Decision-making in foster care: A child-centered approach to reducing toxic stress in foster children

2019 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 10-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Rafeedie ◽  
Sharon M. Hudson ◽  
Alexis Deavenport-Saman ◽  
Sheela Rao ◽  
Karen Rogers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Toxic Stress ◽  
Child Centered

Foster Care in a Life Course Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 692 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-252
Author(s):  
Fred Wulczyn
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Foster Parents ◽  
Local Variation ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Policy Priority ◽  
The Life Course

To understand what placement outside of one’s home means to the young people involved, we must understand foster care from a life course perspective. I analyze young people’s experiences in foster care from this perspective, accounting for when foster care happens, how long it lasts, and what happens when foster care placements end. I show that the population of children coming into foster care is younger and less urban than it was 20 years ago. I also show reliable measures of exposure to foster care over the life course. Children who enter care early in life are the children who spend the largest proportion of their childhood in foster care—a fact that rarely weighs on the policymaking process. We know very little about state and local variation in foster care placement rates, not to mention the influence of social services, the courts, foster parents, and caseworkers over foster children, so I close by arguing investment in research should be a clear policy priority.

Health Care of Foster Children

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 644-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Well Being ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Social Service Agencies ◽  
Developmental Problems

Children entering foster care generally have a higher than average number of health problems, and the care they receive is usually insufficient to meet their needs. These circumstances arise from the preplacement history of these children and from within the dual systems of foster care and publicly funded health care to which responsibility for their well-being is assigned. BACKGROUND Children enter foster care because their parents are unwilling or unable to provide for their physical and emotional needs. Most often, these children come from single-parent households where poverty, lack of formal education, and absence of social support contribute to inadequate and inappropriate child care. More than 80% of the children have experienced physical or sexual abuse and/or neglect. Their previous health care is likely to have been fragmented. As a consequence, foster children are likely to have unrecognized or untreated chronic disorders, a high rate of emotional and developmental problems, and impaired school performance. Placement of children into foster care is ordinarily a court-ordered process used when the application of resources by social service agencies fail to, or appear unlikely to, improve a home situation deemed detrimental to the children's well-being. Foster care is intended to be a planned temporary service designed to strengthen families and to enhance the quality of life for children. The imposed separation of children from parents is a decision intended to be based on the best interests of the children. It is to be an opportunity for families to receive the social support and counsel they require to be reconstituted.

Foster Care for Child Maltreatment: Impact on Delinquent Behavior

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 562-568
Author(s):  
Desmond K. Runyan ◽  
Carolyn L. Gould
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Child Victims ◽  
Foster Home ◽  
Historical Cohort ◽  
Children In Foster Care ◽  
Cohort Differences ◽  
The Impact

Previous reports of child maltreatment Sequelae have not systematically examined the effects of societal intervention. A historical cohort study has been undertaken to examine the impact of one intervention, foster care, on the subsequent development of juvenile delinquency among child victims. One hundred fourteen foster children, aged 11 to 18 years, in foster care for three or more years, and who were in foster care as a result of maltreatment were studied. A comparison cohort was composed of 106 victims of maltreatment who were left in their family home; these children were similar to the children in foster care with regard to age, race, sex, and year of diagnosis. Cohort differences in maternal education, type of abuse, history of prior maltreatment, sex, and race were controlled in the analysis. Foster children committed 0.050 crimes per person-year after age 11 years; home care children committed 0.059 crimes per person-year after age 11 years (P > .2). Foster children were more likely to have committed criminal assault. Among foster children, increased number of foster home placements correlated with increased number of delinquency convictions. Overall, there appears to be no support for the idea that foster care is responsible for a significant portion of later problems encountered by victims of maltreatment.

What Evangelical Orphan Boom?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel L. Perry
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
State Level ◽  
Orphan Care ◽  
Christian Families

Chapter 1 discusses the practical failure of the evangelical orphan care movement. It draws on available data on adoption and foster care participation as well as recent surveys of Americans to demonstrate that, despite the considerable efforts of the movement to mobilize Christians to adopt more or foster more, there is no evidence to suggest that they have been successful. Both at the national and state level, adoption and fostering have not increased over the last fifteen years among non-relatives, even in states where the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) would seemingly have the most potential to mobilize Christian families to adopt or foster. Other evidence suggests that American Christians or evangelicals, as recently as 2013, are not significantly more likely than other Americans to adopt or foster children. The remaining chapters of the book will focus on explaining why evangelical efforts to mobilize Americans to adopt or foster more children have been so practically ineffective.

The Hard-to-Place Child

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Rymph
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Foster Parents ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Child Placement ◽  
American Children ◽  
Post War

This chapter examines the notion of the “hard-to-place child” and the post-war emergence of the idea that foster children were inherently damaged. This idea derived from the rise of “attachment theory” and the conventional wisdom that New Deal family security programs had effectively eliminated poverty as a reason for child placement, thereby meaning that those children still in need of foster care came from pathological families. The chapter looks at various qualities that made a child “hard-to-place,” including, age, disability, behavioural problems, and race. It looks specifically at the use of board rates as a strategy to recruit foster parents and at efforts to recruit African American foster homes to serve African American children.

scholarly journals Heuristic decision-making in foster care matching: Evidence from a think-aloud study

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 400-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirti Zeijlmans ◽  
Mónica López López ◽  
Hans Grietens ◽  
Erik J. Knorth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Think Aloud

Predictors of Adoption and Guardianship Dissolution: The Role of Race, Age, and Gender Among Children in Foster Care

2020 ◽  
pp. 107755952095217
Author(s):  
Kierra M. P. Sattler ◽  
Sarah A. Font
Keyword(s):  
Foster Care ◽  
Foster Children ◽  
Cognitive Disability ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Foster Care System ◽  
Children In Foster Care ◽  
Disability Status ◽  
Entry Cohort ◽  
And Gender

Adoption and guardianship are meant to provide permanency to foster children when reunification is not a viable option. Unfortunately, sometimes adoption and guardianship placements dissolve resulting in children returning to care. Currently, there is limited research on the prevalence and predictors of adoption and guardianship dissolutions. This study investigated rates of guardianship and adoption dissolution using a complete entry cohort from a large state foster care system and the associations between child characteristics and risk factors with dissolution. Drawing on a complete entry cohort of foster children in Texas that exited to either adoption or guardianship placements, results demonstrated that over 2% of adoptive placements and 7% of guardianship placements were dissolved. Compared with White and Hispanic children, Black children had a higher risk of guardianship, but not adoption, dissolution. Older age was associated with a higher risk of adoption dissolution, and females had a higher risk of guardianship dissolution than males. Behavior problems, cognitive disability status, and mental health issues were all associated with a higher risk of dissolution. These findings have important implications for caseworkers and policymakers on permanency for children in adoptive or guardianship placements.

Reunification in foster care: Influences on decision-making

2018 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 67-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
João M.S. Carvalho ◽  
Paulo Delgado ◽  
Vânia S. Pinto ◽  
Rami Benbenishty
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foster Care

Narrating Confluent Experiences in a Child Welfare Case

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Latty ◽  
Kathleen Burns-Jager
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Foster Care ◽  
Community Context ◽  
Parental Rights ◽  
Young Mother ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Abuse And Neglect ◽  
Case Worker ◽  
Care Worker

This constructed narrative inquiry illustrates confluent stories of a young mother, Jenny, charged with child abuse and neglect; her foster care case worker, Rachel; and her therapist, Kathleen. As researchers, we discuss the positions of each person: mother, caseworker, therapist through storied fragments representing what is most important in how they came to understand the process of their year-long work together that led to Jenny's releasing her parental rights. Layering interviews and reflexive writings, we focus on decision-making and voice; about what it means to be a parent, a foster care worker, and a therapist in a community context where parent benefit from services and the child's best interest is a privileged societal discourse.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document