By 1980, despite initial resistance to meeting the requirement for GAL appointment, forty-six states and territories had implemented state laws that at least partially complied.³ The language used in the state statutes varied greatly in their interpretation of the GAL provision. Many states merely repeated or paraphrased the language of the federal statute without offering further specificity about who should serve in this role, or what their duties should be.⁴ Significantly, the federal grant money was insufficient to fully fund the appointment of a GAL to every child. ⁵

In the early years of implementation, even without statutory mandate to do so, most judges appointed attorneys as GALs.⁶ However, the search for more cost effective methods⁷ and for more complete information than attorneys often had the time or training to provide ⁸ led to the development of other models of representation. These alternative methods have since taken many forms, with the most successful being the use of trained citizen volunteers. Commonly called Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) or Volunteer GALs, these volunteers currently are serving in courts in every state. ⁹ Most of the programs overseeing these volunteers are members of the National Court Appointed Special Advocates Association (NCASAA), which provides training and technical assistance to promote growth and quality of volunteers and programs.

In the almost nineteen years since CAPTA, much has been written about who is qualified to serve in the role of GAL and what representation of the child should entail. Debate, however, continues on these fundamental issues, as does dispute over who should fund GAL programs. The funding and definitional deficiencies that plagued the early implementation of the CAPTA guardian ad litem requirement still exist, and independent representation for abused and neglected children remains inconsistent and inadequate. ¹⁰

The National CASA Association's Citizens Agenda, passed by its Board of Directors in 1990, asserts that every abused or neglected child in the court system has a right to have an advocate in court to speak on his or her behalf. Because of serious deficiencies in the current system of guardian ad litem services, that right is not assured to every abused or neglected child who needs court representation. National CASA believes that these deficiencies should be addressed and recommends that two initial steps be taken. First, the roles and responsibilities of volunteers and attorneys, who should play a significant part in assuring that decisions by courts are in the best interests of every child, must be clarified. Second, the states must adopt and implement a uniform description of the duties of the guardian ad litem. This article addresses the need for these measures, makes a case for the involvement of volunteers, and presents a comprehensive description of the proposed duties.