Facing Time Limits

Abstract

With reauthorization of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) on the horizon, policy makers need to have a sound understanding of the act's consequences for children and families. In contrast to earlier studies, the present study quantifies the impact of a 24-month state imposed welfare time limit on foster care placements. It also examines the impact of a “hardship” provision that temporarily excuses select families from meeting a two-year time limit on foster care placements in Nevada. In order to determine how these factors, in conjunction with other relevant welfare experiences and personal factors, affect parent-child separation, a multivariate logit model was tested. Key findings reveal that families who have more months counted toward their time limits also are more likely to have at least one child removed and placed in foster care. On the other hand, hardship families are not more likely to have their children placed in foster care than non-hardship families. The findings lend support to the notion of providing family-centered casework services to those identified to be at risk of approaching their welfare time limits. The findings also lend support to inter-agency collaboration between TANF and child welfare systems.     

Mental health service utilization and time to care: A comparison of children in traditional foster care and children in kinship care

Existing research indicates that children who are involved with the child welfare system and placed in various forms of out-of-home care experience emotional and behavioral problems. It is also suggested that children placed in kinship care are less likely to receive mental health services than children placed in non-kinship foster homes. This study sought to compare children in non-kinship foster homes to children in kinship care to determine their receipt of mental health services and the time it took for children in kinship care to receive mental health services compared to children in non-kinship foster homes. Using a Cox regression, researchers determined that children in kinship care had a 14% lower likelihood of receipt of mental health services compared to their counterparts in non-kinship foster placements.     

Connective complexity: African American adolescents and the relational context of kinship foster care

Attempts to address racial disproportionality in child welfare must include a focus on the benefits and challenges facing children in kinship care. African American children not only are overrepresented in the child welfare system, but also are placed disproportionately in kinship foster care. Using a sample of 18 African American adolescents ages 11 to 14, this article explores how the relational context of care experienced by adolescents in kinship foster care differs from that of adolescents in nonkinship foster family placements. Findings are presented regarding the stability of relationships as well as complex role dilemmas experienced by kinship youth as they relate to caregivers and birthparents in the child welfare context. Implications are given for practice with kinship families.     

Are services to prevent foster care effective?

The prevention of foster care became an important issue for child welfare services during the 1970s. Two main types of prevention models have emerged: crisis intervention programs intended to prevent imminent placement and intensive service programs designed to avert those crisis situations that precipitate placement. A critical analysis of several project evaluations leads to the conclusion that neither model has been markedly successful. Low nominal project placement rates seem attributable to inability to predict placements and to client selection biases. From a strictly financial perspective, preventive services have been considerably more expensive than regular services, including temporary family foster care. Data from a new demonstration project in New Jersey illustrate various problems in providing and evaluating preventive services to families referred to protective service agencies. Implications of the findings for prevention programs and policies are discussed, and a new direction focused on truly early intervention with children and families is proposed.     

Family group decision making and disproportionality in foster care: a case study

Research on the disproportionate number of children of color in the child welfare system suggests that we should focus on key decision points such as investigations, substantiations, and placements to understand how experiences of children vary by race and ethnicity. This article describes one community's efforts to use Family Group Decision Making in placement decisions to reduce disproportionality in foster care by diverting children from regular foster care services and keeping them within their extended families.     

The experiences and outcomes of children in foster care who were removed because of a parental disability

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences and outcomes of children in the foster care system in the United States who were removed from their homes at least partially in relation to their parent's or caretaker's disability. This study uses administrative data from the 2012 year of the Adoption and Foster Care Reporting System (AFCARS), the federal reporting system that collects case-level data on all children in foster care through state and tribal IV-E agencies. While this administrative dataset doesn't collect data on parental disability, it does collect data on parental disability as a removal reason for children in foster care. In 2012, 19.0% of children in foster care had parental disability indicated as at least one removal reason, and 5.18% had parental disability indicated as their sole removal reason. Logistic regression was used to explore how a removal reason of parental disability correlated with removal manner, type of placement, location of placement, current case plans, discharge reasons and termination of parental rights. T-tests were used to compare children with and without parental disability as a removal reason in regards to number of placements, age at removal, length of time since last removal, length of stay in current placement, and total days in foster care. As foster children could have multiple removal reasons, analyses were conducted separately for children with parental disability as at least one removal reason, and those with parental disability as their sole removal reason. Findings indicate that children who have parental disability as a removal reason have different experiences in child welfare and different child welfare outcomes than those without parental disability as a removal reason. While the AFCARS removal reason of parental disability is not a proxy for parental disability, the study points to a need for closer attention to parental disability within the child welfare system to ensure appropriate services and supports, as well as fair treatment.     

Parent-child interaction therapy: application of an empirically supported treatment to maltreated children in foster care

One of the more serious problems faced by child welfare services involves the management of children with serious behavioral and mental health problems. Aggressive and defiant foster children are more likely to have multiple foster care placements, require extraordinary social services resources, and have poor short- and long-term mental health outcomes. Interventions that work with challenging foster children and enhance foster parents' skills in managing problem behaviors are necessary. This article presents the successful results of a single case study examining the application of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) with an aggressive young boy and his foster-adoptive parent. PCIT is a dyadic intervention that has been identified as an empirically supported treatment for abused children and for children with different types of behavioral disruption. The application of PCIT to assist foster parents is a promising direction for child welfare services.     

Sharing the Baton,Not Passing It: Collaboration between Public and Private Child Welfare Agencies to Reunify Families

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, public sector child welfare agencies are contracting with private agencies for the provision of specialized services to clients while maintaining oversight and case management responsibilities. At the same time, funders, both private and public, are demanding that service providers partner and collaborate with one another. In this article, we present results from a study of a unique partnership between two state child welfare agencies and a private child welfare agency aimed at reunifying families whose children have been removed and placed in foster care. Data was obtained from 41 key informants using a questionnaire and a structured interview. Findings support earlier studies of collaboration, and indicate the strengths of this partnership and factors that facilitated and hindered it. The results have implications for agencies that both contract for and provide a range of child welfare services as well as other interagency relationships.     

Considering the best interests of infants in foster care placed separately from their siblings

This article offers a perspective on the child welfare practice of placing infants and their siblings in foster care using the theoretical frameworks of attachment and infant mental health. The authors highlight issues for child welfare workers to consider when determining if moving an infant or young child from one home to another for the purpose of placing him with his siblings would cause trauma or disruption; and also issues to consider when determining the infant or young child's best interest when separated from siblings. First, the authors summarize the literature regarding attachment relationships and attachment disruptions. Then, they review outcome studies of children residing in foster care who are placed with their siblings and of those who are placed separately. Finally, the authors conclude with specific recommendations for child welfare workers to aid in making such difficult decisions about placing infants in foster care.     

Kinship Care Providers: Designing an Array of Supportive Services

Kinship care, the placement of children with their relatives, has become an integral part of the child welfare system in the United States. It is also becoming a more established way of meeting the needs of children in care in other western countries (Greeff, 1999). However, kinship care did not emerge as a child welfare issue until the late 1980s, and only recently has it become a part of the formalized system for out-of-home care (Hegar & Scannapieco, 1995). Since that time, many states have come to rely more heavily on placements with relatives to meet the needs of children removed from parental custody. For example, California has placed approximately 51% of the foster care population in kinship care, while Illinois has placed 55% (GAO, 1999).Discussion about the reasons for the increases in kinship care has been widespread (Brooks & Barth, 1998; Gleeson, 1999; Harvey, 1999; Hegar & Scannapieco, 2000). Regardless of the impetus behind the increased use of kinship care, states must now incorporate kinship foster care into the traditional foster care system in order to qualify them for federal funding (O'Laughlin, 1998). The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 amended federal law to require that states give priority to relatives when deciding with whom to place children who are in the foster care system (GAO, 1999).The apparent paradigm shift from traditional foster parents to kinship care parents (Hegar, 1999) requires that agencies use both different approaches to assessment (Scannapieco & Hegar, 1996) and provide different types of intervention and services. Adapting placement services to the needs of kinship care providers is the focus of this article.     

Kin and non-kin foster care—findings from a National Survey

This article uses national data to look at the differences between children in kinship and non-kinship care arrangements. Three groups are compared: children in non-kin foster care, children in kinship foster care, and children in “voluntary” kinship care. Children in voluntary kinship care have come to the attention of child welfare services, are placed with kin, but unlike those in kinship foster care, these children are not in state custody. Findings suggest that children in the kin arrangements faced greater hardships than those in non-kin care. They more often lived in poor families and experienced food insecurity. They were more likely to live with a non-married caregiver who was not working and did not have a high school degree. And fewer kin than expected received services to overcome these hardships. In addition, nearly 300,000 children lived in voluntary kinship care arrangements; these children are of particular concern because they are not in state custody and therefore may or may not be monitored by a child welfare agency.     

Caregivers' Endorsement of Barriers to Mental Health Services for Children and Youth in Child Welfare

The purpose of this study was to examine the three most common types of caregivers in the child welfare system (birth parents, relative caregivers, and foster parents), an active child welfare case, caregivers' endorsement of barriers to mental health services and mental health service use by caregivers for the children under their care. The sample consisted of 430 dyads (caregivers and their children). Results indicate that an active child welfare case, provider characteristics, and accessibility of services predicted mental health service use for children. Implications for the child welfare and mental health systems are discussed.     

The New York City neighborhood-based services strategy

The New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) instituted a neighborhood-based services system through the realignment of all foster care, preventive, and protective services along community district lines. ACS, with its community partners, also formed neighborhood-based networks to improve service coordination and collaboration among key community stakeholders and to shape a multisystem strategy tailored to each district informed by child welfare data. Based on analysis of neighborhood-specific census tract child welfare data, ACS initiated the Community Partnership to Strengthen Families project to address the disproportionate number of foster care placements originating from a small group of high-need communities, including Manhattan's Central Harlem. This article describes examples of specific strategies based on the Central Harlem experience.     

Studies of the maintenance of subsidized foster placements in the Casey Family Program

The Casey Family Program provides a planned, long-term approach to subsidized foster care for the underachievers of the child welfare system. Its concept is a marriage of what foster care professionals know about effectively helping children and what managers know about effectively running organizations. The purpose of our studies of The Casey Family Program was to determine whether the outcomes of its foster placements were predictable from factors that could be known, at least in principle, at the time the placements were made. We built statistical models of placement maintenance based upon characteristics of (a) the foster child; (b) his or her biological family; and (c) the foster family. We used two main sources of data to construct models: archival material on the child and his or her biological family, and caseworker ratings of various aspects of the child and his or her foster family. Information was derived from a sample of 51 children served by the Montana Division of The Casey Family Program to build the models, which in general provided accurate predictions of placement outcomes. The models were then cross-validated with a sample of 55 children from the Idaho Division. There was a substantial amount of shrinkage in the variance accounted for in the cross-validation sample, but outcomes remained largely predictable. To determine whether predictions of placement outcomes could be based upon brief assessments of factors that could be evaluated at the time placements were made, a third study was undertaken. The results of that study implied that ratings of salient characteristics of foster children and foster families based upon as little as a single day's observation could be used to effectively predict placement outcomes. Several aspects of these studies deserve special emphasis. First, the research confirmed that the children served by the Montana and Idaho divisions of TCFP were among the underachievers of the child welfare system whom Jim Casey desired to reach. It also confirmed that the Montana and Idaho divisions were doing an effective job of serving those children. Their placements were generally stable and both foster children and foster families were rated as functioning at levels that ranged from acceptable to good.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Family to family: reconstructing foster care in the US

The public child welfare system in North America is faced with growing deprivation, rising numbers of children who need out-of-home placements for increasingly lengthy periods, and a shortage of foster carers. The Family to Family initiative offers public agencies funds and tools to help them strengthen family support services within the communities from which children enter the system, improve the quantity and quality of neighbourhood-based foster carers and develop the capacity to collect and analyse outcome data.     

Planning to Plan: A Process to Involve Child Welfare Agencies in Disaster Preparedness Planning

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when child welfare officials in Louisiana reported they did not know the whereabouts of all their children in foster care, disaster planning in public child welfare became a new area of concern. This article reports on a process of engaging seven public child welfare agencies in planning for disasters that could affect child safety and service delivery. The Washington Metropolitan Area Disaster Planning Project used a strengths-based approach to help agencies responsible for protecting and serving children in foster care and families at risk of abuse and neglect develop plans to augment and continue service delivery and responsiveness in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster. The processes of gathering information on disaster responsiveness, interviewing community and professional informants, developing a template to guide disaster planning within the agencies, and implementing a tabletop exercise are described. As a result of this consultation effort agencies became aware that disaster planning at the state and county levels had proceeded without child welfare at the table, that the increase in need for child welfare services during a disaster was not recognized by disaster professionals, and that practicing disaster responsiveness is necessary to assure readiness.     

Early care and education arrangements and young children's risk of foster placement: Findings from a National Child Welfare Sample

A primary goal of the U.S. child welfare system (CWS) is to maintain children investigated for maltreatment in their parents' homes whenever safely possible. This study explores the possibility that early care and education (ECE) services (e.g., child care, preschool, day care) can help the CWS achieve this goal by using a nationally representative sample of children referred to CWS for suspected maltreatment to measure the relationship between ECE receipt and the likelihood that 0–5 year olds in the CWS will be placed in foster care approximately 18 months later. Specifically, logistic regression analyses explore the relationship between: (1) regular ECE participation (yes/no), and (2) type of ECE arrangement (Head Start, other center- or home-based ECE, family/friend/relative ECE, other ECE, and multiple types of ECE) and foster placement risk. After controlling for multiple socio-demographic characteristics and foster placement risk factors, children who received ECE (yes/no) were no less likely to be placed in foster care than children who received no ECE. However, when exploring type of ECE arrangement, children who received Head Start were 93% less likely to be placed in foster care than children with no ECE. Children who participated in multiple types of ECE were almost seven times more likely to be placed in foster care than children with no ECE. These results suggest that Head Start may help maltreated children avoid foster placement and that experiencing multiple types of ECE is a risk factor for foster placement. It is recommended that caseworkers routinely assess the ECE service history and needs of families with young children who come in contact with the CWS, paying attention to the type and number of ECE services used.     

Urban American Indian/Alaskan Natives compared to non-Indians in out-of-home care

Historically, American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) children have been disproportionately represented in the foster care system. In this study, nationally representative child welfare data from October 1999 was used to compare urban AI/AN children to non-Indian children placed into out-of-home care. Compared to non-Indian children, urban AI/AN children were older, were more often male, came from poorer homes, and were more frequently placed into group homes/ residential placements. Urban AI/AN caregivers had a greater prevalence of alcohol abuse and mental health problems compared with non-Indian caregivers.     

The invisibility of adolescent sexual development in foster care: Seriously addressing sexually transmitted infections and access to services

Adolescents residing in foster care are at higher risk for acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immune deficiency virus (HIV) compared to their non-foster care peers. A literature review was conducted to determine whether youth residing in foster care face different barriers to sexual health care compared to their peers in the general population and, if so, what those barriers are. The review revealed barriers common to adolescents in general as well as additional barriers specific to the ecosystem of adolescents in foster care. Systemic issues that decreased access to sexual health services included child welfare policies that were either missing or implemented without fidelity; complicated financial factors; barriers to service utilization; lack of collaboration between child welfare and medical professionals; and limited information provided to foster youth on their sexual health and development. Consent and confidentiality issues that foster youth face in seeking sensitive health services also need to be resolved. More research is needed on how to facilitate development of coherent policies and effective practices that promote sexual health care access for adolescents in foster care.     

Introduction to the Special Issue: Mothers of children in foster care

This article introduces the special issue of Children and Youth Services Review devoted to single mothers with children in foster care. It delineates the policy context in which mothers are operating; examines reasons for mothers' temporary loss of custody of their children, a loss that occurs when their children are placed in foster care; presents expectations of mothers once they enter the public child welfare system; and summarizes empirical and theoretical papers included in the volume intended to advance policy and practice for this population. Taken together, these papers reflect one over-arching theme—the need to re-orient child welfare policy and practice so that the rehabilitation, health, and well-being of mothers is one of the central aims.