child welfare case study

Case studies in child welfare

About this guide, child welfare case studies, real-life stories, and scenarios, social services and organizational case studies, other case studies, using case studies.

This guide is intended as a supplementary resource for staff at Children's Aid Societies and Indigenous Well-being Agencies. It is not intended as an authority on social work or legal practice, nor is it meant to be representative of all perspectives in child welfare. Staff are encouraged to think critically when reviewing publications and other materials, and to always confirm practice and policy at their agency.

Case studies and real-life stories can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning about child welfare issues and practice applications. This guide provides access to a variety of sources of social work case studies and scenarios, with a specific focus on child welfare and child welfare organizations.

• Real cases project Three case studies, drawn from the New York City Administration for Children's Services. Website also includes teaching guides
• Protective factors in practice vignettes These vignettes illustrate how multiple protective factors support and strengthen families who are experiencing stress. From the National Child Abuse Prevention Month website
• Child welfare case studies and competencies Each of these cases was developed, in partnership, by a faculty representative from an Alabama college or university social work education program and a social worker, with child welfare experience, from the Alabama Department of Human Resources

• Immigration in the child welfare system: Case studies Case studies related to immigrant children and families in the U.S. from the American Bar Association
• White privilege and racism in child welfare scenarios From the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare more... less... https://web.archive.org/web/20190131213630/https://cascw.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/WhitePrivilegeScenarios.pdf
• You decide: Would you remove these children from their families? Interactive piece from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation featuring cases based on real-life situations
• A case study involving complex trauma This case study complements a series of blog posts dedicated to the topic of complex trauma and how children learn to cope with complex trauma
• Fostering and adoption: Case studies Four case studies from Research in Practice (UK)
• Troubled families case studies This document describes how different families in the UK were helped through family intervention projects
• Parenting case studies From of the Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center's training entitled "Understanding Reactive Attachment Disorder"
• Children’s Social Work Matters: Case studies Collections of narratives and case studies

• Race for Results case studies Series of case studies from the Annie E. Casey Foundation looking at ways of addressing racial inequities and supporting better outcomes for racialized children and communities
• Systems of care implementation case studies This report presents case studies that synthesize the findings, strategies, and approaches used by two grant communities to develop a principle-guided approach to child welfare service delivery for children and families more... less... https://web.archive.org/web/20190108153624/https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/ImplementationCaseStudies.pdf
• Child Outcomes Research Consortium: Case studies Case studies from the Child Outcomes Research Consortium, a membership organization in the UK that collects and uses evidence to improve children and young people’s mental health and well-being
• Social work practice with carers: Case studies
• Social Care Institute for Excellence: Case studies
• Learning to address implicit bias towards LGBTQ patients: Case scenarios [2018] more... less... https://web.archive.org/web/20190212165359/https://www.lgbthealtheducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Implicit-Bias-Guide-2018_Final.pdf
• Using case studies to teach
• Last Updated: Aug 12, 2022 11:21 AM
• URL: https://oacas.libguides.com/case-studies

Child Welfare Journal Archives

Child welfare journal archives, vol. 101. no. 5.

Culturally Responsive Services for Families in Child Welfare who are Immigrants and Refugees: The Interaction between Cultural Competence at Individual and Organizational Levels Jangmin Kim, Wooksoo Kim, Isok Kim, Qi Zhou and Krisztina Baltimore

What Master of Social Work Students with a Child Welfare Focus Need to Know About Youth Who Sexually Harm Adam Brown and Julie Glickman

Unraveling the Layers: Developmental Challenges in Children Who Have Experienced Maltreatment Richard Alboroto and Meripa Godinet

Preventing Unintentional Pediatric Window Falls: Epidemiology, Strategies, and Policy Implications Sarah Flores, Jennifer Barrows, Gary Taylor, Makenzie Ferguson, Jennifer Hayakawa and Laura F. Goodman

Parent–child Communication and Children’s Mental Health: The Mediating Effect of Peer Group Characteristics Hongfei Li and Jian Mo

Exploring Interdisciplinary Collaboration to Support Life Skills Education for Young Adults in Extended Foster Care Amy Armstrong-Heimsoth, Heather J. Williamson, Anthony Thornton and Samantha Maloney

Vol. 101, No. 4

Child Welfare Workers’ Perceptions on Pandemic Service Disruptions and Areas of Improvement: Working with Newcomer Families in Ontario, Canada, during COVID-19 Daniel Kikulwe, Derrick Ssewanyana and Sarah Maiter

Lessons Learned: Facilitating a Health and Wellness Intervention for Frontline Child Welfare Workers during COVID-19 Kara S. Haughtigan, Austin Griffiths, Kim Link, Oliver W.J. Beer and Lindsey Powell

Promoting Equity in Child Welfare through Culturally Responsive Workforce Development: A Pilot Study Micki Washburn, Catherine LaBrenz, Jandel Crutchfield, Lacey Jenkins, Min Jin Choi and Scott Ryan

A Textual Analysis of Dental Neglect in the Child Abuse User Manual Series Arthur Begotti Silva, Stephanie Anne Deutsch and Katheryn Goldman

The Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism: A Critical Literature Reviews Almudena Otegui Carles, José Antonio Fraiz Brea, Noelia Araújo Vila

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Adverse Childhood Experiences and Childhood Neighborhood Cohesion and Safety Jisuk Seon, Esther Son, Hyunkag Cho, Jungeun Olivia Lee, Seunghye Hong and Yein Yoon

Happy, Healthy, and Needs Met: How Kinship Caregivers Define Success and Well-being Jaymie Lorthridge, Lucia M. Reyes, Elisa Rosman and Sarah Kaye

Vol. 101, No. 2 & No. 3

Special Issue: Opportunities for Child Welfare to Respond to Prenatal Alcohol and Other Substance Exposures 

Special Foreword: Prenatal Substance Exposure and Child Welfare

A Constellation of Adversity: A Developmental Perspective on Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in the Child Welfare System Douglas Waite

Behavioral Impact of Childhood Traumatic Stress in Children with Prenatal Substance Exposure Philip Bowers, Julie Kable, Molly Millians and Claire D. Coles

Policy and Practice in Responding to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in California: Challenges and Opportunities Sid Gardner

Iowa Children and Family Collaborative: An Integrated System of Maternal and Child Behavioral Health Care Ira J. Chasnoff , Miriam J. Landsman, Lauryn Muzny, Kathy Thompson, Gabriell Carpenter and Kayla A. Scanlan

FASD and Young Children in Foster Care: Early Detection and Interventions for Caregivers Sebastian Del Corral Winder, Amy Rinner and Amy Dickson

Exploring Child Welfare Practices to Care for Children with Prenatal Substance Exposure Kathleen Wang, Tammy Richards, Kathleen Kopiec, Sharon Newburg-Rinn and Jacquelyn Bertrand

Family Care Plans for Infants with Prenatal Substance Exposure Margaret Lloyd Sieger, Cynthia Nichols, Ira J. Chasnoff, Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Stephen W. Patrick and Michael Copenhaver

“The Problem’s Bigger than We Are”: Understanding How Local Factors Influence Child Welfare Responses to Substance Use in Pregnancy, A Qualitative Study Sarah F. Loch, Alexandra Muhar, Kathryn Bouskill, Bradley D. Stein, Qi Shi, Kemberlee Bonnet, David Schlundt, Margaret Lloyd Sieger, Elizabeth Parker, Caroline Orgel and Stephen W. Patrick

Case Study of a Prevention-oriented, Strengths-based Approach to Services for Prenatal Substance Exposure in a Tribal Child Welfare Agency Erin Geary, Priscilla Day, Natalie Moyer, Amy Red Cloud, Andrea Goodwin and Cheri Goodwin

Vol 101, No. 1

From the Editor: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Doorways to Adversity: Challenges of Youth Involved in Multiple Systems Svetlana Yampolskaya

Child Protective Services Workers and Supervisor Responses to Unsafe Home Visit Experiences Karlissa Wise, Joan Blakey, Andrea Dickey, Adam Chancy, Darrian Dawson and Leigh Beck

Experiences with and Perceptions of the Child Welfare System for Mothers Experiencing Incarceration Susan J. Rose and Thomas P. LeBel

Experiences of Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities who have Child Welfare Involvement: Perspectives from Parents and Staff Providing Legal Services Miriam Heyman, Robyn Powell, Kimberly The and Monika Mitra

Gender Differences in Sex-related Education, Knowledge, and Attitudes among Chinese Adolescents Hongfei Li, Mantang Gan, Jing Chen, Xinlong Rao, Chengzhu Xiong, Xin Guan, Dongdong Liu and Yanfen Liu

Safety in Oversight: A New Approach for Children’s Ombudsmen in Critical Incident Review Moira K. O’Neill and Heather M. Kennedy

A Systematic Review of the Effect of Active Commuting to School on Children’s Well-being: A Physical, Psychological, Social, and Academic Approach Idoia Legorburu Fernández, Nahia Idoiaga Mondragon, Argia Langarika-Rocafort, Maria Dosil-Santamaria and Naiara Berasategui

Vol. 100, No. 6

Special Issue: Understanding the Connection between Social Determinants of Health and Child Welfare

Special Foreword: The Intersection of Social Determinants of Health, Child Welfare, and Health Care

Cascading System Failures: How Systems Contribute to Poverty, Poor Health, and Child Welfare Involvement, and how to Redress This Shadi Houshyar, Elisa Minoff and Megan Martin

A Public Health Approach to Preventing Intergenerational Transmission of Substance Use Disorder: Applying a Social Determinants of Health Framework to Child Welfare and Across Systems Amanda D. Latimore, Elizabeth Schoyer, Sarah Mossburg, Brett Kellett, Taletha M. Derrington, Koray Caglayan and Dajun Lin

DULCE: Addressing Social Determinants of Health by Connecting Families to Concrete Supports as a Primary Prevention Approach to Child Welfare Whitney Hewlett Noël, Martha L. Raimon, Samantha J. Morton, Lia Hsu-Rodriguez and Jayne Singer Impacts of the Prevention and Aftercare Program in Los Angeles County: A Propensity Score Analysis of Subsequent Child Protective Services Involvement Lindsey Palmer, Jacquelyn McCroskey, John Prindle, Andrea Lane Eastman, Rebecca Rebbe and Regan Foust

Identifying Family Housing Stability: Exploring the Intersection of Social Determinants of Health, Housing and Child Welfare Involvement Leah Lindstrom Rhea, Amy Stetzel, Andrew Johnson, Karen Bartos and Frank Alexander

Redefining Culture in the CANS Assessment Tool to Improve Assessment of the Social Determinants of Health Maria E. Torres, Hannah E. Karpman and Thomas Mackie

Addressing the Social Determinants of Health to Stabilize Families in Crisis: Lessons from the Field in Five Nations Ian Forber-Pratt, Nicole Wilke and Trisha Weber

Vol. 100, No. 5

From the Editor: Pandemic as Metaphor

Parent Visits to Children in Foster Care and Institutional Care: What Impact do they Make? Stéphanie Chartier and Adélaïde Blavier

The Life Circumstances of Diverse Parents with Disabilities with Child Welfare Involvement Miriam Heyman, Frank Li, Luca Swinford and Monika Mitra

Online Parenting Information Through the Lens of Child Abuse Prevention: A Content Analysis Amy J.L. Baker, Marla R. Brassard, Julia Kagan, Bri Stormer, Kevin Lee Adkins III, Janet Rosenzweig and Naomi Chandler-Ofuya

Child Welfare Workforce Health: Exploring Stress, Burnout, Depression, and Sleep During COVID-19 Kim Link, Austin Griffiths, Kara Haughtigan, Oliver W. J. Beer and Lindsey Powell

COVID-19 and Servicing Youth in Foster Care Transitioning to Adulthood: Challenges and Opportunities Yuk C. Pang, Pond Ezra , Anna Stern, June Simon and Timothy Ross

Fetal and Childhood Maltreatment: A Systematic Review Marian Swindell and Andrea Germany

The Impact of Family Resource Centers on Referral Rates to Child Protective Services: A Comparison Group Study Catherine Roller White, Paul Bonfanti, Peter J. Pecora, Jorge Cabrera and Toni Rozanski

Vol 100, No. 4

Special Issue: Promotion of Latino and Hispanic Child & Family Well-Being

From the Editor: Familismo

Special Foreword: Latinx and Child Welfare: A Status Update

Sociopolitical Indicators that may Influence Latinx Children’s and Youth’s Entry into the Child Welfare System and Services Jorge A. Velázquez

Porque Me Desahogué: Expressive Writing as a Tool for School-based Trauma Treatment in Central American Adolescents Stephanie Carnes

Bilinguals Serving Latinx Families in Child Welfare Vania Buck

The Role of the Foster Care Agency and Foster Parents in the Lives of Children who are Unaccompanied Immigrants from Central America Kerri Evans, Dominique Culley and Thomas M. Crea

Hispanic Family Resiliencies Improve with a Family-based Prevention Program,  ¡Celebrando Familias! Edward Cohen, Rosemary Tisch, Maria Ramirez and Toni Torres

An Examination of Latinx Immigrant Families’ Social Service Needs Following a Deportation-related Family Separation Kristina Lovato and Laura S. Abrams

Exploring the Experiences of of Latinx Immigrant Families who are Undocumented during the COVID-19 Pandemic through an Ecosystemic Perspective Laura Jeannette Ramirez Diaz, Kaeli Flannery, Martie Gillen and Suzanna Smith

Latinx Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Language Kathryn E. Parr, Mollie Lazar Charter, Juliany Polar, Shireena McGee and Harini Buch

Child Welfare and Latinx Immigration: The Connecticut Experience Loida Reyes, Carlos A. Torre and Jennifer Avenia

Vol. 100, No. 3

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations of Parent Advocates Working with Families in Child Welfare Marina Lalayants and Inga Saitadze

Addressing Child Welfare through Comprehensive Early Intervention during COVID-19 Erika J. Hildebrandt, Alegnta F. Felleke, Rebecca J. Gomez, April C. Bowie-Viverette and Angela Matijczak

Children’s Social Workers’ Views on Cultural Sensitivity in Mandated Reporting Michelle R. Cox , Bryan D. Bowens and Terrance D. Newman

Untangling the Effects of Welfare and Poverty on Children’s Involvement in Bullying Jun Sung Hong, Jungtae Choi, Yolanda C. Padilla, Chi-Fang Wu, Na Youn Lee, and Dorothy L. Espelage

Characteristics of Family Treatment Courts, the Families They Serve, and Their Capacity to Meet the Demands of their Communities Michael Shattuck Rodi, Jessica A. Dahlgren, Lyndsey Smith and Katherine Kissick

Ethnic Minority Children’s Perceptions of Violence Exposure in Communities Caleb Kim, Rana Hong and Philip Young P. Hong

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap: The Potential for Unconditional Cash Benefits to Reduce Racial Disproportionality in the Child Welfare System Katherine M. Ginn, Brittani Kindle and Valerie Pacino

Vol. 100, No. 1 & No. 2

Special Issue: Transforming Child Welfare through Anti-Racist Approaches

From the Editor: ‘ Why are All the Kids Black and All the Staff White?’: Anti-racism Work in Child Welfare

Introduction: Transforming Child Welfare through Anti-Racist Approaches

Approaches from Related Fields to Integrate Anti-racist Initiatives into Child Welfare Anita P. Barbee, Andrew M. Winters and Emma M. Sterrett-Hong

Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Child Welfare: A Problem With ‘Bias’ in the Research Reiko Boyd

Investing in Families through Economic Supports: An Anti-racist Approach to Supporting Families and Reducing Child Welfare Involvement Alexandra Citrin, Megan Martin and Clare Anderson

Beyond Human-centered Design: The Promise of Antiracist Community-centered Approaches in Child Welfare Program and Policy Design Sonya Soni, Jessica Mason and Jermeen Sherman

‘Our Agency Doesn’t Like to Use the Word Racism Let Alone Talk about It’: Firsthand Stories of Workplace Racism in Child Welfare Sreyashi Chakravarty and Catherine K. Lawrence

‘They Don’t Understand Us and are Afraid of Us’: Black Social Workers’ Perspectives on the Role of Anti-Blackness within Foster Care Service Provision to Black Children Dominique Mikell Montgomery

Aunties, Uncles, Me Maws, and Play Cousins: Exploring Trends in Formal Kinship Care for Black Families in Texas Sherri Y. Simmons-Horton, Tanya N. Rollins, Richard Harris and Ashley Blackmore

Child Welfare Services: Its Ontology of Colonial Difference Mirna E. Carranza

Families with Black Caregivers Were More Likely to Reunify? Explaining Findings from a RCT for Families who are Housing-unstable and Have Children in Foster Care Cyleste Collins, Rong Bai , David Crampton and Rob Fischer

Parenting Amid Child Welfare Oversight: A Case Study of a Black Mother Darcey H. Merritt, Rachel D. Ludeke and Kimberly D. Hudson 

Closing the Front Door of Child Protection: Rethinking Mandated Reporting Miriam Itzkowitz and Katie Olson

Using Institutional Analysis to Examine the Systemic Sources of Racial Disproportionality and Disparity: A Case Example Kelechi Wright, Becci A. Akin, Kaela Byers, Sarah McCall, Dennis Alford, Amittia Parker, Shelby L. Clark, Nina Shaw-Woody, Melinda Kline, Nozella Brown, Evelyn Hill , Sharon Davis-Mays, Wes Parham and Rhonda Rush

Real or Imagined: Racial Bias in Family Assessments Michele D. Hanna and Stephanie Rogers

Navigating Racism in the Child Welfare System: The Impact on Black Children, Families, and Practitioners Nia I. Cantey, Lamar W. Smith, Shemeka Frazier Sorrells, Dianne Kelly, Candis Jones and Deborah Burrus

Vol. 99, No. 6

From the Editor: Protection: What All Children and Youth Need

Fostering Success in Higher Education: An Evaluation of a Holistic Model to Bridge Gaps for Foster Care Alumni and Youth who have been Displaced Taylor Ellis, Holly Register, Stefanie Binion and Kristin W. Alberda

Infants Born to Mothers in Buprenorphine Treatment during Pregnancy: Involvement with Child Protective Services Alane B. O’Connor, Liam M. O’Brien, Katelyn Staring, Laura Gurenlian and William Alto

Trajectories of Foster Care Entry for Infants’ Substance Exposure in States Hyesu Yeo, Allison Dunnigan, Rachel Annette Fusco and Madison Watson

Child Welfare Policies and Practices Regarding Children with Prenatal Exposure to Alcohol and Other Drugs: An Exploratory Study Kristen Usher, Ashley Brizzo, Christine Leicht, Sharon Newburg-Rinn, Megan R. Reynolds, Heather McCann and Jacquelyn Bertrand

Identifying the Relationship between Implementation and Outcomes of Foster Youth Advisory Boards in the United States: The Push for Accountability Brad Forenza and Judy Havlicek

The Safe Systems Improvement Tool: A Quality Improvement Approach to Learning from Child Fatalities and Other Critical Incidents in Child Welfare Michael J. Cull, Tiff any O. Lindsey, Elizabeth N. Riley and John S. Lyons

Vol. 99, No. 5

From the Editor: Meaningful and Authentic Family Engagement

Child Maltreatment, Peer Victimization, Bystander Intervention Outcomes, and Survivors’ Long-term Health Hyunkag Cho, Esther Son, Jisuk Seon, Sung Hyun Yun, Ga-Young Choi and Jungeun Olivia Lee

Head Start Impact on Social–emotional Outcomes Among Children from Families who are Low-income: Interaction Effects of Parental Outcomes Kyunghee Lee and Kayla Kreutzer

Family Treatment Drug Court Cost Analysis: An In-depth Look at the Cost and Savings of a Southeastern Family Treatment Drug Court Ashley R. Logsdon, Becky F. Antle and Cindy Kamer

Safety Science, Innovation, and Change in a State Child Welfare System: A Case Study James M. Nyce, Noel Hengelbrok and Scott Modell

Authentic Family Engagement and Strengthening: A Promising Family-Centered Approach for Advancing Racial Justice with Families Involved with the Child Protection System Corey Best, Morgan E. Cooley, Marianna L. Colvin and Vaughn Crichlow

An Evaluation of a Diversionary Program for Children of Color on Reentry into the Child Welfare System Mathangi Swaminathan

Vol. 99, Nos. 3 & 4

Special Issue: Poverty, Race, and Child Welfare

From the Editor: Poverty and Child Welfare

Special Foreword: Family Poverty, Racism, and the Pandemic: From Crises to Opportunity for Transformation

The Need for Justice in Child Welfare Jerry Milner and David Kelly

Neglect as Collective Failure to Provide for Children: Toward a New Theoretical Approach Anne Blumenthal

Racial Bias, Poverty, and the Notion of Evidence Alan J. Dettlaff , Reiko Boyd, Darcey Merritt, Jason Anthony Plummer and James D. Simon

Studying the Spaces around Families: Critical Considerations for Neighborhood Research Methods Related to Child Protection Involvement Johanna Caldwell, Ashleigh Delaye and Tonino Esposito

Poverty and the Overrepresentation of First Nations Children in the Quebec Youth Protection System Patricia Montambault, Maude Ostiguy-Lauzon, Marie-Pier Paul, Carl Lacharité and Tonino Esposito

 ‘I Would Never Want to Live That Again’: Centering Mothers’ Acquired Knowledge to Better Understand their Experiences in Child Welfare Prevention Services Linda M. Callejas, Lakshmi Jayaram and Anna Davidson Abella

Poverty’s Pathways: How Poverty Hinders Parents’ Efforts to Reunify with their Children Placed in Foster Care Amy D’Andrade

Effects of Length and Predictability of Poverty Spells on Probability of Subsequent Substantiated Allegations of Child Maltreatment Ignacio Navarro

Association Between Community-Level Material Hardships and Foster Care Entry by Race/Ethnicity Holly J. White-Wolfe, Raphaël Charron-Chénier and Ramona Denby-Brinson

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Social Safety Net Policy Responses: Implications for Child Maltreatment Prevention Michelle Johnson-Motoyama

Vol. 99, No. 2

From the Editor: What We Say and What We Do Matters

Striving for Success: Youth Formerly in Foster Care and their Ability to Lead Successful Lives Donald Jackson and Carla Cesaroni

Attitudes toward Transracial Adoption Among African American MSW Students Jaegoo Lee, Trenia L. Allen, Bridgette Harris and Tamara Pace-Glover

Motivation to Foster Among Single Foster Parents Morgan E. Cooley, Brittany P. Mihalec-Adkins, Heather M. Thompson and Aakansha Mehrotra

Do Parenting Resources Sufficiently Oppose Physical Punishment?: A Review of Books, Programs, and Websites Amy J.L. Baker, Stacie Schrieffer LeBlanc and Mel Schneiderman

Safety Assessment and Family Evaluation Model: A Systematic, Change-Based Approach to Public Child Welfare Intervention Todd Holder

‘There’s Just a Certain Armor that You Have to Put On’: Navigating College as a Youth with Foster Care Experience Susan A. Dumais and Naomi J. Spence

Vol. 99, No. 1

From the Editor:  The Sting of Homelessness among Youth Exiting the Foster Care System

Prevalence of Risk and Protective Factors for Homelessness among Youth in Foster Care G. Lawrence Farmer, Janna C. Heyman, Peggy L. Kelly and Tara Linh Leaman

Women in the Waves: Learning from Mothers in Recovery through Photovoice Heather Howard and Marianna L. Colvin

Understanding and Partnering with Amish Communities to Keep Children Safe Jeanette Harder

Providing Parents with Advice about Alternatives to Psychological Maltreatment: A Survey of Professionals in the Field of Child Maltreatment Amy J. L. Baker, Marla R. Brassard and Janet F. Rosenzweig

Systematic Review of Foster Parent Recruitment Ryan Hanlon, Alanna Feltner, Angelique Day, Lori Vanderwill, JaeRan Kim and Elise J. Dallimore

A Case Study of the Nutritional Status of Children Living in a Residential Care Institution in Mexico City Claudia Nieto, Georgina Ibáñez, Benjamin Aceves, Isabel Valero-Morales, Yareni Gutiérrez-Gómez and Ana Gabriela Maafs-Rodríguez

Vol. 98, No. 6

Special Issue: Global Perspectives on Child Protection and Neglect

Special Foreword: The Importance of Cross-National Collaboration Katharine Briar-Lawson, Christine James-Brown and Donna Petras

From the Editor: Go Fast Alone or Go Far Together?

Child Protection in Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR): Conceptual Understanding, Policy, and Practice Meseret Kassahun Desta

Neglect of Young Children in South Africa: Implications for Prevention, Identification, and Intervention Kim Schmidt and Lenette Azzi-Lessing

Tanzanian Child Welfare Policy Since British Colonial Rule: From Probation to Social Welfare Amana Mbise, Theresa Kaijage, Paul Mwangosi, Naftali Ng’ondi, Jeanne Ndyetabura, Zainab Kitembe, Daudi Chanila and Rita Minga

Thinking and Learning Together: Applying an Educational Intervention for Children Affected by Violence in Northern Uganda to a U.S. Classroom Martha Bragin, Joseph Mikulka, Opiro Wirefred George, Michael Lewis and Sam Guzzardi

P.I.P.P.I.: The Program of Intervention for the Prevention of Institutionalization: Integrating Intervention, Training, Research, and Policy to Support Families and Professional Marco Ius

Child Welfare Services: Considerations for Disaster Planning Preparedness Hilda P. Rivera-Rodríguez and Jennifer Oliveras-Del Río

Family-Centered Anti-Poverty Strategies to Address Child Neglect Katharine Briar-Lawson, Jessica A. Pryce and Salome Raheim

Resourcing the System and Enhancing Relationships: Pathways to Positive Outcomes for Children Impacted by Abuse and Neglect Allison Cox, Bruce D. Perry and Margarita Frederico

Enabling Community-led Child Protection: The Journey of an Experimental Field Site in Madhubani Bihar, India Kajol (Devasmita) Menon and Nicole Rangel

Case Study: Taiwan’s Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention: The Child and Youth High-Risk Family Program Pai Li-Fang

Vol. 98, No. 5

From the Editor: Yes, Words Do Matter

Assessing Trauma in American Indian/Alaska Native Parents as an ICWA Active Effort Nancy M. Lucero, Marian Bussey, and Tabitha Carver-Roberts

Transitioning Children in Foster Care to Adoptive Homes Redmond Reams

An Analysis of the Demographic Predictors of the Use of a Louisiana Parenting Helpline Lisa M. Olson

Social Work Degrees and Title IV-E Stipends: Predictive Factors for Worker Retention in Public Child Welfare Patrick Leung, Monit Cheung, and Lindamarie Olson

Do Race, Racial Disproportionality, and Disparities Remain Foci of Child Welfare?: Words Matter Harold E. Briggs, Christi P. Hardeman, Leon Banks, Adam C. Briggs, Junior Lloyd Allen, June Gary Hopps, and Daniel McCrary

Vol. 98, No. 4

From the Editor: The Impact of Trauma-Informed Care and Cultural Humility in Child Welfare Systems

Trauma-Informed Care Intervention for Culture and Climate Change within a Child Welfare Agency Molly M. Garwood, Maria R. Beyer, Jennifer Hammel, Tricia Schutz, and Heather A. Paradis

Effectiveness of Critical Ongoing Resource Family Education Teen Edition (CORE-Teen): Support for Resource Parents of Teens who are American Indian Angelique Day, Stacie Tao, Nicolas Squirrell, Sasha Jumper, Meghan Arnold, and Suzanne Cross

Foster Parent Perceptions of Feeding Infants Prenatally Exposed to Substance Use Sara E. Moore

Intersectionality and Child Welfare Policy: Implications for Black Women, Children, and Families Abigail Williams-Butler, Kate E. Golden, Alicia Mendez, and Breana Stevens

A Multi-Level Analysis of the Effects of Independent Living Programs Chun Liu

Implementing Trauma Screening and Trauma Assessment in Child Welfare: The Journey of Seven Colorado Counties Christine Rizzo, Stephanie Seng, Marc Winokur, Catherine Weaver, Thad Paul, and Lise Youngblade

Vol. 98, No, 3

From the Editor:  Black and Brown Children’s and Families’ Lives Matter: Addressing Racial Bias and Oppressive Policies and Practices in the U.S. Child Welfare System

We Can Do Better: Mitigating Negatively Racialized Attitudes in Child Welfare through Self-awareness Training Adrianne M. Crawford Fletcher and Tohoro Akakpo

Strengthening Caregivers’ Adoption Experiences through Support Services  Marina Lalayants

Frontline Worker Perceptions of Organizational Supports to Promote Evidence Use in Private Child Welfare Agencies Crystal Collins-Camargo, Emmeline Chuang, Nicole Lauzus, Amy Bonilla, and Bowen McBeath

Perceptions of Workload and Job Impact as Predictors of Child Welfare Worker Health Status  Austin Griffiths, David Royse, Chris Flaherty and Crystal Collins-Camargo

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome and Trends in Infant Foster Care Admissions Margaret H. Lloyd Sieger and Jessica Becker

Outcomes of Young Adults Aging out of Foster Care: A Latent Class Analysis Pedro M. Hernandez and Jaegoo Lee

Vol. 98, No. 2

Governors as Policy Entrepreneurs: Setting the Agenda for Children Mary Elizabeth Collins and Sook Hyun Kim Understanding the Role of Coaching in Implementing and Sustaining Interventions in Child Welfare: A Review of the Literature April Allen, Nancy Hafer and Susan Brooks

Mental Health Screening in Treatment Foster Care Bonnie D. Kerker, Carol A. Quinlan, Glenn N. Saxe and Erika Tullberg

The Context-Specific Service Provision of CASA Colleen Cary Katz, Kerry Moles, Peggy Grauwiler and Sloan Silverman Post

A Model to Improve Educational Stability Collaborations between Child Welfare and Educational Agencies: Applying the Theory of Collaborative Advantage Kalah M. Villagrana

Understanding Individual and Organizational Factors Related to the Implementation Fidelity of the Family Finding Intervention to Support Youth in Foster Care who are Transitioning to Independent Living Liat Shklarski

Vol. 98, No. 1

‘We’re the Eyes for these Children 24 Hours a Day’: Foster Parents’ Understanding of their Role as Foster Carers Corey S. Shdaimah and Jonas Rosen

The Perception of Mentors and Mentorship among Youth at Risk in the Russian Federation Alexandra Telitsyna, Tatiana Arakantseva, and  Olga Zavodilkina

Examining Social Support Needs of Emerging Adults Transitioning out of Foster Care Francine E. Packard and Lorraine T. Benuto

Social Inclusion Outcomes: Evaluation of Proyecto Nacer’s Model Anayra Tua and Srikanta Banerjee

Suicide Prevention Training in the Child Welfare Workforce: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice Patterns Prior to and Following safeTALK Training Eskira Kahsay, Christina S. Magness, Seth Persky, Patricia K. Smith, and Cynthia Ewell Foster

Vol. 97, No. 5 & 6 Special Issue: Twenty Years after the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 (‘Chafee’): What We Know Now About Meeting the Needs of Teens and Young Adults

Special Foreword: Twenty Years after the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 (‘Chafee’): What We Know Now About Meeting the Needs of Teens and Young Adults Cassandra Simmel and Victoria Kelly

Ensuring Young People Flourish: Applying the Science of Adolescent Development through the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative Jeffrey M. Poirier, Leslie Gross, Alex Lohrbach, Leonardo Johnson and Sandra Wilkie

Factors Predicting Patterns of Service Use among John F. Chafee Independent Living Services Recipients Alfred G. Pérez, Richard J. Harris and Ka Ho Brian Chor

Countdown to 21: Outcomes from a Transition Support Program for Older Youth Exiting Foster Care Sonya J. Leathers, Beth L. Vande Voort, Kuan Xing, Kevin Walsh, Jill E. Spielfogel, Lee Annes, Tracy Frizzell and Dondieneita Fleary-Simmons

Educational Trajectories of Youth Formerly in Foster Care who are LGBTQ: Before, During, and After Emancipation Sarah Mountz, Moshoula Capous-Desyllas and Lalaine Sevillano

‘That Piece of Paper is Your Golden Ticket’: How Stigma and Connection Influence College Persistence among Students who are Care Leavers John Paul Horn

Factors Associated with Postsecondary Engagement for Youth Leaving Foster Care: An Analysis Using the National Youth in Transition Database Amy M. Salazar, John Paul Horn and Michael J. Cleveland

We Need That Person That Doesn’t Give up on Us’: The Role of Social Support in the Pursuit of Post-Secondary Education for Youth with Foster Care Experience who are Transition-Aged Colleen C. Katz and Jennifer M. Geiger

The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Sexual Well-being among Youth Formerly in the Foster Care System Richard A. Brandon-Friedman and J. Dennis Fortenberry

Identifying Strategic Entry Points for Services among Transition-aged Mothers who are Homeless Mayra K. Cazares and Julia Hernández

Bridging the Transition: What Makes for Success in a Formal Mentoring Program for Youth Exiting Foster Care? Sarah C. Narendorf, Reiko Boyd, Caitlyn Mytelka, Katy Vittoria and Mary Green 

‘There are a Lot of Good Things that Come Out of it at the End’: Voices of Resilience in Youth Formerly in Foster Care During Emerging Adulthood Kim Hokanson, Sarah Elizabeth Neville, Samantha Teixeira, Erin Singer, and Stephanie Cosner Berzin

Strategies for Engaging Youth Currently and Formerly in Foster Care in Child Welfare Policy Advocacy: Lessons from the New England Youth Coalition (NEYC) Astraea Augsberger, Noor Toraif, Julie Sweeney Springwater, Grace Hilliard Koshinsky and Linda Sprague Martinez

Supporting the Healthy Development of Adolescents with Lived Experience in Foster Care: The Youth Thrive Framework Lisa Mishraky, Susan Notkin and Sarah B. Greenblatt

Mentoring for Teens with Child Welfare Involvement: Permanency Outcomes from a Randomized Controlled Trial of the Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens Program Heather N. Taussig, Kimberly Bender, Rachel Bennett, Katie Massey Combs, Orah Fireman and Robyn Wertheimer

Meeting Teens’ Needs and Preventing Unnecessary Out-of-Home Placements in Delaware Karen Angelici, Jaime Dohn and Pamela Clarkson Freeman

From Data to Practice: The Impact of Placement with Family on Permanency and Well-Being Jorge Cabrera, Matthew Claps, Kirk O’Brien, Yvonne H. Roberts, Whitney L. Rostad, Toni Rozanski, Stephen Shimshock and Amy Sharp Zimmermann

Early Warning Indicators of Dropping Out of School for Teens Who Experienced Foster Care Elysia V. Clemens, Trent Lalonde, Kristin Klopfenstein and Alison Sheesley

Transition Age Youth (TAY) Needs Assessment: Feedback from TAY and Providers Regarding TAY Services, Resources, and Training Tawny R. Spinelli, Tracey J. Riley, Nicole E. St. Jean, Jessica D. Ellis, Jonathan E. Bogard and Cassandra L. Kisiel

Speaking Back to the System: Recommendations for Practice and Policy from the Perspectives of Youth Formerly in Foster Care who are LGBTQ Sarah Mountz, Moshoula Capous-Desyllas and Nayeli Perez

‘Not Independent Enough’: Exploring the Tension Between Independence and Interdependence among Former Youth in Foster Care who are Emerging Adults Kim Hokanson, Kate E. Golden, Erin Singer and Stephanie Cosner Berzin

Connect: An Attachment-Based and Trauma-Informed Program for Foster Parents of Teens Marlene M. Moretti, Katherine A. O’Donnell and Victoria Kelly

Long-Term Economic Benefit of Treatment Foster Care Oregon (TFCO) for Adolescent Females Referred to Congregate Care for Delinquency Lisa Saldana, Mark Campbell, Leslie Leve and Patricia Chamberlain

A Longitudinal Examination of Service Utilization and Trauma Symptoms among Young Women with Prior Foster Care and Juvenile Justice System Involvement Daschel J. Franz, Amanda M. Griffin, Lisa Saldana and Leslie D. Leve

Examining Non-response Bias in the National Youth in Transition Database Rachel Rosenberg, Claire Kelley, Sarah Kelley and Alaina Flannigan

Transitioning from Foster Care to Independence: Lessons from Recent Research and Next Steps Mary Elizabeth Collins

  Vol. 97, No. 4

From the Editor: Let’s Stop the Inhumane Practice of Separating Children From Their Families

Hearing the Voices of Young Adult Adoptees: Perspectives on Adoption Agency Practice Krystal K. Cashen, Dominique K. Altamari, Harold D. Grotevant and Ruth G. McRoy

Training Strategies in Child Welfare and their Association with Certification Outcomes Mi Jin Choi, Carla S. Stover and Pamela E. Aeppel

A Systems Approach to Child Death Review Noel Hengelbrok, Scott Modell, Tom Cheetham and James M. Nyce

A Decade in Review of Trends in Social Work Literature: The Link between Poverty and Child Maltreatment in the United States Ashley L. Landers, Domenica H. Carrese and Robin Spath

30 Days to Family®: Confirming Theoretical and Actual Outcomes Anne J. Atkinson

Vol. 97, No. 3

From the Editor: The Career-Long Benefits of Supervisory Wisdom

Culture and Emotional Well-Being in Adolescents who are American Indian/Alaska Native: A Review of Current Literature Puneet Sahota

Relationships between the Working Alliance, Engagement in Services, and Barriers to Treatment for Female Caregivers with Depression Emily Hamovitch, Mary Acri and Geetha Gopalan

An Integrative Model for Taming the Storm: Casework Supervision in Child Protection Services for Working with Families Involved in High-Conflict Child Custody Disputes Michael Saini, Kristina Nikolova and Tara Black

Retention of Child Welfare Caseworkers: The Wisdom of Supervisors Austin Griffiths, Patricia Desrosiers, Jay Gabbard, David Royse and Kristine Piescher

Use of Technology to Facilitate Practice Improvement in Trauma-Informed Child Welfare Systems Crystal Collins-Camargo, Jessica Strolin and Becci Akin

Social Inclusion Model: An Adolescent Parents Intervention Case Study for Measuring Social Inclusion Outcomes Anayra Tua and Srikanta Banerjee

Vol. 97, No. 2

From the Editor: Promoting Well-Being: The Importance of Compassionate Siblings, Caring Foster Parents, Supportive Peers, and Loving Grandparents in the Lives of Children and Youth

Victim Narratives of Sibling Emotional Abuse Courtney McDonald and Katherine Martinez

The State of Evaluations of Campus-Based Support Programs Serving Foster Care Alumni in Higher Education Lisa Schelbe, Angelique Day, Jennifer M. Geiger and Megan Hayes Piel

Foster Parent Skills and Dilemmas: A Qualitative Study Liat Shklarski

Kinship Care for Children who are American Indian/Alaska Native: State of the Evidence Puneet Chawla Sahota

School-aged Children Living in Grandfamilies: Grandparent Caregiver Confidence in Community Resources Matters Tamar E. Shovali, Kerstin G. Emerson and McKenzie Augusta

Vol. 97, No. 1

From the Editor: The Perils of Research Misuse — and the Importance of IRBs

Attachment Theory, Supervision, and Turnover in Child Welfare M. Elizabeth Bowman

Formal and Informal Social Support and Academic Achievement among College Students with Unstable Childhood Experiences Jisuk Seon, Kristen A. Prock, Joshua D. Bishop, Anne K. Hughes, Amanda T. Woodward and Sister Miriam MacLean

Psychological Maltreatment: The Response of Quebec Child Protection Services Claire Malo, Sonia Hélie, Chantal Lavergne and Jacques Moreau

Family Earnings and Transfer Income among Families Involved with Child Welfare Ji Young Kang, Jennifer Romich, Jennifer L. Hook, JoAnn Lee and Maureen Marcenko

Evaluation in Multiple Sites of the Safe Babies Court Team Approach Cecilia Casanueva, Sarah Harris, Christine Carr, Chelsea Burfeind and Keith Smith

A Grounded Theory Study of Organizational Readiness for Change in Public Child Welfare: Developing a Theoretical Model Natallie Gentles-Gibbs and Hyejin Kim

An Exploratory Study of Prospective Foster Parents’ Experiences during the Licensing Process Laurie Friedman

Vol. 96, No. 5 & No. 6 Special Issue: The Intersection of Immigration and Child Welfare

Special Foreword : The Intersection of Immigration and Child Welfare

State Immigration Enforcement Policies and Material Hardship for Immigrant Families Julia Gelatt, Heather Koball, and Hamutal Bernstein

Detached and Afraid: U.S. Immigration Policy and the Practice of Forcibly Separating Parents and Young Children at the Border Benjamin J. Roth, Thomas M. Crea, Jayshree Jani, Dawnya Underwood, Robert G. Hasson III, Kerri Evans, Michael Zuch, and Emily Hornung

Unraveling Disparities in Child Neglect Risk between Hispanics who are Immigrants and those Born in the United States: A Social-Ecological Approach Using Structural Equation Modeling Michelle Johnson-Motoyama and Wei Wu

Parental Detention and Deportation in Child Welfare Cases Prudence Beidler Carr

Promising Practices and Policies to Support Grandfamilies that Include Immigrants Ana Beltran and Cristina Ritchie Cooper

Working across Borders: Effective Permanency Practices at the Intersection of Child Welfare and Immigration Jorge Cabrera, Yvonne Humenay Roberts, Ada Lopez, Leo Lopez, Ana Zepeda, Robin Sanchez, Carol Punske, George Gonzalez, Maria Nuño, Lily Garay-Castro, Iris Lopez, Terri Aguilera-Flemming, and Yoshimi Pelczarski

A Pathway to Permanency: Collaborating for the Futures of Children who are Immigrants in the Child Welfare System Joanne Gottesman, Randi Mandelbaum, and Meredith Pindar

Exploring the Needs of Children and Families who are Immigrants and Involved in Child Welfare: Using a Title IV-E Learning Community Model Robin Hernandez-Mekonnen and Dawn Konrady

Supporting Youth at the Intersection of Immigration and Child Welfare Systems Alexandra Citrin, Megan Martin, and Shadi Houshyar

Outcomes for Youth Served by the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Foster Care Program: A Pilot Study Kerri Evans, Morgan Pardue-Kim, Thomas M. Crea, Lindsay Coleman, Kylie Diebold, and Dawnya Underwood

Well-Being and Permanency: The Relevance of Child Welfare Principles for Children Who are Unaccompanied Immigrants Adam Avrushin and Maria Vidal de Haymes

Vol. 96, No. 4

From the Editor : Stepping Out and Stepping In—Learning to Negotiate the Role of Parenting an Adult with Disabilities

Invisible Parents: Foster Home Licensing Transparency on State-Level Websites Andrew I. Repp and Jennifer M. Geiger

Fostering the Initiation of Discretionary Psychotropic Medication Reviews by Child Welfare Caseworkers Heather J. Walter and David R. DeMaso

Implications for Practice: Risks to Youth in Boomtowns Thomasine Heitkamp and Roni Mayzer

Examination of the Influence of Court Disposition Status (Under Investigation, Founded) on Pre-Intervention Assessment Results in Child Protective Services Referrals Brad Donohue, Christopher P. Plant, Kimberly A. Barchard, Jesse Scott and Marina Galante

Parental Supports for Parents with Disabilities: The Importance of Informal Supports Elizabeth Lightfoot, Traci LaLiberte and Minhae Cho

Building Effective Child Welfare-Early Care & Education Inter-Agency Partnerships: Lessons from Research Sacha Klein and Susan M. Jekielek

Vol. 96, No. 3

From the Editor : Thriving Rather than Tweeting

The Relationship between State Supports and Post-Secondary Enrollment among Youth Aging Out of Foster Care: An Analysis of the National Youth in Transition Database Toni Terling Watt, Seoyoun Kim and Kaytlin Garrison

Social Support among Parents of Children with ADHD in Vietnam: Psychometric Properties of the Family Support Scale Nam-Phuong Hoang

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act: Knowledge of Health Care and Legal Professionals Ira J. Chasnoff, Gail Barber, Jody Brook and Becci A. Akin

Optimizing Knowledge of Maternal and Non-maternal Risk Factors in Child Maltreatment Investigations: The Utility of Administrative Data Sheridan Miyamoto, Patrick S. Romano, Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Holly Thurston, Madan Dharmar and Jill G. Joseph

Effect of Mental Health Treatment, Juvenile Justice Involvement, and Child Welfare Effectiveness on Severity of Mental Health Problems Jeremiah W. Jaggers, Eprise Armstrong Richardson and James A. Hall

The Impacts of Domestic Violence on Children: Perspectives from Women in Malaysia who Experience Abuse Mariny Abdul Ghani

Vol. 96, Nos. 1 & 2 Special Issue: Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity/ Expression, and Child Welfare

From the Editor: Gay and No Place to Go, Redux

Special Foreword: It is Time to Start Counting Kids Who are LGBTQ in Child Welfare Tracey Feild

Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative: Experiences and Outcomes of Youth who are LGBTQ Jeffrey M. Poirier, Sandy Wilkie, Kristin Sepulveda and Tania Uruchima

Creating Safer Spaces for Youth who are LGBTQ in Broward County, Florida: Collecting SOGIE Data for Life-Coaching Services Marissa L. Greif-Hackett and Sue Gallagher

Strengthening Family Connections and Support for Youth in Foster Care who Identify as LGBTQ: Findings from the PII-RISE Evaluation Jaymie Lorthridge, Marneena Evans, Leanne Heaton, Andrea Stevens and Lisa Phillips

Gender Diversity and Child Welfare Research: Empirical Report and Implications of the Los Angeles County Foster Youth Study Soon Kyu Choi and Bianca D. M. Wilson

‘Because We’re Fighting to Be Ourselves’: Voices from Former Foster Youth who are Transgender and Gender Expansive Sarah Mountz, Moshoula Capous-Desyllas and Elizabeth Pourciau

Queering the Question: Using Survey Marginalia to Capture Gender Fluidity in Housing and Child Welfare Amy Castro Baker, Kel Kroehle, Henisha Patel and Carrie Jacobs

Reversing Erasure of Youth and Young Adults Who are LGBTQ and Access Homelessness Services: Asking about Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Pronouns Jama Shelton, Jeffrey M. Poirier, Coco Wheeler and Alex Abramovich

Child Welfare Systems and LGBTQ Youth Homelessness: Gender Segregation, Instability, and Intersectionality Brandon Andrew Robinson

Out of the System and onto the Streets: LGBTQ-Identified Youth Experiencing Homelessness with Past Child Welfare System Involvement Nicholas Forge, Robin Hartinger-Saunders, Eric Wright and Erin Ruel

Developing Relationship-Building Tools for Foster Families Caring for Teens who are LGBTQ2S Amy M. Salazar, Kristin J. McCowan, Martie L. Skinner, Bailey R. Noell, Jessica M. Colito, Kevin P. Haggerty and Susan E. Barkan

Yes We Can Allegheny: Implementing SOGIE Inclusive System Improvements in Child Welfare Micki Washburn, Megan Good, Shauna Lucadamo, Kristen Weber, Bill Bettencourt and Alan J. Dettlaff

Strengthening the Workforce to Support Youth in Foster Care who Identify as LGBTQ+ through Increasing LGBTQ+ Competency: Trainers’ Experience with Bias Angela Weeks, Danielle Altman, Andrea Stevens, Jaymie Lorthridge and Leanne Heaton

Vol. 95, No. 6

From the Editor: In the Caring Embrace of Parental Love

Always Together? Predictors and Outcomes of Sibling Co-Placement in Foster Care Carolyn E. Seale and Gissele Damiani-Taraba

​Delinquency, Anger, and Parental Warmth: An Analysis of Youth who are Minorities and Living in Extreme Poverty Jeremiah W. Jaggers, Sara Tomek, Lisa M. Hooper, Missy T. Malone and Wesley T. Church, II

The First Two Years out of Residential Care in South Africa: A Critical Period for Care-Leaving Services Adrian Van Breda

​Longitudinal Evaluation of ‘Pathways to Safety’: A Child Maltreatment Prevention Program in Monterey County, California Ignacio Navarro, Zuleima L. Arevalo and Martha J. Tweed

The Atlas Project: Integrating Trauma-Informed Practice into Child Welfare and Mental Health Settings Erika Tullberg, Bonnie Kerker, Nawal Muradwij and Glenn Saxe

Vol. 95, No. 5

From the Editor: Connections and Relationships throughout Life

Evaluating Prevention: Communities NOW: Connecting for Kids Lara Bruce, Megan Lane and Elizabeth Ann Deaton Wacker

​Improving Preparation for Foster Care: Developing a Child-Friendly Training Curriculum for Families who Foster Bethany Strauss and Leah Wasburn-Moses

​Factors Affecting Perceptions of Self-Value among Employees of Child Welfare Agencies Floyd Quinn

Partnership for Multimethod Evaluation in Child Welfare: Title IV-E Waiver Demonstration Program James A. Hall, Teresa M. Imburgia, Kori R. Bloomquist, Jangmin Kim, Barbara J. Pierce, Jeremiah W. Jaggers, Eprise Armstrong-Richardson, Marie Danh and Devon J. Hensel

Prevalence of Chronic Illness among Youth with DSM-IV-TR Axis I Diagnoses at a Large Mental Health Agency in Northeast Ohio Julie M. Merker, Jacqueline Dolata, Earl Pike, Elizabeth Newman, Debra Rex and Ashwini R. Sehgal

Vol 95, No. 4 Special Issue: Kinship Care and Child Welfare: New Directions for Policy and Practice (Second of Two Issues)

From the Editor: The Apple Tree Has Many Healthy Apples: Kinship Caregiving

Introduction: Kinship Care Policy and Practice Mark F. Testa

Using Family Group Decision-Making to Assist Informal Kinship Families Leonard H. Feldman

Using Kinship Navigation Services to Support the Family Resource Needs, Caregiver Self-Efficacy, and Placement Stability of Children in Informal and Formal Kinship Care Michele Cranwell Schmidt and Julie Treinen

Supporting Kinship Caregivers: Examining the Impact of a Title IV-E Waiver Kinship Supports Intervention Cailin Wheeler and Justin Vollet

Protective Factors as Mediators and Moderators of Risk Effects on Perceptions of Child Well-Being in Kinship Care Ramona W. Denby, Mark F. Testa, Keith A. Alford, Chad L. Cross and Jesse A. Brinson

New Directions for Kinship Care Policy and Practice: A Position Paper from the Kinship Summit at Albany, New York, September 2016

Vol 95, No. 3 Special Issue: Kinship Care and Child Welfare: New Directions for Policy and Practice (First of Two Issues)

Health and Well-Being of Children in Kinship Care: Findings from the National Survey of Children in Nonparental Care Matthew D. Bramlett, Laura F. Radel and Kirby Chow

The Relationship between Kinship Diversion and Child Behavior Problems Qi Wu

Placement Stability of Children in Informal Kinship Care: Age, Poverty, and Involvement in the Child Welfare System Eunju Lee, Mi Jin Choi, Yeonggeul Lee and Catherine Kramer

A Kinship Navigator Program: A Comprehensive Approach to Support Private and Voluntary Kinship Caregivers Berenice R. Rushovich, Kantahyanee W. Murray, Kristen Woodruff and Pamela Clarkson Freeman

Vol. 95, No. 2

Once Upon a Time: Lessons Learned from the Benefits of Parent-Child Mother Goose Daphne S. Ling, Gillian Tibbetts and Elaine Scharfe

Theories on Child Protection Work with Parents: A Narrative Review of the Literature George Karpetis

From Classroom to Caseload: Transition Experiences of Frontline Child Welfare Workers Melissa Radey and Lisa Schelbe

Sense of Community through Supportive Housing among Foster Care Alumni Bradley Forenza and David T. Lardier

Training and Preparation for Caregiving of Older Foster Youth: Perspectives of Foster Parents Elizabeth J. Greeno, Mathew C. Uretsky, Bethany R. Lee, Haksoon Ahn and Deborah S. Harburger

Vol. 95, No. 1

From the Editor: Real Scholarship on Real-World Issues for America’s Children, Youth, and Families

The Family Unification Program (FUP): A Housing  Option for Former Foster Youth Amy Dworsky, M. Robin Dion, Rebecca Kleinman and Jackie Kauff

Adoption Policy and the Well-Being of Adopted Children in the United States Ashley J. Provencher, Nicholas E. Kahn and Mary Eschelbach Hansen

Child Sexual Abuse and the Impact of Rurality on Foster Care Outcomes: An Exploratory Analysis Austin Griffiths, April L. Murphy and Whitney Harper

Psychological Maltreatment, the Under-Recognized Violence Against Children: A New Portrait from Quebec Claire Malo, Jacques Moreau, Chantal Lavergne and Sonia Hélie 

Vol. 94, No. 6

From the Editor: It’s Still All About Families

Assessing the Needs of Reunified Families from Foster Care: A Parent Perspective Tricia Nichola Stephens, Tyrone Parchment, Geetha Gopalan, Geraldine Burton, Aida Ortiz, Taishawn Brantley, Selestina Martinez and Mary McKay

Transition-Age Foster Youth and Caregiver Perceptions of Self-Sufficiency Marina Lalayants, Laura Montero, Laura S. Abrams and Susanna R. Curry

Family Finding Project: Results from a One-Year Program Evaluation Liat Shklarski, Vincent P. Madera, Katricia Bennett and Kimberley Marcial

Principled Quality Assurance in Child Welfare: A New Perspective Andrew Koster and Gissele Damiani-Taraba

Resources, Race, and Placement Frequency: An Analysis of Child Well-Being Jeremiah W. Jaggers, Eprise Armstrong Richardson, Matthew C. Aalsma and James A. Hall

Vol. 94, No. 5

Promising Results for Cross-Systems Collaborative Efforts to Meet the Needs of Families Impacted by Substance Use Kimberly Dennis, Michael S. Rodi, Gregory Robinson, Kenneth DeCerchio, Nancy K. Young, Sidney L. Gardner, Elaine Stedt and Marianna Corona

Predictors of Substance Abuse Assessment and Treatment Completion for Parents Involved with Child Welfare: Child Welfare: One State’s Experience in Matching across Systems Dorian E. Traube, Amy S. He, Limei Zhu, Christine Scalise and Tyrone Richardson

Examining the Relationships between Family Drug Court Program Compliance and Child Welfare Outcomes Holly Child and Dara McIntyre

Changes in Adult, Child, and Family Functioning among Participants in a Family Treatment Drug Court Merith Cosden and Lauren M. Koch

Making It Work Without a Family Drug Court: Connecticut’s Approach to Parental Substance Abuse in the Child Welfare System Jane Ungemack, Marilou Giovannucci, Samuel Moy, Karen Ohrenberger, Thomas DeMatteo and Staceyann Smith

Peer Mentoring in Child Welfare: A Motivational Framework Anna Rockhill, Carrie J. Furrer and Thuan M. Duong

Enhancing Family Protective Factors in Residential Treatment for Substance Use Disorders Joan E. Zweben, Yael Moses, Judith B. Cohen, Genny Price, William Chapman and Joanna Lamb

An Integrated Intervention to Address the Comorbid Needs of Families Referred to Child Welfare for Substance Use Disorders and Child Neglect: FAIR Pilot Outcomes Lisa Saldana

Effects of Intensive Family Preservation Services in Rural Tennessee on Parental Hopefulness with Families Affected by Substance Use Edwina Chappell, Kathryn Sielbeck-Mathes, Randall Reiserer, Hannah Wohltjen, Wendy Shuran and Elizabeth McInerney

Vol. 94, No. 4

How Many Families in Child Welfare Services Are Affected by Parental Substance Use Disorders? A Common Question that Remains Unanswered Kristen Seay

Mental Health Disorders among Children within Child Welfare who have Prenatal Substance Exposure: Rural vs. Urban Populations Ira J. Chasnoff, Erin Telford, Anne M.Wells and Lauren King

Co-Occurrence of Parental Substance Abuse and Child Serious Emotional Disturbance: Understanding Multiple Pathways to Improve Child and Family Outcomes Becci A. Akin, Jody Brook and Margaret H. Lloyd

Practice-Informed Approaches to Addressing Substance Abuse and Trauma Exposure in Urban Native Families Involved with Child Welfare Nancy M. Lucero and Marian Bussey

Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams in Rural Appalachia: Implementation and Outcomes Martin T. Hall, Ruth A. Huebner, Jeanelle S. Sears, Lynn Posze, Tina Willauer and Janell Oliver

Effects of a Rural Family Drug Treatment Court Collaborative on Child Welfare Outcomes: Comparison Using Propensity Score Analysis McLean D. Pollock and Sherri L. Green

Family-Based Recovery: An Innovative In-Home Substance Abuse Treatment Model for Families with Young Children Karen E. Hanson, Dale H. Saul, Jeffrey J. Vanderploeg, Mary Painter and Jean Adnopoz

Rethinking Child Welfare to Keep Families Safe and Together: Effective Housing-Based Supports to Reduce Child Trauma, Maltreatment Recidivism, and Re-Entry to Foster Care Marny Rivera and Rita Sullivan

New Approaches for Working with Children and Families Involved in Family Treatment Drug Courts: Findings from the Children Affected by Methamphetamine Program Michael S. Rodi, Colleen M. Killian, Philip Breitenbucher, Nancy K. Young, Sharon Amatetti, Russ Bermejo and Erin Hall

Vol. 94, Nos. 2 & 3 Special Issue: Improving the Use and Usefulness of Research Evidence

Introduction Joe Bock

Special Foreword: Making Research Work in Child Welfare: Overcoming Challenges Kimberly DuMont and Christine James-Brown

Strategies to Improve the Use and Usefulness of Research in Child Welfare Lydia F. Killos, Catherine Roller White, Peter J. Pecora, Erin Maher, Kirk O’Brien, Dave Danielson, Kimberly DuMont, Fred Wulczyn, Bryan Samuels and Clare Anderson

Innovation and the Use of Research Evidence in Youth-Serving Systems: A Mixed-Methods Study Lawrence A. Palinkas, Qiaobing Wu, Dahlia Fuentes, Megan Finno-Velasquez, Ian W. Holloway, Antonio Garcia and Patricia Chamberlain

From a Provider’s Perspective: Integrating Evidence-Based Practice into the Culture of a Social Service Organization Miranda Yates, Jennifer Nix, Jennifer Schurer Coldiron and Laurie Williams

Selecting an Evidence-Based Practice in Child Welfare: Challenges and Steps to Identifying a Good Fit Jared Martin, Cambria Rose Walsh and Jennifer Rolls Reutz

Co-Creating the Conditions to Sustain the Use of Research Evidence in Public Child Welfare Allison Metz and Leah Bartley

Research Evidence Use in the Child Welfare System Fred Wulczyn, Lily Alpert, Kerry Monahan-Price, Scott Huhr, Lawrence A. Palinkas and Laura Pinsoneault

Exploring the Integration of Systems and Social Sciences to Study Evidence Use among Child Welfare Policy-makers Thomas I. Mackie, R. Christopher Sheldrick, Justeen Hyde and Laurel K. Leslie

Learning to Listen and Listening to Learn: Recursive Information Flow to Build Relationships and Improve Practice Anita M. Larson and Sara E. Langworthy

Tensions and Opportunities: Building Meaningful Partnerships Between Child Welfare Decision-makers and Evaluators Emily Fisher, Jacquelyn Spangler and Ruth Huebner

Benefits of Embedding Research into Practice: An Agency-University Collaboration Michael A. Nunno, Elliott G. Smith, William R. Martin and Sharon Butcher

Strategies for Strengthening the Utility of Research in Supportive Housing-Child Welfare Partnerships Miriam J. Landsman and Mitchell Rosenwald

From Novel to Empirical: Developing CommunityBased Programs into Research-Ready Programs Rebecca J. Macy, Dania M. Ermentrout, Phillip H. Redmond, Jr., Cindy Fraga Rizo and McLean D. Pollock

Engaging the Child Welfare Community in Examining the Use of Research Evidence Susan Maciolek

Vol. 94, No. 1 Special Issue: Housing, Homelessness, and Economic Security

Introduction Nan Roman

Special Foreword Ruth Anne White and Debra Rog

Factors Influencing Risk of Homelessness among Youth in Transition from Foster Care in Oklahoma: Implications for Reforming Independent Living Services and Opportunities Brandon L. Crawford, Jacqueline McDaniel, David Moxley, Zohre Salehezadeh and Alisa West Cahill

Housing Trajectories for Youth Transitioning from Foster Care: Gender Differences from 2010–2014 Robert G. Hasson III, Andrew D. Reynolds and Thomas M. Crea

Economic Well-Being and Independent Living in Foster Youth: Paving the Road to Effective Transitioning out of Care Elizabeth Trejos-Castillo, Gayle Davis and Terri Hipps

Partnering to Leverage Multiple Data Sources: Preliminary Findings from a Supportive Housing Impact Study Jessica Raithel, Miranda Yates, Amy Dworsky, Maryanne Schretzman and Whitney Welshimer

Physically Hazardous Housing and Risk for Child Protective Services Involvement Bomi Kim Hirsch, MiYoun Yang, Sarah Font and Kristen S. Slack

Poverty, Homelessness, and Family Break-Up Marybeth Shinn, Jessica Gibbons-Benton and Scott R. Brown

Housing Matters for Families: Promising Practices from Child Welfare Agencies Mary Cunningham and Michael Pergamit

Integrated Solutions for Intertwined Challenges: A Statewide Collaboration in Supportive Housing for Child Welfare-Involved Families Anne F. Farrell, Kellie G. Randall, Preston A. Britner, Betsy Cronin, S. Kim Somaroo-Rodriguez and Lisa Hansen

The Family Unification Program: A Randomized-Controlled Trial of Housing Stability Patrick J. Fowler and Michael Schoeny

Family Stability and Child Welfare Involvement among Families Served in Permanent Supportive Housing Debra J. Rog, Kathryn A. Henderson and Andrew L. Greer

Vol. 93, No. 6

Using Qualitative Data-Mining for Practice Research in Child Welfare Colleen Henry, Sarah Carnochan and Michael J. Austin

Implementing ASFA with Vulnerable African American Families: A Community Capacity Approach Adrienne L. Edwards and April L. Few-Demo

Efficacy of Blended Preservice Training for Resource Parents Lee White, Richard Delaney, Caesar Pacifici, Carol Nelson, Josh Whitkin, Maureen Lovejoy and Betsy Keefer Smalley

Parental Disability in Child Welfare Systems and Dependency Courts: Preliminary Research on the Prevalence of the Population Ella Callow and Jean Jacob

Social Supports in the Lives of Child Welfare-Involved Families Marina Lalayants, Meaghan Baier, Anne Benedict and Diana Mera

Vol. 93, No. 5

Understanding Correlates of Higher Educational Attainment among Foster Care Youths Dana R. Hunter, Pamela A. Monroe and James C. Garand

Exploring Cyberbullying among Primary Children in Relation to Social Support, Loneliness, Self-Efficacy, and Well-Being Dorit Olenik-Shemesh and Tali Heiman

Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®) for Adopted Children Receiving Therapy in an Outpatient Setting Amanda R. Howard, Sheri R. Parris, Lauren E. Nielsen, Rob Lusk, Kathleen Bush, Karyn B. Purvis and David R. Cross

Marathon County Community Response: Voluntary Services for Families Screened out of Child Protective Services Kathryn Maguire-Jack and Jessica Bowers

Building Learning Organizations within Public Child Welfare Agencies through Internal Research Capacity Ruth A. Huebner, Peter Watson, Laura Dyer, Christeen Borsheim and Colleen M. Caron

Evaluation of Smoke-free Foster Care Education for Foster and Adoptive Caregivers Cam Escoffery, Michelle C. Kegler, Lucja Bundy, Debbie Yembra, Shadé Owolabi, Dianne Kelley and Dorothy Mabry

Vol. 93, No. 4

The Treehouse Community: An Innovative Intergenerational Model for Supporting Youth Who Have Experienced Foster Care Jen H. Dolan and Harold D. Grotevant

Therapeutic Visiting in Treatment Foster Care Sally Palmer, Duane Durham and Margaret Osmond

Kinship Care and Undocumented Latino Children in the Texas Foster Care System: Navigating the Child Welfare-Immigration Crossroads Jennifer Scott, Monica Faulkner, Jodi Berger Cardoso and Jane Burstain

Status Offenders and Delinquent Youth: Actual or Artificial Taxonomy Camela M. Steinke and Elisa M. Martin

Young Offender Sexual Abuse Cases Under Protection Investigation: Are Sibling Cases Any Different? Delphine Collin-Vézina, Elizabeth Fast, Sonia Hélie, Mireille Cyr, Stéphanie Pelletier and Barbara Fallon

Vol. 93, No. 3

Need for Trauma-Informed Care Within the Foster Care System: A Policy Issue Brittany A. Beyerlein and Ellin Bloch

Family Engagement in “Voluntary” Child Welfare Services: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Families under Differential Response Referrals in California Ignacio Navarro

Risk Management in Child Protective Services: A Balanced Scorecard Approach Michael J. Camasso and Radha Jagannathan

The Caregiver-Reported Value of Participation in a Kinship Support Center Ron J. Hammond, Jacci Graham, Anna-Lee Hernandez, and Kent Hinkson

Measuring Social Support among Kinship Caregivers: Confirming the Factor Structure of the Family Support Scale David Kondrat, Jayme R. Swanke, Kerry Littlewood, and Anne Strozier

When Rights Collide: A Critique of the Adoption and Safe Families Act from a Justice Perspective Adrienne Whitt-Woosley and Ginny Sprang

Vol. 93, No. 2

Homeless Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Youth in New York City: Insights from the Field Geoffrey L. Ream and Nicholas R. Forge

Children and Youth with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System: An Overview Elizabeth Lightfoot

Leveraging the Experiences of Foster Care Alumni: A Mixed-Method Model for Organizing J. Jay Miller and Larry W. Owens

Facilitating Ethical Decisions in Practice: The Professionalization Efforts of One Title IV-E Collaboration Angela R. Ausbrooks, Amy D. Benton, Rhonda Smith and Martha S. Wildberger

Collaborative Relationships and Improved Service Coordination among Child Welfare and Early Childhood Systems Samantha M. Brown, Sacha Klein and Julie S. McCrae

Vol. 93, No. 1

Mental Health Care of Families Affected by the Child Welfare System Manny J. Gonzalez

 The Scottish Children’s Panels as a Catalyst for Civic Engagement and Child Well-Being Anne S. Robertson

Child Maltreatment Entrenched by Poverty: How Financial Need is Linked to Poorer Outcomes in Family Preservation Jody Hearn Escaravage

Former Foster Youth’s Perspectives on Independent Living Preparation Six Months After Discharge Loring P. Jones

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Children and the Child Welfare System: Problems, Interventions, and Lessons from Around the World

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• Published: 30 January 2021
• Volume 38 , pages 127–130, ( 2021 )

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• Jarosław Przeperski   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5362-4170 1 &
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Securing the welfare of children and the family is an integral part of social work. Modern society has experienced enormous changes that present both opportunities and challenges to the practice of social work to protect the welfare of children. It is thus essential that we understand the experiences of social work practitioners in different parts of the world in order to adapt practice to the changing times. To help achieve this, we present a collection of papers from around the world that presents findings on various aspects of social work research and practice involving children and the potential for improved service delivery.

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Social Work and Child Well-Being

Moving from Risk to Safety: Work with Children and Families in Child Welfare Contexts

Understanding and Promoting Child Wellbeing After Child Welfare System Involvement: Progress Made and Challenges Ahead

Sarah A. Font & John D. Fluke

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The protection of children’s welfare in many parts of the world involve different institutions and professionals ranging from social workers to the police, courts, schools, health centers, among others. In the course of their duties, some form of collaboration to varying degrees occur between these institutions and professionals in order to secure the welfare of children (Lalayants, 2008 ).

The child welfare system and social work particularly, has been observed to have undergone complex changes from its inception till now (Bamford, 2015 ; McNutt, 2013 ; Mendes, 2005 ; Stuart, 2013 ). Historically, the family and the local community were in many societies, solely responsible for a child’s well-being. When in crisis, the family including the wider extended family, was primarily responsible for supporting the child and solving their problems.

In response to wider changes in contemporary society, the child welfare system has increased the involvement of aid institutions protecting the welfare of children while reducing the role of the family. The family as a unit has also undergone changes, from the involvement of a broader network of relatives and the local community to the dominance of the nuclear family. Family ties have been weakened in many societies and the way the family unit functions has changed. Many children experience problems that often exceed the capacity of help available to these nuclear families. This has made it necessary to involve professional institutions (education, health, etc.) to aid in other areas outside of their core mandates to ensure children are secure, healthy, fed, and entertained and also to help families regain their own strength.

Although certain challenges to child welfare have persisted over time, children in contemporary times face some threats to their welfare unique to the times. Advancement in technology on one hand presents novel problems such as internet-use addictions and extensive means of child exploitation whiles on the other hand, these advancements in technology also provide opportunities to reach more clients effectively, gather data for analysis, and monitor and assess the performance of workers as well as the effectiveness of services. Modern ICT tools (such as online platforms and mobile applications) provide more flexibility in engagement between social workers and clients and the frequency of such meetings or engagements. However, an uncritical over-reliance on these tools presents other problems. Some social workers may be prone to avoid difficult situations involving uncooperative or violent families (Cooper, 2005 ) and an over-reliance on online meetings may worsened such cases, leaving vulnerable children unprotected.

All around the world, differences exist in the degree of exposure and the severity of problems facing children based on their age group (infants, toddlers, teens, and, youth), gender, geography, economic background, and culture. For instance, among the genders, differences exist in the probability of falling victim to child sexual abuse (Wellman, 1993 ) and the consequences of such victimization (Asscher, Van der Put, & Stams, 2015 ). Children from poor families are more at risk of being involved with the welfare system in certain countries (Fong, 2017 ) while poor and developing countries lack some resources needed to support children and families compared to more developed and richer countries. In addition, cultural attitudes towards parenting in different parts of the world may exacerbate the problems of child neglect, corporal punishment, and other forms of abuse.

To ensure that social workers are better equipped to deal with the daunting task of protecting the welfare of children, reforms have been proposed which are aimed at improving on the knowledge and skills of social workers, instituting standards of practice based on data, striving for continuous excellence in organizations (Cahalane, 2013 ) among others. The social work interventions aimed at improving the welfare of children of any given society can be affected by political, cultural, and socio-economic factors and this needs to be understood and addressed during the design, implementation, and assessment stages of interventions. Reisch and Jani ( 2012 ) describe how politics affect the development of social programs at the macro and micro levels, workplace decision-making processes, and resource allocation for agencies and clients.

With the aim of understanding the various challenges facing social work and the child welfare system around the world and the existing opportunities to address them, several papers on varying topics related to child welfare have been collated into this special issue. The contributors come from Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe and present the results of research into different areas affecting child welfare, child welfare workers and institutions, and interventions. Many lessons can be learnt from understanding the problems facing children and their families from around the world, the services and interventions instituted to combat such problems, the state of mind of children and their relationships with others, and the potentials of modern tools to improve service delivery in the child welfare sector.

In the special issue, Filippelli, Fallon, Lwin and Gantous ( 2021 ) present the paper, “Infants and Toddlers Investigated by The Child Welfare System: Exploring the Decision to Provide Ongoing Child Welfare Services”. Following the concerns of limited research into decision-making process of young children involved in the welfare system, the authors aimed to contribute to the literature on cases of maltreatment of young children and decisions to address them. The authors sought to answer the questions of the character of investigations of alleged child maltreatment, what factors influence decisions to recommend welfare service provision, and what differences may exist between cases involving infants and toddlers. After reviewing data on investigations into suspected cases of child maltreatment in Canada, it was determined that assessment by welfare workers and the mental health of caregivers are important indicators of decisions to transfer cases for further services. For cases involving infants, results indicate caregiver characteristics and household income are unique factors influencing decision-making while in toddler-involved cases, the toddler and the caregiver characteristics are factors that affect decisions.

Van Dam, Heijmans, and Stams ( 2021 ) aimed to determine the long-term effect of the intervention program, Youth Initiated Mentoring (YIM) organized in the Netherlands. They sought to find out how the mentors and the youth mentees were doing several months or years after the program and their impression of the whole program. In the paper “Youth Initiated Mentoring in Social Work: Sustainable Solution for Youth with Complex Needs?”, they show some findings on the present situation of mentees, the quality and trajectory of mentor–mentee relationships, and the level of support from social workers. Results indicate a sustained relationship between majority of the mentors and mentees and a reduction in the likelihood of out-of-home placement among other long-term benefits. The authors offer some recommendations for future research into Youth Initiated Mentoring.

Mackrill and Svendsen ( 2021 ) in the paper, “Implementing Routine Outcome Monitoring in Statutory Children’s Services” highlights the outcome of a 2-year long study on the effect of implementing a feedback-informed approach to family service provision in Denmark. In the study, they sought to understand how the feedback informed approach assisted in protecting children and families and what gaps exist in the service delivery chain. This involved analyzing by means of a constructivist grounded theory approach, anonymized data derived from field notes and interviews of various stakeholders. They report that the feedback-oriented approach helped service workers to follow legal directives especially in areas of assessment, care planning and follow-up, as well as in their approach to interviewing children. On the other hand, they assert that this approach to service delivery fails to emphasize attention to risk especially within families and the rights of clients to legal advice and recourse, among other issues. They offer some recommendations to address some of the identified challenges.

In order to understand the perceptions of the youth about older people with regards to healthcare and social help so that resources to address any existing negative stereotypes can be identified, Kanios ( 2021 ) surveyed 1084 school-going young people in Poland. Findings of this survey are presented in the paper titled “Beliefs of Secondary School Youth and Higher Education Students About Elderly Persons: A Comparative Survey”. Results show varied beliefs about older people regarding healthcare and social help among Secondary School Youth and Higher Education Students. Most of the respondents from both groups held no stereotypical views of older people. Students in higher education especially were found to maintain a more mature outlook on older people. Kanios concludes the paper with some recommendations of educational interest to combat existing negative stereotypes of older people.

Frimpong-Manso ( 2021 ) aimed to understand the views of social workers in Ghana on the benefits of intervention programs that strengthen families and to identify any existing barriers to their successful implementation in his paper, “Family Support Services in The Context of Child Care Reform: Perspectives of Ghanaian Social Workers”. Qualitative data derived from interviews with social workers point to some benefits of the existing family support services such as capacity building and wellbeing promotion of the families. Some identified challenges to success include inadequate funding and poor interagency cooperation.

Odrowąż-Coates and Kostrzewska ( 2021 ) from Poland present an analysis of the indicators of successful and fulfilling teenage motherhood in their paper titled “A Retrospective on Teenage Pregnancy in Poland. Focusing on Empowerment and Support Variables to Challenge Stereotyping in the Context of Social Work”. With the aim of showcasing positive cases of teenage motherhood as a means of empowerment and a way to tackle stereotypes in Poland, the authors utilized data from interviews and field practice notes involving teenage mothers and family court curators. Findings from this study show these teenage mothers to be empowered, independent, persevering, and with agency. Resources available through social work interventions and other support systems are also highlighted. The authors emphasize the need to show the positive life experiences of teenage mothers and the social work programs that contribute towards that in order to dispel existing stereotypes.

Abu Bakar Ah et al. ( 2021 ) in their paper, “Material Deprivation Status of Malaysian Children from Low-Income Families” relied on data from a self-reported survey of 360 poor children in Malaysia to determine their level of material deprivation. Results indicate a low level of material deprivation among poor Malaysian children. The authors include some recommendations to improve on the well-being of children in Malaysia.

With the hypothesis that the quality and quantity of placement of children with their kin depend on social workers, managers, and some organizational factors, Rasmussen and Jæger ( 2021 ) present a case study of social workers and their field practices related to kinship care in Denmark. Their paper, “The Emotional and Other Barriers to Kinship Care in Denmark: A case study in two Danish municipalities” contains analysis of the findings of their study. Through a mixed method approach of analyzing documents, interviews, observations, and dialogue meetings, data on placement into kinship care in two municipalities in Denmark were gathered. Among all the cases selected for the study, they reported a reasonable level of satisfaction among all parties involved. However, the authors indicate a hesitation among social workers to enter emotionally-charged familial situations which affects their decisions on kinship placement. The paper also points to the non-involvement of families in a systematic manner in placement decisions as another factor that affects placement decisions.

Grządzielewska ( 2021 ) from Poland, reviews how machine-learning can be applied as a tool to predict burnout among social work employees in the paper, “Using Machine Learning in Burnout Prediction: A Survey”. The ability to analyze and interpret large amount of data makes the tools of machine learning very useful. The paper attempts to compare traditional and newer methods of predictive modeling and discusses how different variables affect the choice of appropriate methodologies. It is discussed in this paper how machine-learning algorithms can be incorporated into a burnout monitoring system to create new models of burnout, identify the potential for burnout among new recruits and existing employees, and design appropriate interventions. The author recommends further attention by social work researchers in the study of burnout.

We acknowledge the contributions of the various authors to making this special issue possible by sharing their perspectives on child welfare service delivery.

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Przeperski, J., Owusu, S.A. Children and the Child Welfare System: Problems, Interventions, and Lessons from Around the World. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 38 , 127–130 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-021-00740-5

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Critical Thinking in Child Welfare

We developed 23 scenarios that reflect best practices and expertise in child welfare. Our approach encourages child welfare staff to discuss the critical thinking involved in making complex decisions.

Domain: Child Welfare

Focus: Decision Making; Prioritizing

Improve critical thinking in the highly-proceduralized and high-stakes domain of front-line child welfare investigation as workers make decisions about how to protect children.

Our team collaborated with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and skilled practitioners at public child welfare agencies to create a cognitive skills training program. The program includes 23 high-challenge scenarios that illustrate common child welfare themes such as domestic violence, substance use, and physical abuse. Our scenarios reflect best practices and expertise in child welfare and provide an opportunity for child welfare staff to discuss the critical thinking involved in making complex decisions about child welfare.

ShadowBox is being used at the largest child welfare agency in Ohio for continuing worker education and for new worker training. ShadowBox is expanding to other regions, including rural counties in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Ohio. Findings from an evaluation study suggested that ShadowBox training improved critical thinking.

Background and Description

Frontline child welfare investigators must routinely make potentially life-altering decisions in situations with incomplete and sometimes contradictory information. Their role requires them to respond to allegations of child abuse and/or neglect and make determinations about child safety within a short period of time. When failures (such as a child’s death or undetected abuse) occur, they are high-profile and often spur an emotional outcry from the public. Knee-jerk reactions from public child welfare agencies often result, such as adding new rules, layers of oversight, and checklists or other ways of proceduralizing decisions. These solutions can have an unintended side effect of disempowering workers from making decisions that reflect their unique understanding of the families they work with.

ShadowBox collaborated with a large non-profit organization to address the perceived lack of critical thinking in frontline decision making. From 2014 to 2019, ShadowBox developed a library of 23 case scenario exercises that reflect best practices in child welfare. To develop scenarios, ShadowBox personnel interviewed experienced practitioners from three different counties across the country. Child welfare experts with a broad range of experiences vetted our scenarios and provided their perspectives about key decisions.

Another major component of our child welfare effort was implementing ShadowBox training into practice with two child welfare agencies. The collaborative team carefully considered and tested various approaches and incorporated multiple rounds of feedback from participants. Agencies determined that meeting once per month in small groups led by a skilled facilitator was the optimal approach. ShadowBox personnel trained a selected group of workers, supervisors, and managers from the two agencies to facilitate ShadowBox small groups. We also engaged agency leadership to plan for the sustainability of the ShadowBox effort.

Next, our team collected data from a six-month implementation period. Participants in ShadowBox training showed an average of 13% improvement from the pre-test (administered before participating in ShadowBox sessions) to a post-test (given after the final session). Participants in the training reported high degrees of satisfaction with the facilitator-led discussion and indicated that the training scenarios were realistic and challenging. Common feedback from participants was that they found it valuable and interesting to engage in peer-to-peer discussion.

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One in Ten Black Children in America Are Separated From Their Parents by the Child-Welfare System. A New Book Argues That’s No Accident

W hen I caught up with Dorothy Roberts, a professor of law, sociology and civil rights at the University of Pennsylvania, she had just finished a packed book talk at Revolution Books, a small, aptly named bookstore in Harlem. The in-store audience, the event organizer told me, reached fire-code limits. Several people watched from chairs the store’s owners placed on the sidewalk, within earshot of a speaker and in view of a screen in the front window.

There’s a reason Roberts has such a large following: She has a track record of writing about social problems in ways that both researchers and laypeople recognize to be real. Her new book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World , applies that scrutiny to the American child-protective system—a web that Roberts believes doesn’t deserve that name. She argues that child-welfare workers are effectively punishing families, particularly Black families, because they are poor. (Only about 17% of children removed from their homes nationwide are in foster care because of allegations of physical or sexual abuse.) The problem intensified after Clinton-era welfare reform reduced direct aid to poor families, Roberts says; there are now major U.S. cities where 60% of Black children have had some form of contact with child-welfare officials.

In this conversation, which has been edited for clarity and length, as Roberts lays out a disturbing portrait of child welfare in an ostensibly free and wealthy nation, she also finds some evidence that there’s reason for hope.

TIME: What first brought you to the topic of government efforts to enforce child-welfare standards?

ROBERTS : I learned about the child-welfare system intimately when I was working on my book Killing the Black Body , which was published in 1997 . At the time, I was doing research on prosecutions of Black women for being pregnant and using drugs. And that’s what led me to look into the child-welfare system. [I] quickly discovered that Black children were grossly over-represented in the system. There was this huge racial disparity, which I then came to see as Black communities being targeted by what I’m now calling “family policing.”

In other words, it’s not just that there are statistical disparities. There are Black communities—especially segregated, impoverished Black neighborhoods—where there is intense concentration of child-welfare-agency involvement, and children are at high risk of being subjected to investigation, to being removed from their homes, to spending a long time in foster care, and for their parents rights to be terminated.

So basically, at every level of action that these agencies can take, there are racial disparities?

Oh absolutely. Disparities in every decision made in the scope of child-welfare proceedings, but also disparities in the bad outcomes for children as well. One of the most striking findings in a recent study is that more than half of all Black children will experience a child-welfare investigation by the time they reach age 18—53%. I mean, that is just an astounding amount of state intervention into the homes of Black children. But then Black children are also more likely than white children to be taken from their families and put in foster care. They’re more likely not to go to college after experiencing foster care, more likely to go to prison. So the outcomes are bad too.

Why are these disparities so pervasive?

I think that the main reason is because the system is designed to deal with the hardships of children who are disadvantaged by structural inequality—including structural racism —by accusing their parents and separating families. I’m saying it that way because some people will say, ‘Well, Black children are more likely to have all these interventions because they have greater needs.’ But, first of all, why do they have greater needs? And secondly, why is the response to their greater need this very violent, traumatic approach of family separation? It’s because of the design of the system to treat poverty in this way. And then also just as importantly, are the stereotypes about Black families that fuel this type of intervention.

Read more: America’s Long Overdue Awakening to Systemic Racism

How do stereotypes prompt child-welfare workers to remove so many Black children from their parents?

There are longstanding stereotypes that Black parents don’t really love their children, that it’s easy to separate the bonds of Black parents and children, that Black children are better off in the care of other caregivers—especially white caregivers. I could go down the list of all of the stereotypes that paint Black mothers as defective, as pathological, as neglectful, incapable of caring for their children. And those stereotypes influence people’s decisions about child abuse and neglect. There’s a whole slew of studies that show that doctors are more likely to suspect child abuse if the child is Black than white, with the exact same injuries. We could trace this back to the slavery era.

Walk us through that history.

Well, we have to go back to the origins of this. Right? [That’s] the enslavement of Black people, when children of Black parents were considered the chattel property of their enslavers. The parents had no right to custody or to raise their children the way they wanted to. And that also meant the families could be separated at the whim of the enslaver for their economic convenience. Part of it also is the sense that children are better off away from their families, and that there isn’t a tight loving bond between Black children and parents. And so there’s less of a sense of the problem that happens from family separation. And I think that stems from the easy removal of Black children from their parents during the slavery era.

And also past that, going into the post-Civil War era and the apprenticeship system, where judges would order Black children to be returned to their former enslavers, on grounds that their parents were neglecting them. Even if you think about the Black “ welfare queen ,” the idea was she only had children to exploit white taxpayers. There are so many stereotypes and ideas about Black mothers and parents in general. I mean, the stereotype about the Black father is he’s not around at all. So all of those, I think, play into why we have a child-policing system today that investigates a large number of Black families and removes so many— one out of 10 Black children —from their home to be placed in foster care.

Read more: I Searched for Answers About My Enslaved Ancestor. What I Found Was More Questions

When I’ve reported on the child-welfare system in the past, officials would frequently say to me that they had made significant efforts to remove fewer children from their homes or to place children with extended family members. The idea that children of color need to be “rescued” or “civilized” by wealthier white families, they would often tell me, was racist, outdated, and had proved deeply damaging. Do you mean to say that in private, talking with other child-welfare insiders, the emphasis shifts?

Yeah. At [child-welfare researcher] conferences I’ve attended, where there’s the question of whether Black kids should be taken from their homes to address their needs, you don’t hear any discussion about what harm [may come] to the children being taken from their homes. There’s also a study that was conducted in Michigan where they found that at every level—policy makers [and] people who worked in the child-welfare system, including supervisors and caseworkers—there was this assumption that only sometimes gets articulated, that Black children would be better off away from their families or communities. It is true that in some cities, most children are placed with kin. They are not all put into white homes. But that doesn’t mean that those stereotypes don’t still exist.

I was shocked to read in Torn Apart that the most common reason for a child being removed from their parent’s custody is allegations of neglect, not abuse.

Oh, absolutely. The vast majority of children in foster care are there on allegations of parental neglect, which means that the parent has not provided the resources that children need like adequate housing, clothing, medical care, education.

It seems like you’re talking about the need to be more aware of the possibility that the infrastructure to theoretically protect children might be operating more like a policing force that punishes need.

II think you’re right, in a way it’s to punish parents who don’t conform to certain norms. Look at Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott’s directive to caseworkers to investigate the families of children who were provided with gender-affirming care, that’s a very clear case of attacking families who aren’t seen to conform to certain norms. But there’s also a way in which the system has been used historically and today to blame parents for hardships to their children that are caused by poverty and other kinds of structural inequities. By blaming the parents you’re diverting attention away from the structural reasons for these unmet needs.

So what are we to make of the way the Texas directive has galvanized such a strong response, yet many people have not grasped that child-welfare systems have essentially been punishing poverty and Blackness for more than a century?

We could also point out that during the Trump Administration, when family separation at the border was stepped up, there was a huge public outcry with experts pointing out the trauma to children [of] removing them from their parents. Some of them pointing out this is too a form of torture under U.N. conventions. We should point that out. We should object to Governor Abbott’s directive, but the same kinds of incursions on Black families have been happening at a higher rates for decades and it has never gotten that level of public outcry.

Read more: Black Families Are Outraged About Family Separation Within the U.S. It’s Time to Listen to Them

So, what needs to be done here? There are vulnerable children of all races and ethnicities who actually are in danger in their homes.

Fundamentally, we need a completely different approach to child welfare and child protection that doesn’t rely on accusations and investigation and punishing families. You need an approach that is truly caring for children and families, that provides the material resources that children need to be healthy and safe and thriving. We already know that the United States has the largest rate of childhood poverty of any Western nation. It also removes the most children of any Western nation under the name of child protection. [In] a nation that truly provided income support, the kinds of health care, affordable housing, equal high-quality education for all—the vast majority of children in foster care today would not be there.

There are studies that show that a third of children in foster care right now could be released to their parents if their parents had adequate housing. So, changing the approach would reduce the perceived need to have family separation. Then there still would be, of course, children who are profoundly neglected or physically or sexually abused. But the system we have now doesn’t prevent that from happening. It reacts and sometimes too often reacts too late. It seems like almost every time you hear about a child killed in the home—which is rare—it’s a child known to the system . And that’s part of the story, how the system knew about [the situation]. So something is drastically wrong. This system misses these egregious cases.

It has not been solved by putting people in jail, or by taking children away. We need a fundamentally different way that actually gets to the roots of why there’s so much violence in our society. We have to recognize that the amount of violence in the United States is tied to the gross inequalities in our society.

What do you foresee on the horizon?

Well, one positive development. There are more and more people who have come to the conclusion that this system is so deeply designed to oppress people and harm children that it can not be fixed, [that] we need an abolitionist approach. Policy makers and child-welfare organizations are interested in learning more . And I think that there’s a growing movement to figure out how to dismantle the system. One story that I tell in the book is about a professor at NYU, Anna Arons, [who] wrote an article where she talks about New York City’s accidental abolition during the COVID lockdown . There were all these predictions about children [who were] going to be abused in their homes because child protective services had basically closed down. Well, it turns out that there’s no signs that abuse went up at all .

Even in that period of extreme stress?

Professor Arons argues that the reason why is because there were so many mutual aid networks that sprang into action and we’re distributing ten of thousands of dollars worth of resources to families. The other piece of it was the Cares ACT , the cash assistance that went to families. I think it makes sense that that’s what kept children safe—arguably better than Protective Services.

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