Protective supervision: An inquiry into the relationship between child welfare and the court system

Protective Supervision, in most states, is defined in statute as an option in which the child is allowed to remain in the home of high-risk parents under the authority of the court, with supervision provided by the child protection system. Protective Supervision provides states an option to fulfill the federal mandate, as expressed in its guidance on the Child and Family Services Review, to assure that children are safely maintained in their homes whenever possible and appropriate. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of published work on this option. Further, the relationship between child protection and the judicial system, implicit in Protective Supervision, is rarely examined. In response to this dearth of information, an exploratory study was undertaken in Minnesota, funded by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Data were derived from focus groups in every region of the state, with both child protection and judicial system participants. This study offers insights into the complicated nature of the partnership between two complex systems — child welfare and the court system. Currently, there is wide variation in how Protective Supervision is understood and practiced. However, where there is mutual respect between child welfare and the courts, Protective Supervision offers a useful tool.     

New methodology: Measuring racial or ethnic disparities in child welfare

Understanding the disparate treatment of African American children in the child welfare system requires consideration of the dynamics at a community level and the state level. Looking across a state allows one to target policies and practices to areas within the state that are most in need. This paper argues for a new method of assessing disparate treatment in child welfare that takes into consideration the racial or ethnic makeup of the community in conjunction with the racial or ethnic makeup across the state. This paper uses decision based enumeration which helps to pinpoint decisions where disparities are the greatest, and helps target decisions that most impact disparate treatment. This paper utilizes a methodology that is both accessible to state and county child welfare administrators and utilizes data that is readily available to child welfare policy makers and administrators. Using data from Illinois to illustrate this methodology, this paper highlights the regions within the state where limited resources may be targeted to address disproportionate representation and disparate treatment in Illinois' child welfare system.     

Evaluating multisystemic efforts to impact disproportionality through key decision points

Working in four communities, Casey Foundation/Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) Alliance on Racial Equity (the Alliance) have developed a Racial Equity Scorecard for measuring disproportionality at key decision points for use in impacting disproportionality in the child welfare system. The four communities include King County, Washington; Guilford County, North Carolina; Ramsey County, Minnesota; and Woodbury County, Iowa. Data from one site--Woodbury County, Iowa--are used as an example. This article provides the background and method for identification and measurement of key decision points in the child welfare system to track change effected by multisystemic approaches to reduce disproportionality. Interpretation of the results in the scorecard is provided and recommendations for future interventions based on the data are discussed.     

Individual and systemic/structural bias in child welfare decision making: Implications for children and families of color

The factors contributing to observed racial disproportionality and disparity in the child welfare system have been the subject of national discourse for decades. This qualitative study used focus groups to engage child welfare and collaborating system decision makers, community partners, and families in a subjective interpretive analysis of racial disproportionality and disparity that had been demonstrated by a previous quantitative analysis of Oregon's child welfare system. Thematic analysis yielded eleven themes from the participant focus groups, four of which clustered around individual and structural/systemic bias and are examined in this paper: visibility bias; cultural bias and insensitivity; personal influences on determination of minimally adequate care; and foster and adoptive parent recruitment and licensing practices. Participants offered recommendations to improve outcomes for children and families of color in light of these observations: increase awareness of bias, create checks and balances in decision-making, contract with and hire culturally and racially diverse professionals, and increase funding for training.     

Child protection: a new approach in South Australia

This paper argues the case for an integrated approach to child protection services, embracing children's safety, risk and needs and incorporating formal assessment instruments. It then provides a brief overview of the new child protection system in South Australia. The steady rise in child abuse/neglect reports raises questions about how best to provide child protection services. Analysis of South Australian data suggests that much of the rise can be attributed to an increase in reports of neglect and emotional abuse and an increase in re‐notifications. This in turn raises questions about the traditional investigative approach. In 1995 Messages from Research advocated that agencies re‐focus on children's needs and concentrate less on investigations into safety and risk. The critical question is how to distinguish families requiring investigation from those needing support. The latest research suggests that such decision‐making in child protection is generally inconsistent and unreliable. This paper argues that statutory agencies should use formal assessment tools to determine the level and nature of their interventions. These arguments have been critical in the development of the new child protection model in SA, which relies on a centralized intake, differential response to reports and the structured decision‐making system. Initial evaluation of the new model indicates improvements in consistency of initial screening and responses to children in danger. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Front Lines: The Voices and Experiences of Racialized Child Welfare Workers in Toronto,Canada

Drawing on focus group data highlighting the perceptions and experiences of racialized child protection workers in the Greater Toronto Area, this article explores the ways in which race operates in the Ontario child welfare system. Most study participants experienced the agencies in which they worked as White-normed environments characterized by systemic racial discrimination in promotion and advancement as well as ongoing instances of racial microaggression—common, everyday practices that denigrate people of color. Several participants spoke of having to contend with White-normed and middle-class-oriented policies, tools, and practices that often prevented them from meeting the unique needs of racialized service users. The article concludes with participants' recommendations for creating a more equitable child welfare system.     

Race Matters: Child Protection and the Communication Process

It is well-known that, in the United States, African-American children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system and that disparities in the provision of services exist. The debate over contributing factors to this overrepresentation and these disparities is ongoing as researchers seek explanations and practitioners pursue solutions. This qualitative inquiry finds that within the context of the child protection system and the juvenile court process, racial dynamics emerge between respondent parents and system representatives that may affect the process and, in turn, the outcomes for the thousands of children of color in the foster care system.     

Disentangling substantiation: The influence of race, income, and risk on the substantiation decision in child welfare

Understanding the source of disparities found at decision-making points along the child welfare pathway is essential to understanding and addressing the overrepresentation of African American children. Although research has documented the existence of disparities, it has been less successful in identifying the explanatory factors behind them. Critiques of research examining these disparities have suggested that poverty is likely a stronger explanatory factor than race, yet analyses that include measures of poverty using data from child welfare systems have largely not been conducted. This study uses data from the Texas child welfare system to identify the factors contributing to disparities at the substantiation decision. Given the relationship between poverty and child maltreatment, the analyses control for the effect of family income, as well as other factors related to maltreatment, to better understand the effect of race on this decision-making point. Findings indicate that when family income is controlled, race is not a significant factor in the substantiation decision. However, when also controlling for caseworker perceptions of risk, race emerges as the stronger explanatory factor. This suggests not only an important relationship between race, income, and risk assessment, but also that disproportionality in the child welfare system is a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained by a single factor. These results further demonstrate that the effect of racial bias on decision-making remains an important consideration in understanding the overrepresentation of African American children.     

Family policy and critical science research: Facilitating change

The principles of critical science for policy research are outlined and one research project is used as a case study. The study was intentionally designed to facilitate changes that would positively influence the economic well-being of children from divorced families. The project uses the critical science processes of public dialogue about child support guidelines for purposes of collaborative problem solving. The normative theories of procedural and distributive justice are used to guide the research reporting. The project contributes to changes in the practices of estimating the income needs of children, changes in estimating the relative monetary contributions of their parents, and proposed legislation and modifications in the state child support guidelines. She received her Ph.D. in family ecology from Michigan State University. Her research interests include the valuing issues of family life quality, family decision making, divorce,and the economic adjustments of families to economic stressors. She received her M.A. degree in Family Education from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include decision making and parenting. She received her Ph.D. degree in anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include social and cultural change and the integration of research findings into public policy decision making.     

Racial/ethnic disparity in child welfare systems: A longitudinal study utilizing the Disparity Index (DI)

The purpose of the study is to examine racial/ethnic disparity among children and families that are involved with the child welfare system. Specifically, the authors explore whether or not disparity levels and long-term changes in disparity in California child welfare systems are significant. In addition, the study investigates how county characteristics such as child poverty rates, unemployment rates, and rurality are associated with levels of disparity and changes in racial/ethnic disparity over time. Using a Latent Growth Curve (LGC) modeling approach, the study estimated the trajectories of county-level Disparity Index (DI) scores (Shaw, Putnam-Hornstein, Magruder, & Needell, 2008). African American and Hispanic/Latino children were compared to Caucasian children for two phases of the child welfare process: substantiated allegations and entries, between 2005 and 2008. The results demonstrate that racial/ethnic disparity between African American and Caucasian children was significant at both phases of the child welfare process in 2008. However, disparity between Hispanic/Latino and White children was not significant. Levels of disparity between African American and Caucasian children remained constant over time. Regarding the effects of county characteristics, higher child poverty rates, higher unemployment rates and rurality were related to lower levels of disparity. In addition, unemployment rates were associated with increasing rates of change in entries disparity between African American and Caucasian children. And urbanicity was associated with increasing rates of change in substantiated allegations disparity between Hispanic/Latino and Caucasian children. The study's implications for future research are discussed.     

Reframing child protection: A response to a constant crisis of confidence in child protection

Child protection systems appear to be in a continual crisis of confidence. They get criticised for not doing enough to protect some children, whilst at the same time being criticised for being too intrusive or not managing demand. This constant balancing act drives almost continual reforms, none of which appear to reduce further crises of confidence. The central issue facing tertiary child protection systems stems from their function as makers of sometimes highly uncertain risk screening decisions. Uncertainty leads to errors; false positives and false negatives. Two recurring issues challenging child protection agencies are concerns about these errors. Fears about doing too much are concerns about false positives and fears of doing too little are concerns about false negatives. The need to address both issues within the context of uncertain high stakes decision making, in a highly risk intolerant environment leads to poorly formed sentinel event driven policy that in turn leads to organisational fragility. A decision outcome-based performance model based on Signal Detection Theory provides indicators that explicitly outline the link between these two strategic issues facing child protection systems. This has improved dialogue, understanding and support from sponsors. It has led an informed focus on improving decision making and stabilisation of decision thresholds. It demonstrates that Child protection systems are in fact very responsive and do perform well in their decision making (risk screening) function. Social work decision makers provide value in their decision making in spite of highly uncertain decisions to make. Child protection systems do not need reform, they need to be “reframed” to better understand true performance and so avoid poorly informed reactive policy responses to the genuine challenges that they face.     

Exploring the new child protection system in Mainland China: How does it work?

Child protection has become an increasingly important issue in China. Notably however, few studies have explored the Chinese child protection system itself. The purpose of this study is to explore the basic elements of China's child protection system, which was initiated as a pilot program in May 2013, in order to find out how this child protection program works. A content analysis approach was used for this study. A total of 97 related public documents and 11 supplemented interviews were analyzed. We report on the five major categories of basic elements of China's child protection, accompanied by a detailed analysis. Findings show that: (1) The child protection pilot program aims to serve more vulnerable and disadvantaged children rather than abused and neglected children; (2) Although Minors' Protection Office was established to specialize in improving child protection mechanisms and services, a number of agencies bear the primary responsibilities of children protection in practice; (3) A reporting system for reporting suspected child abuse has been advocated in the practice of child protection for the first time; (4) Domestic child protection organizations and institutions play important roles in providing alternative care services. The findings presented in this paper also indicate that although a basic framework for child protection has formed in pilot areas, there are significant barriers to developing and implementing such a system.     

CUSTODY RESOLUTION COUNSELING: AN ALTERNATIVE INTERVENTION*

As the number of divorces increases, so does the number of families litigating child custody. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Hennepin County Domestic Relations Division, a social services arm of the Family Court, has developed Custody Resolution Counseling (CRC) as an alternative to the traditional Custody Study intervention. The CRC process helps families toward making their own decision regarding custody as opposed to the court imposed decision which follows a Custody Study. The article describes the CRC process and presents a case illustration.     

Taking action on racial disproportionality in the child welfare system

Mirroring national trends, children of color in Washington state's King County are overrepresented at every point in the child welfare system and fare worse by most measures than are Caucasian children. The King County Coalition on Racial Disproportionality was formed to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial disproportionality in the county's child welfare system. The research-based strategies implemented to address the issue focused on children in care longer than two years. They included participation in the Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Racial Disproportionality, implementation of benchmark hearings, and development of Champions for Permanence. Now in the beginning stages, perhaps the most significant success is heightened awareness within the community of the disparate outcomes for children of color in the child welfare system.     

“There Is No Perfect School”: The Complexity of School Decision‐Making Among Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Parents

Parents influence their children's educational experiences in part via school selection. This process is particularly complex for families with multiple minority, potentially stigmatized, statuses. This qualitative study examines middle‐class lesbian and gay (LG) adoptive parents' school decision‐making. Parents' economic resources provided the foundation for how parents weighed child/family identities (children's race, LG‐parent family structure, child's special needs) and school‐related concerns (e.g., academic rigor). For White gay male‐headed families in affluent urban communities, financial resources muted racial and sexual orientation consciousness in favor of competitive academic environments. Lesbian mothers of modest economic means prioritized racial diversity more centrally. Racial diversity overrode gay‐friendliness as a consideration in lesbian‐mother families; gay‐friendliness was prioritized over racial diversity among families in conservative communities; and special needs overrode all other child and family identity considerations. For LG adoptive parent families, school decision‐making has the potential for greater tensions amidst multiple intersecting identities and fewer economic resources.     

Emotional harm and neglect: the legal response

This paper reports on a study of the extent to which child protection applications brought to the Melbourne Children's Court in Victoria, Australia, were based on emotional/psychological harm or neglect of a child and what factors were presented as evidence of harm or neglect. The study examined records of 208 court‐ordered pre‐trial conferences heard in the court between February and July 2002. What was found was that, although cases involving emotional abuse have increased in terms of child protection applications, they remain cases that are difficult to decide. While in 1998/9 emotional harm was a ground in 25.7% of child protection matters completed in the Family Division of the Children's Court of Victoria, legal decision‐makers are reluctant to make a finding of child abuse in these cases because there is less accuracy in the determination of emotional harm and negligible legal criteria available to guide decision‐making. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Delineating disproportionality and disparity of Asian-Canadian versus White-Canadian families in the child welfare system

ObjectiveThis paper builds upon the analyses presented in three companion papers using data from the 2003 and 2008 cycles of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2003 and CIS-2008) and the Ontario Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (OCANDS) to examine disproportionality and disparity of child welfare involvement for Asian-Canadian children involved in the child welfare system.MethodsThis study used CIS-2008 data adjusted by Census child population data to examine rates per 1000 and three disparity indexes (population-based disparity index [PDI], decision-based disparity index [DDI], and maltreatment-based disparity index [MDI]) to determine the representation of child maltreatment investigations for Asian-Canadian versus White-Canadian children involved in the child welfare system. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine the odds of case closure for substantiated child maltreatment investigations, and whether Asian ethnicity remained significant while controlling for child demographics and household composition, case characteristics, and clinical concerns.ResultsThis study found that Asian-Canadian children were underrepresented in the child welfare system compared to White-Canadian children (13.9 per 1000 Asian children in the Canadian population vs. 36.1 per 1000 White children in the Canadian population). Child welfare involvement for Asian-Canadian children are almost 2 times more likely to close after an investigation than White-Canadian children. The three disparity indexes (PDI, DDI, MDI) showed substantially different results with respect to the representation of child maltreatment investigations involving Asian-Canadian versus White-Canadian children for physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional maltreatment, and exposure to domestic violence.ConclusionsDisproportionality and disparity are complex phenomena. The variation in results derived from different methods of calculating representation suggests the need for greater clarity and consistency in the definitions and methodology in examining racial disparity in child welfare research. Some methodological considerations for future child welfare research with Asian-Canadian populations were discussed.     

Obstacles for child participation in care and protection cases—why Norwegian social workers find it difficult

Although some attempts are being made to increase children's participation in Norwegian child protection cases, much needs to be done in order to comply with the participation principle in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This paper reports on a study of factors that are likely to predict if social workers will attempt to give children an effective voice in decision making processes. 53 child protection case managers and 33 social work students participated in a questionnaire survey in which they were asked to agree or disagree with 20 statements about child participation. Statistical factor analysis was used in order to identify underlying factors in the dataset. The results suggest three main reasons for children not being allowed to participate: communication difficulties (communication factor); because child participation was not deemed necessary (participation advocacy factor); or that participation was considered inappropriate because it might be harmful (protectionism factor). This research suggests that, if we are to improve participation within the child protection system, formal regulations and guidelines need to be accompanied by a greater attention to development of social work skills in working with children through participatory processes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.