Trends in child protection and out-of-home care

State support policies and children's living arrangements

BACKGROUND

Many children in the United States live apart from their parents, in either formal or informal foster care, due to concerns about child abuse and neglect. Prior research has established a connection between poverty and child maltreatment, but many aspects of state support to families remain unexamined in relation to child living arrangements.

OBJECTIVE

We test welfare access, welfare generosity, work supports, and family supports indicators as predictors of foster care removal rates and nonparental care rates.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

We use a population of 51 states, including the District of Columbia, for years 2008 to 2018, totaling 561 state-years.

METHODS

We utilize negative binomial regression models with state and year fixed effects.

RESULTS

We find that one-dollar higher minimum wages are negatively associated with both foster care removal rates (IRR = 0.947, p < 0.001) and nonparental care rates (IRR = 0.975, p < 0.01), but that other state policies are not consistently beneficial.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results have implications for policies to assist families and reduce child maltreatment.

Foster care, permanency, and risk of prison entry

Objective

(1) Examine associations of foster care exit type (e.g., reunification with birth family, adoption, guardianship/permanent relative placement, or emancipation from care) with risk of entry into state prison; (2) Examine racial disparities in those associations.

Method

With data on over 10,000 Wisconsin youth who entered foster care in mid- to late-childhood, we present imprisonment rates in young adulthood by race, sex, and foster care exit type. Proportional hazards models with a robust set of covariates compared prison entry rates among the most common exit types-reunification, aging out, and guardianship/permanent relative placement.

Results

Nearly 13% of the sample experienced imprisonment in young adulthood. Compared with emancipated youth, hazard of imprisonment was 1.58-1.96 times higher among reunified youth. Differences were largely unexplained by observed individual, family, or foster care characteristics. Imprisonment rates were similar for emancipated youth and youth exiting to guardianship/permanent relative placement. Hazard of imprisonment for reunified Black youth was twice that of reunified white youth, but racial differences in prison entry were statistically non-significant among emancipated youth.

Conclusion

Efforts to reduce incarceration risk for all youth in foster care are needed. Reunified youth may benefit from services and supports currently provided primarily to emancipated youth.

Socioeconomic Resource Environments in Biological and Alternative Family Care and Children's Cognitive Performance

OBJECTIVE

We examined social and economic resources in the environments of children involved with child protective services and their associations with children's cognitive performance.

METHODS

We used a national dataset of child protection investigations (children ages 6 to 16 at wave 1). Using latent class analysis, we constructed profiles of the financial resources, parental education and employment, and family structure and size. We then examined within- and across-time associations between resource environment profiles and children's math and reading scores, and tested whether associations differed by family care type.

RESULTS

Our latent class analysis identified four distinct family resource environments: educated middle class, single earner, large working class, and severely disadvantaged. Family resource environment profiles predicted current cognitive performance and changes in performance over time, but associations were more consistent for children in biological family care.

CONCLUSION

Children who remain in home following maltreatment allegations may benefit from services that target social as well as economic resources.

The Role of Shared Decision-Making in Shaping Intent to Access Services for Adolescents in Protective Custody

Including children in protective custody (e.g., foster care) in legal decisions positively impacts their perceptions of the legal system, with giving youth a voice being particularly important. Studies have primarily focused on including young people in legal processes; however, for adolescents in protective custody, decisions about living arrangements, education, and long-term planning are made outside the courtroom, with ramifications for young people and their perceptions of both legal and child protection systems. This study looks at such decision making using existing data from 151 adolescents who were ages 16-20 and had been in child welfare protective custody for at least 12 months. During in-person interviews we assessed their desired amount of involvement in a recent decision and their perceptions of their actual involvement. Youth named other individuals involved in decision-making. Data were coded and analysed to identify discrepancies in young people's perceptions of desired and actual levels of involvement. Results indicate that while the majority of adolescents (96%) are participating in decision-making, they generally desire more involvement in decisions made (64%). Only 7% of youth reported that their level of personal involvement and the involvement of others matched what they desired. The most common individuals identified in a decision made were child protection workers, legal professionals, and caregivers or family members. These findings enhance the existing literature by highlighting the unique issues related to giving young people in protective custody a voice, and provide an empirical foundation for guiding policies around who to involve in every-day decisions made for young people preparing for emancipation from protective custody.

Health Care Issues for Children and Adolescents in Foster Care and Kinship Care

Children and adolescents involved with child welfare, especially those who are removed from their family of origin and placed in out-of-home care, often present with complex and serious physical, mental health, developmental, and psychosocial problems rooted in childhood adversity and trauma. As such, they are designated as children with special health care needs. There are many barriers to providing high-quality comprehensive health care services to children and adolescents whose lives are characterized by transience and uncertainty. Pediatricians have a critical role in ensuring the well-being of children in out-of-home care through the provision of high-quality pediatric health services in the context of a medical home, and health care coordination and advocacy on their behalf. This technical report supports the policy statement of the same title.

Parenting stress among child welfare involved families: Differences by child placement

The intersection of parenting stress and maltreatment underscores the importance of understanding the factors associated with parenting stress among child welfare involved families. This study takes advantage of a statewide survey of child welfare involved families to examine parent and child characteristics and concrete resources, in relation to parenting stress. Separate multivariate analyses were conducted by placement status given the difference in day-to-day parenting responsibilities for families receiving in-home supervision compared to those whose children are in out-of-home care. Across both groups, parenting stress was predicted by child mental health, a finding with critical implications for intervention to this vulnerable group of families. Parent mental health also predicted parenting stress for the in-home group and food insecurity predicted parenting stress in the out-of-home group. Findings confirm that stress varies by context and that a multi-dimensional framework, considering both psychosocial and concrete resources, is required to capture contributors to parenting stress.

Foster care and healing from complex childhood trauma

Children enter foster care with many forms of adversity and trauma beyond maltreatment that impact their short- and long-term physical, mental, and developmental health and their adaptation to their new care environment. Applying an understanding of the impact of toxic stress on the developing brain and body allows the health care provider to understand findings in this vulnerable population. Complex trauma alters immune response, neurodevelopment, and the genome, resulting in predictable and significant cognitive, behavioral, and physical consequences. Pediatric care of children in foster care must be trauma informed to meet their medical, mental health, and developmental needs.

Vorläufige Schutzmaßnahmen für gefährdete Kinder und Jugendliche

Die Zahl der Inobhutnahmen ist in den letzten Jahren in Deutschland deutlich angestiegen. Es ist unklar, ob dieser Anstieg Ausdruck einer differenzierteren Wahrnehmung von Problemlagen oder eher Ausdruck einer Absicherungstendenz von Fachkräften darstellt. Es erfolgt einerseits ein Überblick über die internationale Faktenlage und andererseits werden öffentliche Datensätze zur Inobhutnahme in Bezug auf Altersverteilung, Geschlechtsverteilung, regionale Differenzen und Disparitäten anhand der Dortmunder Jugendhilfestatistik analysiert. Für die Zukunft wird eine differenzierte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Phänomen der Inobhutnahme gefordert. Wesentliche Fragestellungen, die einer gründlicheren Untersuchung harren, werden aufgezeigt.