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Findings Available
Interim Descriptive/Analytical Findings
Findings
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06/01/01:
National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: State Child Welfare Agency Survey Report
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Interim Findings:
Two-thirds of the respondents reported that the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) has resulted in enhancements or changes in at least one of the following four areas: child safety, permanency, collaboration with the courts, and data collection.
Although there have always been informal collaborations to provide services to clients and their families, administrators report an increased emphasis on formal collaborations between agencies and groups providing services to those children and families served by child welfare agencies.
Child welfare providers report increasing participation in multidisciplinary teams. Case teams have long existed, but these innovative programs (1) involve many more partners, including families and (2) begin at an earlier stage in the assessment of children and families.
State administrators identified several areas of concern about the future of child welfare, including insufficient funding, increasingly complex caseloads, and workforce issues (e.g., high turnover, low salaries, and insufficient training).
The most frequently reported promising developments in child welfare included the following: Growing emphasis on prevention and early intervention; Increased collaboration with other service providers; Greater involvement of families in decision-making; Increased emphasis on evaluation and outcomes.
The interviews conducted for this report suggest that, while states face similar challenges, they are using diverse strategies to address them. State administrators consistently expressed interest in learning about how other states are responding to Federal, state, and local changes and challenges. This report will be useful to state and local child welfare agencies as they evaluate and consider the implementation of new service delivery systems, innovative practice models, and the experiences of other states related to recent changes in Federal legislation and policy.
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06/01/01:
National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: Local Child Welfare Agency Survey Report
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Interim Findings
Large counties appeared to differ substantially from small counties regarding the delivery of child welfare services, employing a significantly higher proportion of direct service workers, compared to CPS workers, than did other counties.
Nonpoor counties had a significantly greater-about four times higher-average per-child child welfare expenditure ($10,739) than did poor counties ($2,689)
Urban counties, in general, are reorganizing their services more rapidly than nonurban counties.
State-administered child welfare systems appear to have a more structured approach to risk assessment, licensing of kinship homes, and training of child welfare workers and caregivers.
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10/01/03:
National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being: One Year in Foster Care
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- Most children (60%) in the OYFC population were placed in out-of-home care with neglect as the most serious type of maltreatment. About half of these were
neglected through failure to provide; the other half, through failure to supervise. The most serious types of abuse for the rest were identified as follows:
- 10%, physical abuse;
- 8%, sexual abuse;
- 14%, emotional, moral/legal, or educational abuse, or abandonment; and
- 8% for reasons other than abuse or neglect (e.g., for mental health services or domestic violence).
- Many OYFC children have experienced more than one type of abuse.
- Forty-four percent of OYFC children are in non-kin foster homes, and about
one-quarter (24%) are in kinship foster homes.
- Caregivers were asked about children's health problems that "lasted or reoccurred." Over one-quarter of the OYFC children have some type of recurring physical or mental health problem.
- Children's functioning was assessed with multiple standardized developmental measures. Children in out-of-home care tend to fall marginally below the norm compared with the general population on nearly every measure, including measures of cognitive capacities, language development, behavioral problems, and academic achievement. Although these lower scores are reason for concern, such scores are somewhat more common among poor children, which are the group of children most involved with child welfare services.
- Current caregivers tend to be middle-aged or older; almost two-thirds (62%) are
aged 40 or older. Caregivers in kin-care settings are more likely to be aged 60 or older than are caregivers in non-kin foster homes or group homes, and caregivers in group homes are much more likely to be under age 40 than caregivers in foster homes or kin-care settings.
- Caregivers are almost as likely to be single as married (45% vs. 53%).
- The education of the current caregivers typically is high school or less (56%).
- The average number of household members in kin-care and nonkin foster homes together is 5.2.
- On average OYFC children report feeling positive about their
caregivers, reporting a high sense of relatedness, though children in group care report this relatedness to a lesser degree than those in kinship care.
- Children aged 6 and older were asked about their experiences in out-of-home care, including how they viewed their current living situation, their thoughts about where they would live in the future, and their views of their biological parents. In
general, a positive picture of foster care arrangements emerged as most children like the people they are living with (90%) and say they feel like a part of the family (92%).
- The children in group home placements are generally less satisfied with their placement than the children in kinship or nonkinship foster care—more of these children do not like the people they live with and do not want their current arrangement as a permanent home.
- Child welfare workers were asked to identify some risk factors that the family might have experienced prior to the placement. About 60% of the families had between 3 and 5 of the 7 risk factors examined, with a mean of 3.4. The lack of a second
supportive caregiver was the most common risk factor present at the time of placement.
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