Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse, Culturally Responsive Guardian ad Litem Volunteer Pool in Durham County
Abstract
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
What steps should the Durham County Guardian ad Litem (GAL) Program take to further
improve its recruitment and retention of diverse, culturally responsive volunteers?
The Durham County Guardian ad Litem (GAL) Program is part of a larger state system
and national network dedicated to ensuring abused and neglected children have advocates
in court. In recent years, the National Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Association,
a large network of local and state agencies and organizations, has encouraged its
members to increase GAL and CASA volunteer diversity. Increasing diversity has become
a priority largely because the majority of volunteers nationally are white and female,
whereas the majority of children served are African American and male.
National CASA encourages offices to recruit more volunteers that reflect “the makeup
of the children in the judicial system as well as the local community.” The Durham
County GAL Program has been relatively successful in recruiting volunteers that reflect
the demographic of the larger Durham population. This has worked because the Durham
office takes a holistic approach to assigning volunteers to children, looking at factors
that extend beyond race and gender. Nevertheless, because the overall demographics
of the volunteers and children are vastly different, the program acknowledges that
its recruitment efforts could always be more targeted. The Durham County GAL Program
is limited in its ability to make substantial changes to its recruitment and retention
efforts, however, because the office lacks the funding and current full-time staff
lack the time. METHODOLOGY: To address the Durham County GAL Program’s policy question,
I researched best practices for recruiting and retaining diverse and culturally competent
volunteers. I performed a literature and resource review on the topic. Additionally,
I interviewed staff from National CASA, the North Carolina Guardian ad Litem Program,
and local and state programs identified by National CASA as “Inclusion Award” winners.
POLICY OPTIONS: My policy options were grouped into two categories: Recruitment and
Retention. Altogether, I listed seventeen policy options grouped into different option
groups that focused on capacity-building, targeted recruitment, and adopting specific
recruitment strategies. Each option group was evaluated against the following three
criteria: (1) minimize Durham County GAL Program costs, (2) maximize self-sustainability,
and (3) ensure political feasibility.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Based on my analysis, I recommend the following policy options under
each policy group:
Recruitment Option Group #1: Target specific groups
Focus recruitment on a particular group(s) of underrepresented advocate volunteers—i.e.
African Americans, Hispanics, males. Recruitment Option Group #2: Capacity-building
Create a volunteer recruitment committee
Recruit more non-advocate volunteers. Recruitment Option Group #3: Specific recruitment
strategies
If a volunteer recruitment committee is created or if non-advocate volunteers are
recruited: any combination of the policy options could be adopted (other than “do
nothing”)
If no volunteer recruitment committee is created or if non-advocate volunteers are
not recruited: do nothing/retain current strategies. Retention Option Group #4: Capacity-building
Use non-advocate volunteers to assist with retention efforts.
Type
Master's projectDepartment
The Sanford School of Public PolicyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3579Citation
Hamilton, Andrea (2011). Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse, Culturally Responsive Guardian ad Litem Volunteer
Pool in Durham County. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3579.More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Sanford School Master of Public Policy (MPP) Program Master’s Projects
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info