Child Welfare Decision Research Articles

Whose Rights Count? Negotiating Practice, Policy, and Legal Dilemmas Regarding Infant-Parent Contact When Infants are in Out-of-Home Care.

This article takes a human rights perspective with a view to articulating the infant’s perspective when the infant has been subjected to abuse, neglect, or both and is reliant on the state to ensure his or her health and well-being. When a young child is removed from parental care, important and often difficult decisions have to be made about subsequent contact between child and parent. We consider a number of dilemmas which may arise for practitioners when they are assisting child welfare decision makers in relation to contact, and acknowledge the limited empirical follow-up studies of the impact of child welfare practice and legal decisions on infant outcomes. We draw on the significant and substantive evidence base about infant emotional and cognitive development and infant–parent attachment relationships as well as infant mental health to illuminate the infant’s subjective experience in these practice dilemmas. We describe innovations in practice from various countries, which seek to shed light on the challenges often associated with contact.

Utilization of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect by child welfare agencies in Ontario

The purpose of this study was to analyze how child maltreatment surveillance data from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS) is used by senior child welfare decision makers. This triangulation mixed-methods study included quantitative and qualitative methods to facilitate an in-depth exploration from multiple perspectives. We interviewed Ontario child welfare decision makers to measure utilization of the CIS in policy development. The majority of respondents were aware of the CIS data. Decision makers reported using these data to determine resource allocation, understand reported maltreatment trends and validate findings at their own agencies. Urban agencies used the data more than did rural agencies. This study is the first to triangulate data to understand and improve utilization of child maltreatment surveillance data. The study participants indicated considerable appreciation of the data and also provided ideas for improvements across the surveillance cycle.

A critique of methods used to describe the overrepresentation of African Americans in the child welfare system

The overrepresentation of minority children in the child welfare system has long been a troubling issue. Strategies to reduce this racial imbalance have typically focused on child welfare decision making at various time points in the course of a case, informed by descriptive statistics used to measure racial disproportionality and disparity at these key decision points. In this paper we make comparisons between two methods used to describe racial disproportionality and disparity in child welfare: one uses the general child population as its reference group and the other uses the child welfare population as it changes from one decision point to the next. This paper discusses and critiques these two methods, using the data from four states to illustrate the utility of each in describing racial overrepresentation in child welfare.

Macro impacts on caseworker decision-making in child welfare: a cross-national comparison

This paper focuses on the factors impacting on decision-making in child and family social work through a cross-national comparison. In doing so, the larger arena of the political and social contexts of both the United States and Northern Ireland are examined. For each of the countries we describe the historical and political context of child welfare, particularly the tension between child safety and family support, and how children's rights are attended to and interpreted in each country. This discussion also examines the extent to which decision-making in each jurisdiction is influenced by constitutional imperatives, with particular reference to the US Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. From this general comparison we conclude with observations about child welfare decision-making within the national context and offer suggestions for further theoretical development in this area whilst also examining where the practices in each jurisdiction may benefit from review.

“The law cannot terminate bloodlines”: Families and child welfare decisions

Child welfare professionals are called to make determinations that affect whether children can stay or reunify with their families. These decisions are framed by policies that inform and constrain their professional and personal understanding of risk and relationships. This manuscript explores themes related to children's relationships with their families that emerged from a qualitative study with 18 child welfare professionals, including judges, lawyers, and masters-level social workers who represent different constituencies in child welfare cases. It is supplemented by interviews with 6 child-welfare involved parents, all of them biological mothers. The majority of participants' believe that existing families are nearly always better caregivers to children than legally mandated ones. Existing families are perceived as more likely to love and be loved by their children, to protect children from harm, and to be superior to currently available foster care and alternative placements. Yet, participants perceive the policies to prefer substitute, legally created families over already existing families. Such policies leave child welfare unenviable position of having to work in ways contradicts their personal and professional judgment of what is best for the families and children they serve.

Placement decisions and disparities among aboriginal groups: An application of the decision making ecology through multi-level analysis

Objective This paper examined the relative influence of clinical and organizational characteristics on the decision to place a child in out-of-home care at the conclusion of a child maltreatment investigation. It tested the hypothesis that extraneous factors, specifically, organizational characteristics, impact the decision to place a child in out-of-home care. A secondary aim was to identify possible decision making influences related to disparities in placement decisions tied to Aboriginal children. Research suggests that the Aboriginal status of the child and structural risk factors affecting the family, such as poverty and poor housing, substantially account for this overrepresentation. Methods The decision to place a child in out-of-home care was examined using data from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. This child welfare dataset collected information about the results of nearly 5,000 child maltreatment investigations as well as a description of the characteristics of the workers and organization responsible for conducting those investigations. Multi-level statistical models were developed using MPlus software, which can accommodate dichotomous outcome variables, which are more reflective of decision making in child welfare. Mplus allows the specific case of the logistic link function for binary outcome variables under maximum likelihood estimation. Results Final models revealed the importance of the number of Aboriginal reports to an organization as a key second level predictor of the placement decision. It is the only second level factor that remains in the final model. This finding was very stable when tested over several different levels of proportionate caseload representation ranging from greater than 50% to 20% of the caseload. Conclusions Disparities among Aboriginal children in child welfare decision making were identified at the agency level. Practice implications The study provides additional evidence supporting the possibility that one source of overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in the Canadian foster care system is a lack of appropriate resources at the agency or community level.

Toward Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Child Welfare

Drawing on the authors’ experience in the international Campbell Collaboration, this essay presents a principled and pragmatic approach to evidence-informed decisions about child welfare. This approach takes into account the growing body of empirical evidence on the reliability and validity of various methods of research synthesis. It also considers wide variations in the cultural, economic, and political contexts in which policy and practice decisions are made—and the contexts in which children live and die. This essay illustrates the use of Campbell and Cochrane systematic reviews to inform child welfare decisions in the diverse contexts that exist around the globe.

Rescuing Children and Punishing Poor Families: Housing Related Decisions

Child welfare policy is not self implementing; an understanding of child welfare policy must therefore include the decision making practices by those whom Michael Lipsky (1980) has called bureaucrats. This article reports data from a qualitative study exploring perceptions of child welfare professionals about housing-related child welfare decisions. Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 18 child welfare lawyers, judges, and masters level social workers from a large city in the mid-Atlantic U.S. All agreed that there is insufficient affordable adequate housing. They held conflicting views, however, on: 1) the standard for adequate housing in the absence of a clear legal definition; 2) who should be held responsible for housing that is deemed inadequate ; and 3) the consequences of housing conditions for supervised children and their families. Rationales for decision-making stem from contested understandings of responsibility and the role of the state as protector of vulnerable children. These, in turn, appear to be influenced by a combination of individual factors, including personal values, ideology and life experiences; a response in the face of limited resources and conflicting mandates common to street-level bureaucracy; and professional and institutional mandates that are perceived to proscribe behaviors and activities.

Family Involvement in Child Welfare Decision-Making: Strategies and Research On Inclusive Practices

Child welfare practice has undergone significant shifts in the relationship between state agencies and families, with families increasingly being considered as partners in decision-making. An emerging body of research shows high family satisfaction with these approaches, but little outcome research currently exists. This article synthesizes practice and research literature on three predominant approaches to family involvement, Family Group Decision-Making (FGDM), Team Decision-Making (TDM), and Community Partnerships for Protecting Children (CPCC). We conclude with recommendations for future research, and for addressing the underlying values and ethics of family involvement.

Fatherhood in the Child Welfare System: Evaluation of a Pilot Project to Improve Father Involvement

Fathers provide emotional and physical, as well as financial support to their children. However, little is known about public child welfare policies and practices related to involving fathers and fathers' families in case planning and services to children involved in child welfare services. This article reports on the results of a pilot project designed to improve child welfare principles, policies, and practices related to the involvement of fathers in the lives of children served in one Northwest public child welfare agency. The pilot project provided training on father involvement in child welfare decision processes and evaluated changes in practice over time. The evaluation included an assessment of agency policy and practice, an assessment of social workers' perceptions regarding fathers' involvements in the lives of their children, and examination of actual social work practices related to father involvement over time. Changes in key areas of policy, beliefs regarding father involvement in child welfare case practice, and changes in actual involvement of fathers and fathers' families in practice were suggested.

Critical Theory as a Framework for Child Welfare Decision-Making: Some Possibilities

Child welfare workers daily make difficult, high-risk decisions regarding the lives of children and families. This article critiques two predominant perspectives informing child welfare decision-making and proposes critical theory as an alternative framework. Specifically, critical theory as a framework for child welfare decision integrates the insight gained through practice experience with data gathered through empirically driven assessment tools. With this integration, critical theory also highlights the importance of deconstruction, critical thinking, and reflection when responding to the complex cases in child welfare.

Child Welfare Service Plan Compliance: Perceptions of Parents and Caseworkers

Child welfare practice and decision making center around service plans, but few recent studies have focused specifically on service plans and their use in routine child welfare settings. This qualitative study involving interviews, case record reviews, and court observations illuminates parent and caseworker perceptions about the meaning of service plans and service plan compliance, and about influences on compliance. Parents and caseworkers similarly perceive service plans as directives and service plan compliance as parental task completion and cooperation. But whereas caseworkers perceive a motivation to parent as the primary influence on service plan compliance, parents perceive multiple influences. Findings contribute to ongoing work to develop theories that can explain client service participation and its connection to positive child welfare outcomes.

A STACKELBERG MODEL OF CHILD SUPPORT AND WELFARE*

This article models the child support and welfare decisions of never‐married parents on welfare as a Stackelberg game. The mother chooses whether to exit welfare, report paternity, and to obtain a formal child support order. If a child support order is obtained, the father chooses whether to comply with the order. Simulation results from the structural parameters indicate that increasing the child support disregard increases paternal compliance slightly and affects maternal paternity reporting more significantly; effects are limited, however, by low paternal incomes. Results also indicate that high award amounts can decrease expected child support payments to women on welfare.

African American and white child welfare workers' attitudes towards policies involving race and sexual orientation

This article reports findings from a study of attitudes of 259 African American and White child welfare workers. They were asked about their views of the role of race in child welfare decisions and about the appropriateness of placement of children with gay and lesbian and single foster/adoptive parents. African American child welfare workers were more likely that White workers to believe that race should be considered both in general and in placement decisions. Both African American and White conservative leaning workers are more likely to disagree with the placement of children in gay/lesbian households. African American workers were more likely to agree with a placement of children in a single parent family.

Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System ‐ by Jennifer A. Reich

Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System. Jennifer A. Reich. New York: Routledge. 2005. 368 pp. ISBN 0-41594727-8. $26.95. (paper) In Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System, Jennifer A. Reich vividly portrays inner workings of the child welfare system and offers important insights about the exercise of state power. Characterized as an ethnography of child welfare in California county, and using data from ride-alongs with child welfare investigators and caseworkers, court observations, parent interviews, court documents, and informal interviews with child welfare workers and attorneys, the book accomplishes Reich's stated goal: It illustrates how child welfare practitioners communicate and reinforce dominant expectations of gender, race, and class, and how state agents, through interaction with family members, determine can be a family and who cannot (p. 22). Reich's observations inspire the thesis that child welfare decisions, such as whether a child will be removed from a parent, returned to parent, or made eligible for adoption, depend largely on a parent's capacity to perform deference, which, in turn, hinges on a parent's race, gender, and marital status. Reich artfully and meticulously illustrates that in an underresourced child welfare environment-with such important goals as child safety and family autonomy at stake-the tipping factor in difficult child welfare decisions is often a parent's willingness and ability to demonstrate in both behavior and attitude mat she (occasionally, he) accepts the state's interpretation of events and complies with its remedies. Although the book succeeds in illuminating subtle uses of power, it also provides examples in which the imperative to cooperate is not hidden but is an explicitly stated influence on child welfare decisions. The book illustrates the role of parental deference at different critical moments of a child welfare case: during maltreatment investigations, as parents participate in mandated services, and when judges make decisions about family reunification and parental rights. During an investigation, for example, Reich observes a caseworker explicitly telling a parent that one factor in whether her kids [would be] removed was how cooperative the parent seemed, to which the parent responds, If I don't cooperate with you then you're gonna take my children? That's messed up (p. 95 - 96). Reich nicely illuminates the role of race in child welfare decisions and practices. For example, when a Black middle-class mother accused of child maltreatment invites her police officer partner, also Black, to sit in on an investigatory interview with the White local sheriff, the police officer informs the mother of some of her legal rights. In response to the unwelcome intervention, the sheriff, unaware of the police officer's profession, confronts him, You seem to know so much about the law. How many times have you been arrested? (p. …

Assessing parenting capacity in a child welfare context

Child welfare decisions are frequently complicated by incomplete or disputed facts, time deadlines, and the unpredictability of future events. In response to such challenges, psychologists or other mental health professionals are often asked to provide clinical evaluations related to parenting capabilities. The current paper describes the background and components of a clinical practice model for mental health evaluations of parents in a child welfare context and provides two case examples of the model's use. The objectives of the paper are to (a) describe recommended ingredients of clinical evaluations of parents, (b) identify what the evaluations can and cannot do, and (c) illustrate how parent evaluations can enhance caseworkers' and attorneys' understanding of issues related to case planning and disposition.

Children of Uxoricide: the Anti-therapeutic Effects of the Construction of Parenthood Pathology in Cases of Family Trauma

When children are involved in the murder of one parent by the other, their lives are turned-upside down. They are immediately confronted with police and court interventions and by child welfare decisions. This article looks at the policy of the Dutch Child Protection Board in such cases. We consider the legal arrangements made by the Board for dealing with the child's future residence and any special needs. We also consider the ways in which social workers from the Board depict the families of uxoricide and perceive the future relationship of the child with the surviving parent.

Walking with Them: Advocating for Parents with Mental Illnesses in the Child Welfare System

Despite the large number of parents with mental illnesses who are caught up in the child welfare system, these parents and their families remain understudied and underserved. Parents with mental illnesses are doubly stigmatized as mentally ill and as abusive or neglectful. Few comprehensive or appropriate services are available to them through either the child welfare or the mental health systems. This Article evaluates the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) to the services provided by child welfare agencies to parents with mental illnesses. To date, courts have largely rejected ADA claims raised in the context of termination of parental rights proceedings, finding that applying the ADA to prevent termination of parental rights would be detrimental to the best interest of the children who are the subjects of the proceedings. Despite these setbacks, the ADA's unequivocal rejection of prejudicial stereotypes and inflexible policies could provide an important basis for rethinking child welfare policy toward families in which one or more parents has a mental illness. The ADA may make it possible for advocates for parents to bring to light unfounded assumptions about the capacity of parents with mental illnesses and advocate for services tailored to the needs of their families. Although courts are reluctant to apply the ADA to prevent children from being made available for adoption after they have been in the foster care system for a long time, the ADA has some potential to address the attitudes of child welfare decision makers and encourage child welfare agencies to support rather than undermine parenting by individuals with mental illnesses. At the same time, the potential of the ADA's forceful rejection of discrimination may fail to be realized. Some of the provisions of the ADA have been given quite narrow interpretations, while others remain little explored. This Article evaluates both the opportunities for and the challenges of applying the ADA to improve the workings of the child welfare system towards parents with mental illnesses.

Research needed to improve the prospects for children in out-of-home placement

This paper identifies several priorities for organizing research that is needed to significantly improve the prospects for children in out-of-home care. These priorities include (1) program evaluation research on services provided to children in out-of-home care, (2) organizational studies of various aspects of the child welfare system and the relationships between child welfare services and other systems, (3) research on child welfare decision making, (4) examination of the role of race and ethnicity in outcomes of care, (5) attention to recurring methodological issues. Accomplishing this research agenda will most likely require a sustained federal commitment to funding research on out-of-home care.

Family Group Conferencing in Child Welfare: Lessons from a Demonstration Project

A child-welfare family group conferencing (FGC) project that served families who were referred for child abuse, neglect, and/or abandonment issues is reported. The stages and mechanisms used to implement the family group conferences are described, and the conferencing processes and outcomes are presented. Findings indicate that FGC is inherently a resource-intensive process, but one that successfully achieves broad participation in child-welfare decisions. The resource demands of FGC, however, also raise questions regarding the use of highly educated professionals to coordinate many aspects of a family group conference. A service-team approach to FGC is offered as one way of making it a viable model for child-welfare service delivery on a larger scale.