Mark F Testa
Biographic Data
| ID | 3093301 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark F Testa |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark F |
| FAMILY NAME | Testa |
| SIGNATURE | TESTA M F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 354 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The third national survey of child and adolescent well-being
Evidence Building and Information Accumulation
Objective: Intervention evaluation typically follows a frequentist paradigm: New analyses are conducted for each subsequent study, and findings are then used to improve policy practice. This approach largely ignores data from prior studies, leading to information loss and incomplete or inaccurate conclusions. Unlike the frequentist paradigm, the Bayesian paradigm uses formative data (as priors), which can be updated with the summative data, thus …
The Evolution of Federal Child Welfare Policy through the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018
The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 affords child welfare agencies a new opportunity to fund evidence-supported interventions to prevent children's removal into public foster care and ensure that youth in care receive appropriate treatment in the least restrictive (most family-like) setting. The new law has been generally heralded as a much-needed improvement over prior funding constraints, but there are concerns among a growing numb…
Evaluation of the Illinois adoption preservation and linkages (Apal) program using a regression discontinuity design
This study evaluated the Illinois Adoption Preservation and Linkages (APAL) program using a regression discontinuity design. APAL is a brief needs assessment and service referral program designed to prevent adjustment difficulties for former foster youth who reside in legally permanent adoptive and guardianship homes. Data for this study was derived from a stratified random sample of adoptive and guardianship caregivers in Illinois who completed …
Examining predictors of re-reports and recurrence of child maltreatment using two national data sources
Adoption and guardianship
The original thinking behind permanency planning for foster children was to secure a caregiver's intention to provide a permanent home, not to guarantee it. Little is known, however, about how intentions change after permanence or what effect this change has on post-permanency continuity of care. This study examined the mediating effects of caregivers' thoughts about ending an adoption or guardianship, and how this mechanism may be contingent on …
Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice
This article describes the framework developed by the Child Welfare Research and Evaluation Translational Framework Workgroup that was sponsored by the U.S. Children's Bureau for building evidence and bringing evidence-supported interventions to scale. The framework delineates five phases of implementation and evaluation: 1) identify and explore problem definitions and strength of evidence for promising interventions; 2) develop and test innovati…
Formative Evaluation of an Evidence-Based Intervention to Reduce Long-Term Foster Care
As part of the federal Permanency Innovations Initiative, this local grantee implemented an evidence-based intervention to improve outcomes for children with serious emotional disturbance. The project approach integrates the tenets of implementation science and program evaluation. Formative evaluation used a small sample (n = 76) to assess implementation integrity and statistical association to recommend whether the intervention was ready for sum…
Insuring the Integrity and Validity of Social Work Interventions
The near loss of the ability to conduct randomized controlled trials in the Title IV-E waiver demonstrations makes the negotiation of a ceasefire urgent in the "causal wars." Results-oriented accountability is a conceptual framework for managing the micro-macro tensions that arise in social work practice and research. This article uses subsidized guardianship experiments to illustrate the results-oriented accountability process by which innovatio…
Postadoption and Guardianship
Objectives: This study evaluated the effects of the Adoption Preservation, Assessment, and Linkage (APAL) postpermanency program. Method: A quasi-experimental, posttest-only design was used to estimate the program’s effects on youth discharged from foster care to adoption or legal guardianship. A random sample was surveyed (female = 44.7%; African American = 94%) and tracked with administrative data. The primary analysis estimated the program’s e…
Children discharged from kin and non-kin foster homes
Fostering Accountability
Fostering Accountability presents a model of child welfare decision-making that holds public officials answerable for the integrity and validity of the actions they take on behalf of the children and families in their care. It operationalizes the concept of results-oriented accountability, which demands that administrators and practitioners show valid evidence of their success in improving child and family outcomes, not do not merely demonstrate …
How the bear evolved into a whale
Integrated services for families with multiple problems
Child maltreatment and juvenile delinquency
When Children Cannot Return Home
Since the 1970s, finding alternative permanent families for children in foster care who could not return to their birth parents has been a primary goal of the child welfare system. Since that time, significant gains have been made in helping such children find permanent homes through adoption and guardianship. This article analyzes these trends and finds: A majority of states have doubled the number of adoptions from foster care over the 1995-97 …
The gift of kinship foster care
Kinship Care and Permanency
Should kinship care be favored as a form of permanency in and of itself or should it be avoided as a barrier to more binding forms of legal permanency? This question is examined using data from Cook County, Illinois. The study uses event history methods to analyze placement histories for 1992-95 cohorts of 23,685 children and a 1994 matched, cross-sectional sample of 1,910 children. It finds that kin placements are more stable than non-kin placem…
Conditions of risk for substitute care
Employment and Marriage among Inner-city Fathers
This article uses data from the Urban Poverty and Family Structure Survey of inner-city residents in Chicago to examine the effect of employment on the likelihood that single fathers marry. Our results show that employed fathers are twice as likely as nonemployed fathers to marry the mother of their first child. These results run contrary to Charles Murray's argument that welfare discourages employed, low-income men from marrying. They are consis…
Child maltreatment and juvenile delinquency
Integrated services for families with multiple problems
Employment and Marriage among Inner-city Fathers
This article uses data from the Urban Poverty and Family Structure Survey of inner-city residents in Chicago to examine the effect of employment on the likelihood that single fathers marry. Our results show that employed fathers are twice as likely as nonemployed fathers to marry the mother of their first child. These results run contrary to Charles Murray's argument that welfare discourages employed, low-income men from marrying. They are consis…
The gift of kinship foster care
When Children Cannot Return Home
Since the 1970s, finding alternative permanent families for children in foster care who could not return to their birth parents has been a primary goal of the child welfare system. Since that time, significant gains have been made in helping such children find permanent homes through adoption and guardianship. This article analyzes these trends and finds: A majority of states have doubled the number of adoptions from foster care over the 1995-97 …
Kinship Care and Permanency
Should kinship care be favored as a form of permanency in and of itself or should it be avoided as a barrier to more binding forms of legal permanency? This question is examined using data from Cook County, Illinois. The study uses event history methods to analyze placement histories for 1992-95 cohorts of 23,685 children and a 1994 matched, cross-sectional sample of 1,910 children. It finds that kin placements are more stable than non-kin placem…
The Evolution of Federal Child Welfare Policy through the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018
The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 affords child welfare agencies a new opportunity to fund evidence-supported interventions to prevent children's removal into public foster care and ensure that youth in care receive appropriate treatment in the least restrictive (most family-like) setting. The new law has been generally heralded as a much-needed improvement over prior funding constraints, but there are concerns among a growing numb…
Examining predictors of re-reports and recurrence of child maltreatment using two national data sources
Conditions of risk for substitute care
Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice
This article describes the framework developed by the Child Welfare Research and Evaluation Translational Framework Workgroup that was sponsored by the U.S. Children's Bureau for building evidence and bringing evidence-supported interventions to scale. The framework delineates five phases of implementation and evaluation: 1) identify and explore problem definitions and strength of evidence for promising interventions; 2) develop and test innovati…
Children discharged from kin and non-kin foster homes
Postadoption and Guardianship
Objectives: This study evaluated the effects of the Adoption Preservation, Assessment, and Linkage (APAL) postpermanency program. Method: A quasi-experimental, posttest-only design was used to estimate the program’s effects on youth discharged from foster care to adoption or legal guardianship. A random sample was surveyed (female = 44.7%; African American = 94%) and tracked with administrative data. The primary analysis estimated the program’s e…
Insuring the Integrity and Validity of Social Work Interventions
The near loss of the ability to conduct randomized controlled trials in the Title IV-E waiver demonstrations makes the negotiation of a ceasefire urgent in the "causal wars." Results-oriented accountability is a conceptual framework for managing the micro-macro tensions that arise in social work practice and research. This article uses subsidized guardianship experiments to illustrate the results-oriented accountability process by which innovatio…
Formative Evaluation of an Evidence-Based Intervention to Reduce Long-Term Foster Care
As part of the federal Permanency Innovations Initiative, this local grantee implemented an evidence-based intervention to improve outcomes for children with serious emotional disturbance. The project approach integrates the tenets of implementation science and program evaluation. Formative evaluation used a small sample (n = 76) to assess implementation integrity and statistical association to recommend whether the intervention was ready for sum…
Evaluation of the Illinois adoption preservation and linkages (Apal) program using a regression discontinuity design
This study evaluated the Illinois Adoption Preservation and Linkages (APAL) program using a regression discontinuity design. APAL is a brief needs assessment and service referral program designed to prevent adjustment difficulties for former foster youth who reside in legally permanent adoptive and guardianship homes. Data for this study was derived from a stratified random sample of adoptive and guardianship caregivers in Illinois who completed …
Evidence Building and Information Accumulation
Objective: Intervention evaluation typically follows a frequentist paradigm: New analyses are conducted for each subsequent study, and findings are then used to improve policy practice. This approach largely ignores data from prior studies, leading to information loss and incomplete or inaccurate conclusions. Unlike the frequentist paradigm, the Bayesian paradigm uses formative data (as priors), which can be updated with the summative data, thus …
How the bear evolved into a whale
Employment and Marriage among Inner-city Fathers
This article uses data from the Urban Poverty and Family Structure Survey of inner-city residents in Chicago to examine the effect of employment on the likelihood that single fathers marry. Our results show that employed fathers are twice as likely as nonemployed fathers to marry the mother of their first child. These results run contrary to Charles Murray's argument that welfare discourages employed, low-income men from marrying. They are consis…
Conditions of risk for substitute care
Kinship Care and Permanency
Should kinship care be favored as a form of permanency in and of itself or should it be avoided as a barrier to more binding forms of legal permanency? This question is examined using data from Cook County, Illinois. The study uses event history methods to analyze placement histories for 1992-95 cohorts of 23,685 children and a 1994 matched, cross-sectional sample of 1,910 children. It finds that kin placements are more stable than non-kin placem…
The gift of kinship foster care
When Children Cannot Return Home
Since the 1970s, finding alternative permanent families for children in foster care who could not return to their birth parents has been a primary goal of the child welfare system. Since that time, significant gains have been made in helping such children find permanent homes through adoption and guardianship. This article analyzes these trends and finds: A majority of states have doubled the number of adoptions from foster care over the 1995-97 …
Child maltreatment and juvenile delinquency
Integrated services for families with multiple problems
How the bear evolved into a whale
Fostering Accountability
Fostering Accountability presents a model of child welfare decision-making that holds public officials answerable for the integrity and validity of the actions they take on behalf of the children and families in their care. It operationalizes the concept of results-oriented accountability, which demands that administrators and practitioners show valid evidence of their success in improving child and family outcomes, not do not merely demonstrate …
Children discharged from kin and non-kin foster homes
Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice
This article describes the framework developed by the Child Welfare Research and Evaluation Translational Framework Workgroup that was sponsored by the U.S. Children's Bureau for building evidence and bringing evidence-supported interventions to scale. The framework delineates five phases of implementation and evaluation: 1) identify and explore problem definitions and strength of evidence for promising interventions; 2) develop and test innovati…
Formative Evaluation of an Evidence-Based Intervention to Reduce Long-Term Foster Care
As part of the federal Permanency Innovations Initiative, this local grantee implemented an evidence-based intervention to improve outcomes for children with serious emotional disturbance. The project approach integrates the tenets of implementation science and program evaluation. Formative evaluation used a small sample (n = 76) to assess implementation integrity and statistical association to recommend whether the intervention was ready for sum…
Insuring the Integrity and Validity of Social Work Interventions
The near loss of the ability to conduct randomized controlled trials in the Title IV-E waiver demonstrations makes the negotiation of a ceasefire urgent in the "causal wars." Results-oriented accountability is a conceptual framework for managing the micro-macro tensions that arise in social work practice and research. This article uses subsidized guardianship experiments to illustrate the results-oriented accountability process by which innovatio…
Postadoption and Guardianship
Objectives: This study evaluated the effects of the Adoption Preservation, Assessment, and Linkage (APAL) postpermanency program. Method: A quasi-experimental, posttest-only design was used to estimate the program’s effects on youth discharged from foster care to adoption or legal guardianship. A random sample was surveyed (female = 44.7%; African American = 94%) and tracked with administrative data. The primary analysis estimated the program’s e…
Examining predictors of re-reports and recurrence of child maltreatment using two national data sources
Adoption and guardianship
The original thinking behind permanency planning for foster children was to secure a caregiver's intention to provide a permanent home, not to guarantee it. Little is known, however, about how intentions change after permanence or what effect this change has on post-permanency continuity of care. This study examined the mediating effects of caregivers' thoughts about ending an adoption or guardianship, and how this mechanism may be contingent on …
Evaluation of the Illinois adoption preservation and linkages (Apal) program using a regression discontinuity design
This study evaluated the Illinois Adoption Preservation and Linkages (APAL) program using a regression discontinuity design. APAL is a brief needs assessment and service referral program designed to prevent adjustment difficulties for former foster youth who reside in legally permanent adoptive and guardianship homes. Data for this study was derived from a stratified random sample of adoptive and guardianship caregivers in Illinois who completed …
Evidence Building and Information Accumulation
Objective: Intervention evaluation typically follows a frequentist paradigm: New analyses are conducted for each subsequent study, and findings are then used to improve policy practice. This approach largely ignores data from prior studies, leading to information loss and incomplete or inaccurate conclusions. Unlike the frequentist paradigm, the Bayesian paradigm uses formative data (as priors), which can be updated with the summative data, thus …
The Evolution of Federal Child Welfare Policy through the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018
The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 affords child welfare agencies a new opportunity to fund evidence-supported interventions to prevent children's removal into public foster care and ensure that youth in care receive appropriate treatment in the least restrictive (most family-like) setting. The new law has been generally heralded as a much-needed improvement over prior funding constraints, but there are concerns among a growing numb…
The third national survey of child and adolescent well-being
Psychology (17 works) · Child Welfare and Adoption (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Medicine (14 works) · Nursing (11 works) · Foster care (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (8 works) · Psychiatry (8 works) · Welfare (8 works)