewide Child Advocacy Studies Training (CAST) initiative

Abstract

In response to a national deficit in education about child maltreatment, colleges and universities throughout the United States provide Child Advocacy Studies Training (CAST) courses and CAST certificate or minor programs to educate undergraduate and graduate students in child maltreatment. This article reports results from an implementation evaluation of Mississippi’s CAST Initiative, the first effort to implement CAST courses and programs in colleges and universities throughout a state. Through interviews with administrators and faculty implementing CAST in Mississippi, we provide a brief history of the initiative, review the initial development of CAST courses and programs, discuss considerations related to the program’s implementation, and report faculty’s plans for the future of CAST. Our evaluation provides evidence that the implementation of Mississippi’s CAST initiative has had considerable success and has good prospects for enduring. Our findings also expand knowledge about the contextual issues involved in implementation, point to the value of strong partnerships between CAST colleges and universities and community organizations, and identify some considerations connected to expanding enrollment in CAST.

Keywords:

• CAST
• Child Advocacy Studies Training
• child abuse and neglect
• child protection
• undergraduate education

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Karla Tye, Amanda Adams, Wendy Copeland, Equiller Mahone, Hollie Jeffery, Michael Braun, Heidi Meyer, and all the Mississippi service professionals, faculty and students who so generously assisted us with this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of Institutional Review Board of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was completed through a grant from Children’s Advocacy Centers of Mississippi™.

Notes on contributors

Theodore P. Cross

Theodore P. Cross, Ph.D. is a senior research professor in the Children and Family Research Center in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Yu-Ling Chiu

Yu-Ling Chiu, Ph.D. is a research specialist in the Children and Family Research Center in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.