Foster Care Services Research Articles

Incremental Net Benefit of Early Intervention for Preschool-Aged Children with Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Foster Care.

Of 1 million cases of child maltreatment identified every year in the United States, one-fifth result in foster care. Many of these children suffer from significant emotional and behavioral conditions. Decision-makers must allocate highly constrained budgets to serve these children. Recent evidence suggests that Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers can reduce negative outcomes for these children, but the relative benefits and costs of the program have not been evaluated. The objective of this study was to assess net benefit, over 24 months, of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers compared to regular foster care. Data were from a randomized controlled trial of 117 young children entering a new foster placement. A subsample exhibited placement instability (n = 52). Intervention services including parent training, lasted 9-12 months. Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers significantly increased permanent placements for the placement instability sample. Average total cost for the new intervention sample was significantly less than for regular foster care (full sample: $27,204 vs. $30,090; P = .004; placement instability sample: $29,595 vs. $36,061; P = .045). Incremental average net benefit was positive at all levels of willingness to pay of zero or greater, indicating that the value of benefits exceeded costs. Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers has significant benefit for preschool children in foster care with emotional and behavioral disorders compared to regular foster care services. At even modest levels of willingness to pay, benefits exceed costs indicating a strong likeliness that this program is an efficient choice for improving outcomes for young children with emotional and behavioral disorders in foster care.

Females in the Juvenile Justice System: Influences on Delinquency and Recidivism

The role of mental health history and family dysfunction or disruption on female juvenile delinquency was examined. Using large sample archival data from a state juvenile justice agency, we examined the behavioral and demographic predictors of repeat offending for a sample of approximately 34,000 females who had been referred for criminal offenses. Then, after merging these data with those from multiple state agencies, we compared the family and mental health histories of the delinquent females with those of females from a matched control group of the same number, constructed from the records of the state department of education. Drug use, family delinquency, severity of first offenses, and age of first offending were predictors of repeat offending for the females in the delinquent sample. Compared with non-delinquent females, delinquent females were more likely to be eligible for free or reduced lunch, and were more likely to have been in foster care or child protective services. The strongest predictor of membership in the delinquent sample was a DSM-IV diagnosis of a mental health disorder related to aggression or impulse control. All variables associated with delinquency remained significant when other predictors were statistically controlled. Implications for prevention of female juvenile delinquency were addressed.

Effective services for improving education and employment outcomes for children and alumni of foster care service: correlates and educational and employment outcomes

AbstractOutcomes for youth from foster care have been found to be poor. The education and employment outcomes of youth and alumni of foster care served by transition programmes located in five major US cities were examined. Data were collected by case managers and reported to evaluators quarterly on 1058 youth from foster care for over 2 years. Job preparation, transportation, child care, education support services and life skills were the most common services provided to youth. During the 2‐year study period, 35% of participants obtained employment, 23% obtained a General Education Development or diploma, and 17% enrolled in post‐secondary education. It was found that the longer the youth were enrolled, the more education and employment outcomes they achieved. Further, job preparation and income support services were associated significantly with achieving any positive education or employment outcome. Results indicated that certain services provided over an extended period of time can improve outcomes for youth placed in foster care. For youth to achieve positive outcomes as they transition to adulthood, additional services are necessary. Other implications are discussed.

Effects of a school readiness intervention for children in foster care on oppositional and aggressive behaviors in kindergarten

Abstract One hundred ninety-two children in foster care participated in a randomized efficacy trial of a school readiness intervention, the Kids In Transition to School (KITS) Program, designed to increase literacy, social, and self-regulation skills in children before kindergarten entry. One hundred two children were randomly assigned to the KITS intervention and 90 were randomly assigned to the foster care services as usual comparison group. At the end of the kindergarten year, teachers were asked to report on the children's oppositional and aggressive behaviors in the classroom. Controlling for gender, baseline levels of parent-reported oppositional and aggressive behaviors, and level of disruptiveness in the classroom, children who had received the intervention had significantly lower levels of oppositional and aggressive behaviors in the classroom. Findings suggest that an intervention designed to increase school readiness in children in foster care can have positive effects on kindergarten classroom behavior.

African American Disproportionality Within CPS and Disparate Access to Support Services: Review and Critical Analysis of the Literature

This critical analysis of the literature examines the racial disproportionality of African American children in the U.S. child welfare and foster care systems, and disparate access to Child Protective Services (CPS) referred support services. At each critical decision point within child welfare and foster care services, African American children are disproportionately represented and Black children and families subject to disparate access to employment, housing, mental health assessment and treatment. Competing data regarding non-findings of racial disproportionality in CPS and foster care and disparate treatment among African American families is presented and examined.

Foster Carers' Involvement in Contact: Other Professionals' Views

Legislative and practice guidance in the United Kingdom suggests foster carers are central to effective contact for children in foster care. This article explores the involvement of foster carers in contact between children in their care and their birth parents, drawing on the findings of an in-depth qualitative study of the views and experiences of social workers and Reporters to the Children's Hearing system in one Scottish local authority. While the study was geographically localised and its findings cannot be generalised, it does provide valuable insight into the residual involvement of foster carers in contact arrangements in the authority in question. Exploring the available literature, the authors go on to consider possible explanations of this residual involvement and what type of social work practice is required to enable foster carers to be more centrally involved in contact arrangements within contemporary constructions of a professional foster care service.

The patterns and costs of services use among homeless families

This study examines families' use of behavioral health hospitalization and foster care placement before, during, and after shelter use, comparing families based on shelter pattern and type of housing exit. Results show that inpatient and foster care services use drops in the homelessness period, but rebounds after exit, regardless of pattern of shelter use and type of housing exit. Results suggest that shelters supplant use of services, but not on a sustained basis. Despite declines in concurrent services use, the homelessness period is overall more costly for episodically and long-term shelter users, primarily owing to the high costs of shelter. High rates of inpatient and foster care services use after the homeless spell suggest that providers of homeless assistance should systematically screen and refer homeless families to ongoing community-based service supports. Service use patterns indicate that homeless spells may disrupt continuity of care with community-based health and social services. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Exploring the Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning Adolescents in Foster Care

This article is based on the findings from a subset of gender identity and sexual orientation questions from The Casey Field Office Mental Health Study (CFOMH). It aims to contribute the experiences of youth in the care of Casey Family Programs to the increasing body of research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) youth in foster care, as well as inform future studies in this area. The CFOMH study interviewed 188 adolescents ages 14 to 17 who were receiving foster care services from Casey Family Programs in 2006. The experiences in care of youth who identified as LGBQ (n = 10) are presented in narrative form, along with data from all youth in care (N = 188) regarding their perceptions of the foster care environment for LGBTQ youth. These findings are intended to underscore the need to conduct a larger, more in-depth study of the experiences of LGBTQ youth in foster care and the environment that foster care provides for them.

Crisis nursery effects on child placement after foster care

The results of a study of the relationship between receiving crisis nursery services and the placement outcomes for young children leaving the child welfare system in Illinois are reported in this paper. The placement outcomes for children leaving foster care whose families received crisis nursery support prior to the children's placement in foster care is compared to the placement outcomes for children whose families received only foster care services. The children in two samples were identified by matching crisis nursery children's data from FY 2006 with children's data in the Illinois Child Abuse and Neglect Tracking System and Children Youth and Services Information System databases. After children served by crisis nursery and foster care services were identified, a comparison group of children with like-characteristics whose families received only foster care services was identified using propensity score matching. The children were followed until their out-of-home placement was terminated or until June 30, 2009. The placement outcomes and the length of stay were compared for the two groups. Using logistical regression analysis the results showed that children whose families received crisis nursery services prior to foster care placement were twice as likely to be reunited with their biological families (birth or extended family members) when compared to children whose families received only foster care services. The difference in the length-of-stay in foster care was not statistically significant when the two groups were compared. This preliminary study using administrative data shows that receiving crisis nursery services may have positive effects on the children's ultimate placement outcome after foster care. Additional research is needed to further explore the relationship between placement outcome and crisis nursery services.

Preventing internalizing and externalizing problems in girls in foster care as they enter middle school: impact of an intervention.

Girls in foster care have been shown to be at risk for emotional and behavioral problems, especially during the preadolescent and adolescent years. Based on these findings and on the lack of research-based preventive interventions for such youths, the current study examined the impact of an intervention targeting the prevention of internalizing and externalizing problems for girls in foster care prior to middle school entry. Study participants included 100 girls in state-supported foster homes who were randomly assigned to an intervention condition or to a control condition (foster care services as usual). The intervention girls were hypothesized to have fewer internalizing problems, fewer externalizing problems, and more prosocial behavior at 6-months post-baseline compared to the control girls. The results confirmed the hypotheses for internalizing and externalizing problems, but not for prosocial behavior. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Privatization and the Diffusion of Innovations

The privatization of government services tends to bring about a more rapid adoption of innovative policies due to the competitive pressures of the market. In federal systems, however, the diffusion of innovations across subnational governments may offset such benefits of privatization. In this study, we test whether county governments that have privatized their provision of foster care services are more or less likely to adopt policy innovations and more or less likely to learn from the policies of other counties than are those that have resisted privatization. We explore the diffusion of four innovative foster care policies across 384 counties in five states between 1995 and 2006. We find that the initial innovativeness arising from the market competition of privatization is counterbalanced by learning across public diffusion networks.

Re-examining Social Work Roles and Tasks with Foster Care

In order to promote developmental outcomes with children and young people and to nurture their positive health and well-being in foster care, social workers and case managers are required to direct professional attention toward both the child or young person and her/his daily living environment(s)—at home, at school, and in the local neighborhoods in which they live. When viewed from an ecological perspective, foster care environments are represented conceptually as a nested cluster of settings ranging from immediate life spaces and networks of relationships in a foster home, at school, and in a neighborhood, to organizational contexts holding a statutory duty of care for children and young people assigned looked after status, along with national policies and statutes which frame foster-care environments. This article explores how social-work roles and tasks with children and young people in foster care change as Social Workers transition from case management roles within state, provincial, or local authority departments to become Supervising Social Workers, or Team Managers of Foster Carers, or Directors of foster care services.

Black Adoption Placement and Research Center at 25: Placing African-American Children in Permanent Homes (1983–2008)

The Black Adoption Research and Placement Center is a nonprofit organization delivering culturally specific adoption and foster care services. The organization developed as a response to concerns in the African-American community about the high numbers of African-American children entering and not exiting the public foster care system. The organization has undergone significant transformations over its 25-year history in relation to social, political, and economic changes that have altered the ways that the agency finances and delivers services. The history of Black Adoption Research and Placement Center presents an organization that has weathered many challenges because of its strong leadership, its committed governing body, its external relationships, and its internal operations.

How the Economic and Financial Crisis is Affecting Children and Young People in Europe

How the Economic and Financial Crisis is Affecting Children and Young People in Europe

‘I am the face of success’: peer mentors in child welfare

ABSTRACTChild welfare systems have struggled to create innovative, culturally sensitive programmes to address the multiple and pervasive barriers that exist in engaging child welfare parent clients in their service plans. Peer mentor programmes—those in which parents who have successfully navigated the child welfare system and reunified with their children, mentor parents newly entering the system—are designed to address some of these barriers, to improve reunification outcomes. Focus groups with parent clients (n = 25) and interviews with peer mentors (n = 6) were conducted to identify the characteristics of peer mentoring programmes that are critically helpful to parent clients, as well as the mechanisms that allow peer mentors to be effective in their work. The qualitative analysis uncovered three general themes to which both parents and peer mentors frequently referred in interviews—the value of shared experiences, communication and support. Additionally, the study found that peer mentorship has positive effects not only on parent clients but also on the mentors themselves. The inclusion of peer mentors in child welfare practice suggests an important paradigm shift within child welfare that could lead to culture change for the field.

BAAF's Role in the Development of the Foster Care Service

June Thoburn and Gillian Schofield demonstrate how the development of the foster care service over the last 30 years reveals BAAF's varied points of engagement with policy and practice, which have increasingly helped to shape the foster care agenda.

THE EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL FORM IN THE MIXED MARKET FOR FOSTER CARE

**: This paper uses proprietary quality of care data to examine the consequences of organizational form in privatized US foster care services. The contract failure hypothesis generically proposes that nonprofits should provide higher quality services, relative to for-profits, when output is costly to observe. Advocates argue that the nonprofits offer important consumer protections when public services are contracted to private agencies. Contrary to expectations, we find that nonprofit firms do not offer higher quality services. We explore the possibility that monitoring efforts by state regulators or competition among foster care agencies effectively mitigate the influence of organizational form in this particular mixed market.

California Ballot Initiative to Raise Earmarked Funds for the Foster Care System

While recent proposals in the California legislature have been successful in adding nominal dollars to the foster care system, a more radical and comprehensive initiative must be undertaken to address the issue of inadequate foster care funding in the state. Perhaps the only issue more disconcerting than the lack of resources is the looming threat to existing resources. The federal mechanisms which provide the bulk of funding for foster care services are exceedingly vulnerable to curtailment. Consequently, the resource problem afflicting the foster care system is two-fold: (1) An under funded system is providing limited and substandard care to foster youth and (2) the federal funding mechanisms providing the bulk of existing funds will soon face challenges. Work must be undertaken to provide additional and stable sources of funding to ensure the viability of existing services and to facilitate the implementation of new services for this underserved community. The long-standing “scattered” and “reactive” nature of policy making in this field makes it imperative that advocates take an aggressive grassroots posture to proactively improve and protect foster care services before they are completely crippled.This proposal seeks to introduce a ballot initiative to impose a 3.5% monthly internet access fee for all high-speed data lines servicing businesses and residences in California. The funds raised would be earmarked for new foster care services and programs in the state. Unused funds would be placed in a reserve account earmarked for future foster care services.

Disproportionate representation of African-American children in foster care: Secondary analysis of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, 2005

Few studies utilize large national data sets to provide statistical estimates of the degree of disproportionate representation of African-American children placed in CPS foster care. The current study examined the association of African-American racial identity with foster care placement while controlling for child, caregiver, household and abuse characteristics. We conducted secondary analyses of the 2005 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) on investigated reports of child abuse and neglect that received a maltreatment disposition in the reporting year, 2005. NCANDS 2005 Child File reflects case-level data based on the submissions of 48 states and the District of Columbia resulting in 3,461,872 investigations. Our unweighted study sample was restricted to 71,802 investigations of primary substantiated maltreatment in the reporting year 2005. A logit model was used to examine the association between foster care placement and racial identity. After controlling for child, caregiver, household and abuse characteristics African-American children had 44% higher odds of foster care placement when compared with Caucasian children. This study supports the cumulative evidence that African-American racial identity is a significant predictor of foster care services. Continued examination of the factors associated with foster placement is warranted to unravel the complex circumstances facing this vulnerable segment of children.

A comparison of caseworker characteristics in public and private foster care agencies

Recent attention has been given to caseworker characteristics as a relevant variable for study in foster care research. However, very few studies examine the characteristics of caseworkers employed in both public agencies and private contract agencies, in spite of increased privatization of foster care services. This study compared demographics, attitudes and beliefs, and work history among 51 public agency caseworkers and 30 private agency contract caseworkers in three Midwest counties varying in size from small to large. Caseworkers in public agencies had more experience and commensurately higher salary ranges than those employed by private agencies. Also, a larger proportion of public agency caseworkers in the sample were African American or members of several other ethnic minority groups compared to caseworkers in private contract agencies. Differences were noted in caseworkers' negative attitudes toward drug-using parents, alcohol-abusing parents, and parents with a mental illness, with caseworkers in private contract agencies expressing more negative attitudes toward parents with these conditions. On average, workers across types of agency thought that parents preferred more involvement in treatment planning than the workers themselves preferred. Results are discussed according to their implications for supervision and training of caseworkers, for research, and for policy-making.