The Clinical Assessment Package for Assessing Client Risks and Strengths (CASPARS) is a set of five instruments that give equal consideration to client strengths and risks. The instruments are unusual in that they yield two scores: a risk score and an asset score. Responsive to the demand for clinical tools that help practitioners focus on client strengths, the instruments guide intervention toward the goals of increasing strengths and decreasing risks. The items of the instruments were developed from in-depth case studies, research and theory on risk and resilience, and the experience of direct practitioners. I tested the CASPARS were tested on a sample of 146 children and their families. The coefficient alphas and inter-rater reliabilities were .9 and above. Item-total analysis suggest good content validity, and construct validities are within acceptable ranges.

1. CASPARS: Clinical
Assessment Package for
Assessing Client Risks &
Strengths
Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW
Professor, School of Social Work,
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA
jgilgun@umn.edu

2. Topics
 Assessment 101
 The CASPARS
 The 4-D
 Case Studies
 Customizing Tools

3. Significance
 Practice effectiveness
 Accountability
 Brief treatment
 Evidence-based practice
 Best research evidence
 Clinical experience
 Client preferences, wants, cultures
 Practitioners’ personal experiences, values,
cultures
 Ethical codes

4. Purposes of the Instruments
 direct attention to positives
 lead to helpful assessments
 help formulate treatment plans
 help estimate progress in treatment
 provide a check on countertransference
 provide measures of outcome
 provide data that demonstrates effects of
treatment

5. Concepts of the Instruments
 Assets are Significant in Models of Risk
 Adding Assets to Risk Models Increases
Accuracy of Classification
 Assets Alone in Models of Risks May be as
Accurate as Risk Alone Models
 Assets, Risks, and Protective Factors Reside
Within Individuals, Families, Other Social
Groups, Communities, Social Policies,
and Cultural Themes and Practices.
 Asset Models Require Shifts in Thinking

6. Assets
 Assets are positive counterparts of risk that
can contribute to pro-social outcomes when
individuals are exposed to risks.
 Assets include factors such as high IQ,
physical attractiveness, verbal facility, parents
who care, safe neighborhoods, adequate
family income, a pro-social sense of agency,
optimism about a positive future
 Not all persons with assets turn out well, nor
do all persons from poor families and unsafe
neighborhoods have maladaptive outcomes

7. Risks
 Risks predict that a proportion of an at-risk
group will experience adverse outcomes.
 Persons with risks are vulnerable to an
associated outcome, but risks cannot predict
that any one person in an at-risk group will
experience that outcome
 Risks include childhood maltreatment, unsafe
neighborhoods, isolated families, exposure to
persons who model violent behaviors, genetic
risks such as those predisposing persons to
particular types of physiological reactivity
Individuals in an at-risk group, however, are
vulnerable to that outcome.

8. Risk Pile-Up
 a series of risks that may
 overwhelm whatever resources an
individual can marshall
 or in some cases persons appear to
have the resources to cope.

9. Protective Factors
assets individuals actively use
 to cope with
 adapt to, or
overcome vulnerability-inducing
conditions, or risks

10. Protective Factors
 Pro-social sense of agency
 Desire to emulate persons who are pro-social
 Have avenues open to them where they can
attain a sense of self that includes self-
efficacy and self-worth
 These avenues do not harm self or others
 Emotional expressiveness
 Affirmative relationships
 Healthy sexuality
 Sense of belonging to a pro-social group
 Strong sense of positive future
 Resources to attain future goals

11. Resilience
 Definition: positive outcomes when
individuals have been exposed to risks
 Resilience means a person has risk
conditions and therefore has
vulnerabilities
 Persons can be
 Resilient at one point and not at others
 Resilient in some areas and not in others

12. CASPARS
 Emotional expressiveness
 Family Relationships
 Peer Relationships
 Family Embeddedness
 Sexuality

13. Scoring the CASPARS
 Each instrument yields two scores: An asset
score and a risk score
 Scores for each instrument are attained by
summing each column
 Children can be classified by using scores
from single instruments
 Children can be classified using scores
resulting from the sums of scores
of all the instruments for a global score

14. Scoring the CASPARS
 1=low strength or low risk
 2=medium strength or medium risk
 3=high strength or high risk
 0=not observed or unknown

15. The 4-D
 Belonging

Mastery
 Independence
 Generosity

16. Scoring the 4-D
 Each instrument yields two scores: An asset
score and a risk score
 Scores for each instrument are attained by
summing each column
 Children can be classified by using scores
from single instruments
 Children can be classified using scores
resulting from the sums of scores
of all the instruments for a global score

17. Scoring the 4-D
 1=mixed
 2=low strength or low risk
 3=medium strength or medium risk
 4=high strength or high risk

18. Relationship of Assets & Risks
Over the Course of Intervention
40
30
20
10
0
T1 T2 T3
Assets Risks

19. Clinical Assessment
Tools
 Short, easy to use
 Useful to practice
 Provide scores
 Not the same as tools used in
psychological and educational testing
 Provide practice guidelines
 When they are based on research &
practice experience

20. Types of Assessments
 Unsystematic
 Systematic but idiosyncratic
 Systematic and shared

21. Systematic, Shared Asessments
 Can coordinate practice across cases,
within agencies, and across agencies
 Provide practice guidelines
 Help standardize practice
 Provide clear identity for the agency

22. Each Case is Unique
 General, Agency-Wide Assessment
 Individualized goals, outcomes, and
interventions

23. The CASPARS: Sources of
Concepts
 My reflections on the factors
associated with resilience
 Factors extracted from
 My long-term life history research
(primary)
 Integrated with
 social work’s ecological
perspectives

Research on risk and resilience

24. Sources of Items: 4-D
 Circle of Courage
 Related research and theory
 Experience of social work professionals
and one clinical psychologist
 My life history research

25. Sources of Items: CASPARS
 Primary: My life history research
 Backed up with
 Related research and theory
 Experience of two social work
professionals and two clinical
psychologists

26. Stetson School Assessment
 Responsibility
 Honesty
 Motivation for treatment
 Remorse
 Developed by Phil Rich, Barre, MA, USA
 1/978/355-4541

27. Capacities for Accountability
 What do the young people say about their
problematic sexual behaviours?
 Can they describe them?
 Take responsibility for them?
 Recognize harm done?
 Are they willing to apologize?
 Are they willing to work on managing these behaviours?
 This is a strengths-based approached because such
questions are asking the young people to tap into
their competencies.

28. Capacities for Accountability
 Appropriate vs. flat affect in talking about their
behaviours
 Take responsibility vs. blame others
 Remorse vs. “blowing off”
 Signaled by
 I’m sorry I hurt others.
 I feel ashamed. Does the child appear to have these
responses but need help in articulating them?
 How can practitioners do assessments that provide
children with a sense of safety so that children can
show their deep shame, embarrassment, guilt, and
remorse, which we can assume is almost always
there?

29. Field Tests
 CASPARS
 25 professionals
 1 state
 N=146
 4-D
 25 professionals
 4 states
 N=118

30. The CASPARS
 Content Validity
 Item-Total Analysis
 Coefficient Alpha
 Inter-Rater Reliabilities
 Construct Validities

31. Item-Total Analysis
Means
Emo Peer Fam Rel Fam Emb Sex
.76 .63.80 .78 .67
Note: none below .50

32. Alphas & IRR
# Items Alphas IRR
 Emo 14 .94 .92
 Peer 16 .90 .93
 FamRel 20 .97 .93
 Embed 13 .96 .92
 Sex 13 .90 .95

33. Construct Validities
R
 Emo -.56
 Peer -.80
 FamRel -.81
 Embed -.82
 Sex .46

34. The 4-D
 Content Validity
 Item-Total Analysis
 Coefficient Alpha
 Interviewing

35. Results of Item-Total Analysis
Instrument # of Items #
Below .5
Belonging 12 1
Mastery 18 2
Independence 9 1
Generosity 9 0

36. Results: Coefficient Alphas
Initial Eliminate Final
Belonging .87 Q8 .89
Knowing .93 Q2 & 2 .93
Independence .87 Q4 .91
Generosity .91 0 .91

37. Results: Standard Errors
of Measurement
Expected Actual
Belonging 5.5 5.62
Mastery 9.5 7.16
Independence 4.0 8.84
Generosity 4.5 4.87
Total 11.94 11.75

38. Interviews with Users
 Usefulness the most important criteria
for the worth of practice tools
 Find out instruments’ usefulness
through discussions with users

39. Interviews with Users
 Individually
 Phone
 Email
 In-person
 Group in-Person
 Minnesota staff
 South Carolina staff
 Informational interviews in person

South Carolina social workers and care providers

40. Responses to the Field Test:
Summary
 Positive responses
 Helped me know youth in a new way
 Led to one of the best conversations I’ve
ever had
 Areas for improvement
 Too long
 Too intrusive, such as the questions on
sexuality
 Don’t fit practice

41. References
Brendtro, Larry K., Martin Brokenleg, & Steven Van Bockern (1990). Reclaiming
youth at risk: Our hope for the future. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service
Gilgun, Jane F. (2003). The 4-D: Strengths-based instruments for the assessment of
youth who’ve experienced adversities. Submitted for publication.
Gilgun, Jane F. (2002a). Completing the Circle: American Indian Medicine Wheels
and the promotion of resilience in children and youth in care. Journal of Human Behavior
and the Social Environment, 6(2), 65-84.
Gilgun, Jane F. (1999b). CASPARS: New tools for assessing client risks and
strengths. Families in Society, 80, 450-459. tools available at
ssw.che.umn.edu/faculty/jgilgun.htm
Gilgun, Jane F., Susan Keskinen, Danette Jones Marti, & Kay Rice. (1999). Clinical
applications of the CASPARS instruments: Boys who act out sexually . Families in Society,
80, 629-641.
Levitt, J. L., & Reid, W., J. (1981). Rapid-assessment instruments for practice.
Social Work Research and Abstracts, 17, 13-19.
Schafer M. (1999) Nomothetic and idiographic methodology in psychiatry: A
historical-philosophical analysis. Medicine, Health Care & Philosophy, 2(3):265-74.