Topic: Foster Care

We pulled together this month’s most noteworthy child welfare research articles for you. Read them all here and take action today!

1. Reframing Childhood Adversity: Promoting Upstream Approaches (Frameworks Institute)

“This brief offers guidance on positioning and explaining the issue of childhood adversity, as well as the need for promoting upstream approaches. The guidance has implications for a wide variety of communications goals and contexts, but it is most relevant for efforts designed to educate the public about strategies that work at the community and policy levels. These framing recommendations were developed for advocates, researchers, and practitioners working to address issues including child abuse and neglect, family violence, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), early trauma and trauma-informed care, and toxic stress. At a high level, child adversity must be framed as: A public issue; A preventable problem; A solvable problem. This brief discusses each of these recommendations, showing what they look like and explaining how they help. It also offers insight into some of the framing dilemmas and what not to communicate, and why.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Childhood adversity is a public health issue and a preventable and solvable problem. Strategic talking points can help ensure that lawmakers prioritize proactive and early interventions rather than continuing to pay for problems we have the power to prevent.

2. Supporting Parents and Caregivers with Trauma Histories during COVID-19 (Child Trends)

“For parents with unresolved histories of adversity and trauma—resulting from experiences such as abuse, assault, or domestic violence—the risks associated with pandemic-related stress may be further compounded. To promote positive family adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers should increase targeted supports, services, and policies for parents and caregivers with trauma histories. This brief includes information on the impact of COVID-19 on parents and caregivers, particularly those with trauma histories; outlines resiliency factors for this population; and provides guidance for policymakers, providers and agencies, and families on supporting parents and caregivers with trauma histories during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Parenting can be stressful for everyone, but when you add in the impact of COVID-19 and a history of trauma, that stress can impact a caregiver’s ability to provide nurturing and safe care for their children. COVID-19 recovery plans must include increasing access to proven supports and programs that can improve family stability and parental coping skills to buffer the effects of the pandemic on children.

3. Child Welfare Financing Survey SFY2018 (Child Trends)

“Child welfare agencies across the United States are charged with protecting and promoting the welfare of children and youth who are at risk of, or who have been victims of, maltreatment. State and local child welfare agencies rely on multiple funding streams to administer programs and services. While many funding sources are available to child welfare agencies, each has its own unique purposes, eligibility requirements, and limitations, creating a complex financing structure that is challenging to understand and administer. Each state’s unique funding composition determines what services are available to children and families and the way in which child welfare agencies operate. Child Trends conducted its 11th national survey of child welfare agency expenditures to promote an understanding among various child welfare stakeholders of the challenges and opportunities that agencies face in serving children and families.”

Note that this report includes state-level data from state fiscal year 2018 and survey data collected in 2019 and 2020.

TexProtects Takeaway: The unique challenges of 2020 offer the opportunity to examine state investments in child welfare to determine if our dollars actually reflect our priorities, how funding can best be utilized to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on our child welfare system, and how existing investments may be perpetuating disproportionality in our systems. For TexProtects, the answer lies in doing more upstream work to support families rather than continuing to invest in more investigations and removals.

4. Findings from the First 5 California Home Visiting Workforce Study (Child Trends)

“The First 5 California (F5CA) Home Visiting Workforce Study collected data to help the state understand the landscape of California’s home visiting workforce, including characteristics of home visitors and supervisors, implementation supports for staff, and program needs for workforce recruitment, development, and retention. The following summary presents key findings from a survey of more than 900 home visiting staff representing 171 home visiting programs across the state. […] Key findings from this workforce survey include a description of the California home visiting workforce, the ways they are meeting the needs of families, changes in their work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how home visitor well-being and program supports affect workforce retention.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Home visitors, funded through various funding streams at the Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) Division of DFPS, have been critical lifelines for families who voluntarily enroll; however, the pandemic has made that work even more challenging. Effective training, recruitment, and retention strategies are critical to ensuring a healthy workforce that can effectively support families and keep children safe and well.

5. Challenges, Benefits Found in Providing Home Visiting Services for Pregnant and Parenting Foster Youth (Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago)

“In 2015, the Illinois Home Visiting Task Force established a subcommittee to design and implement a pilot project to connect pregnant or parenting youth in foster care with home visiting services. A major goal of that pilot project was to promote collaboration between the home visiting and the child welfare systems. Results from an implementation study of the pilot project point to both the ongoing challenges and benefits associated with providing home visiting services to pregnant or parenting youth in foster care.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Project HIP and the Family First Prevention Services Act provide great opportunities for Texas to do more to ensure that pregnant and parenting foster youth have access to proven prevention programs like home visiting. Although engaging pregnant and parenting foster youth in home visiting programs has unique challenges, flexible approaches and evidence-based practices can increase positive parenting practice, co-parent relationships, and knowledge of child development.

6. Reframing Transition Age Foster Youth (Frameworks Institute)

“Once people learn who transition age foster youth are, they are generally sympathetic, but they still struggle to think about ways to support them. We are fortunate to have two narratives to improve understanding and build support for addressing the needs of transition age foster youth. The first narrative, ‘Advancing Well-being,’ shows people how effective supports aid the healthy biological, psychological, and emotional development of transition age foster youth. The second narrative, ‘Expanding Opportunities,’ helps people understand the racial and economic factors that create disparities leading to foster care involvement, the disparities perpetuated by that system, and the ways in which supports for transition age foster youth can address those inequities. This strategic brief outlines how we can do this together by: Showing the most effective ways to change perceptions and build support for reform; Giving examples of what this looks like in practice; Reviewing the research that underlies each recommendation.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Transition-age foster youth are young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are transitioning out of the foster care system as they reach adulthood. All of us need support to become successful adults, but transition-age foster youth often lack these things because they don’t have the same family connections to rely on. We need strong programs to ensure transition-age foster youth receive the care that all young people need to thrive.

7. Parental Substance Use: A Primer for Child Welfare Professionals (Children’s Bureau, Office of the Administration for Children and Families – ACF, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – DHHS)

“The effect of substance use disorders (SUDs) on parenting and child safety is a common reason families come into contact with the child welfare system. Child welfare professionals can play a critical role in helping identify possible SUDs and supporting families in overcoming barriers to safety and permanency related to substance use. This factsheet reviews what SUDs are, how parental substance use affects families, and how child welfare professionals can support these families. It also considers how collaboration between child welfare professionals and SUD treatment providers, as well as others, is an essential component to assisting families.”

TexProtects Takeaway: 66% of removals in Texas in 2019 were related to substance use. Although SUDs can be a lifelong struggle, merely having one does not prevent a person from being a successful parent. With the proper identification, treatment, and support, parents with SUDs can safely maintain their children in their homes, ultimately producing the best outcomes.

8. College Choice and Enrollment among Youth Formerly in Foster Care (Gross, J., Stolzenberg, E., Williams, A.)

“Despite being among the most disadvantaged groups with respect to college access and success in the United States, youth formerly in foster care (YFFC) remain an understudied population in higher education research. Although they aspire to college at high levels, youth in foster care enjoy less postsecondary access and success than their peers who have not experienced foster care. This study seeks to better understand how youth formerly in foster care (YFFC) compare to their peers regarding college preparation, choice, enrollment, and financing; academic self-concept and degree aspirations; and concerns about paying for college. Using Perna’s (2008) college choice model and data from the 2016 The Freshman Survey (TFS), we conduct bivariate comparisons and regression analysis to compare college readiness and enrollment between YFFC and non-YFFC who are first-time, full-time freshmen. We report the results of our findings and discuss how these contribute to existing research and apply to the financial and educational needs and strengths of YFFC.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Youth formerly in foster care face challenges including academic preparation, mental health challenges, and affordability that, despite high aspirations for college attainment, can create barriers that make completion more difficult than their peers. More work should be done to identify the supports that can best ensure that these young adult survivors have every opportunity to succeed.

We pulled together this month’s top 10 most noteworthy child welfare research articles for you. Read them all here and take action today!

1. Toward a Better Approach to Preventing, Identifying, and Addressing Child Maltreatment (American Academy of Political and Social Science)

This issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science focuses specifically on approaches to preventing, identifying, and addressing child maltreatment. Articles in the feature cover a number of topics within the field, including child welfare system financing, the ways in which families experience and interact with Child Protective Services, and racial disproportionality and disparities in child welfare.

TexProtects Takeaway: The future of child maltreatment prevention should seek to expand capacity for implementing evidence-based prevention programs while addressing the adverse community experiences that exacerbate child maltreatment risk. This will take education, research, policy, and personal action to ensure that every child has a safe and healthy start. Visit TexProtects Advocacy Gateway to let our policymakers know that we need to put children and families first this legislative session to prevent child abuse and neglect.

2. Pathways to Prevention: Early Head Start Outcomes in the First Three Years Lead to Long-Term Reductions in Child Maltreatment (Green, B. et al.)

“Using longitudinal, experimental data from the Early Head Start (EHS) Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP) linked to child welfare agency records for 2,794 children, we examined the effectiveness of EHS birth-to-three services in preventing child maltreatment during children’s first 15 years of life.” Results showed that by a “children’s second birthday, families randomly assigned to participate in EHS had lower family conflict and parenting distress, and more positive parent-child interactions; these impacts, in turn, led to later reductions in the likelihood of children being involved with the child welfare system through age fifteen.… Findings suggest that early two-generational programs, like EHS, that are able to successfully decrease family conflict and stress and support positive, emotionally responsive parenting and child development, may reduce the likelihood of abuse and neglect later in life.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Texas must invest this legislative session in doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Early childhood and family support programs have short-term impacts and reduce the need for costly interventions later – in this case, reducing child maltreatment through age 15. Join TexProtects in letting policymakers know that prevention takes all of us.

3. Child Well-Being Spotlight: Children Living in Kinship Care and Nonrelative Foster Care Are Unlikely to Receive Needed Early Intervention or Special Education Services (Office of Planning, Research, & Evaluation – OPRE, RTI International)

This brief highlights findings from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) about children with developmental delays or disabilities and their placement within the child welfare system. NSCAW is a “nationally representative sample of children reported to child protective services. The survey collects data on a representative sample of the child protective services population by administering questionnaires and direct child assessments through face-to-face interactions with caseworkers, children, and caregivers.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Early intervention for children with developmental delays or disabilities may prevent future need for special education services. Texas is already addressing a finding of noncompliance related to federal special education and early childhood intervention guidelines and this report reveals that children in kinship care and foster care are even more unlikely to receive these critical services.

4. Supporting the First 1,000 Days of A Child’s Life: An Anti-Racist Blueprint for Early Childhood Well-Being and Child Welfare Prevention (Center for the Study of Social Policy)

“To support the health and well-being of children and families of color, we must implement comprehensive strategies that address systemic and institutional racism. This report offers a blueprint for creating equity-centered, anti-racist policies that support the health and well-being of children and families of color.”

TexProtects Takeaway: TexProtects is a steering committee member of the Prenatal to Three Collaborative, which is focused on improving outcomes for children in the early years. To do so requires public agencies to leverage existing resources to create a continuum of supports, meeting families where they are and directly addressing policies that have resulted in disproportionate access to prevention and support for Black and brown families and their increased chances of involvement with child welfare systems.

5. Freeing Children for Adoption Within the Adoption and Safe Families Act Timeline (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation)

“Permanency, that is ensuring children have long-term, enduring connections to family or other caring adults, is one of the three primary goals of the child welfare system, along with safety and child well-being. This study explores how frequently states make exceptions to this timeline and highlights issues behind states’ difficulties in achieving timely permanency for children. Two reports describe the findings. The first report discusses quantitative findings based on analysis of federal administrative data, and finds considerable variation among states both in the frequency with which children entering foster care experience TPR, and in the likelihood that TPR is conducted timely. The second report analyzes findings from state monitoring visits and data from key informant interviews with officials and stakeholders in three states and describes themes regarding barriers to TPR and timely adoption.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Recent child welfare innovations, including the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) that focuses on preventing foster care placements, are important. Yet, for the population of children in out-of-home care, we must do more to increase the likelihood of timely permanency by increasing consistency in practice, strengthening access to services, and decreasing caseworker turnover and caseloads.

6. Treatment For Opioid Use Disorder May Reduce Substantiated Cases of Child Abuse and Neglect (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation)

“Buprenorphine treatment has been found to be an effective treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). Child welfare systems have been partnering with treatment providers to increase access, yet little is known about its role in improving outcomes related to child maltreatment. This paper finds, for the first time, that increased availability of buprenorphine treatment predicts reductions in certain types of child maltreatment caseloads in 25 states.”

TexProtects Takeaway: 66% of removals in Texas in 2019 were related to substance use. The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) provides a federal match for state investments that provide evidence-based substance use services to families at imminent risk of entering foster care. This could dramatically increase the number of families who can stay together safely. Read more about FFPSA here.

7. Child Maltreatment 2019 (Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau)

“Child Maltreatment 2019 is the 30th edition of the annual Child Maltreatment report series. States provide the data for this report through the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). NCANDS was established in 1988 as a voluntary, national data collection and analysis program to make available state child abuse and neglect information. Data have been collected every year since 1991 and are collected from child welfare agencies in the 50 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.” One key report finding is as follows: “The national rounded number of children who received a child protective services investigation response or alternative response decreased from 3,534,000 for federal fiscal year (FFY) 2018 to 3,476,000 for FFY 2019.”

TexProtects Takeaway: In Texas, the number of children who received a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation or alternative response increased by 3.8% between 2015 and 2019. Overall, Texas’s rate is 8.7 per 100 children (lower than the national average of 8.9); however, the rates for children age three exceed the national averages. We must do more to support families with young children.

8. The Cost of Implementing a Home Visiting Program Designed to Prevent Repeat Pregnancies Among Adolescent Mothers (Family & Youth Services Bureau, OPRE, Mathematica)

“This brief provides information on the cost of implementing a home visiting program for adolescent mothers. The information comes from an evaluation of the Steps to Success home visiting program in San Angelo, Texas…. As part of the evaluation, trained staff from Healthy Families San Angelo (HFSA) provided Steps to Success to pregnant or recently postpartum mothers ages 14 to 20. HFSA developed Steps to Success by enhancing a traditional home visiting program offered by the organization. While HFSA’s traditional home visiting program focused on child development and parenting, the enhanced program included additional program components designed to (1) promote healthy birth spacing, (2) encourage father involvement, and (3) support mothers’ education and career aspirations. For both Steps to Success and HFSA’s traditional home visiting program, mothers receive program services for up to two years.”

TexProtects Takeaway: TexProtects is the Texas chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America, the home of Healthy Families America. Home visiting models are innovating and evaluating variations in their models to better meet the needs of diverse families. Read more about home visiting here.

9. Professional Development Supports for Home Visitors and Supervisors: Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce (OPRE)

“This short report examines issues related to professional development for home visitors and home visiting supervisors. The findings presented are based on a national study of the home visiting workforce in Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program-funded agencies and interviews with experts in higher education and in the home visiting field. The report also shares information from a scan of online resources related to training and professional development for home visiting program staff.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Home visiting works and home visitors have been flexible and innovative front-line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding how to recruit and retain a highly-skilled workforce for the impactful strategy is critical.

10. Glossary of Student Mental Wellness Concepts (Education Commission of the States)

“This Policy Outline defines several common terms related to child development, student mental health and wellness, and school-based health services. Understanding these terms, which are distinct but connect in various ways, is critical to the policymaking process.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Half of American children have experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs). Do you know the difference between trauma, toxic stress, and ACEs? As a result of TexProtects’ work on House Bill 18 last legislative session, all educators in Texas will now receive training on these critical topics and how they impact student learning and health. Read more about ACEs and our recommendations for the current legislative session here.

1. More than One in Four Latino and Black Household with Children Are Experiencing Three or More Hardship during COVID-19 (Child Trends)

 “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of families experiencing hardships across the country has risen dramatically, with a disproportionate impact on Latino and Black communities.… For the analysis presented in this brief, we used nationally representative data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, which has tracked the well-being of U.S. households during the pandemic, to examine seven types of hardships: unemployment, difficulty paying expenses, not being caught up on rent or mortgage, food insecurity, physical health problems, symptoms of anxiety or depression, and lack of health insurance.”

TexProtects Takeaway: The hardships brought on by COVID-19 affecting Black, brown, and indigenous families trickle down to their children. Issues like economic distress, food insecurity, and mental health challenges, exacerbated by the pandemic, impact how families can care for their children during this crisis and in the future. This places more stressors on caregivers, who are less able to help children cultivate the protective factors and resilience that help mitigate adverse experiences in childhood. To read more from TexProtects about the disproportionate impact on these families during COVID-19, click here.

2. Strategies to Virtually Support and Engage Families of Young Children during COVID-19 (Child Trends)

“As preschools and schools continue to reopen, caregivers (e.g., childcare providers and teachers) are quickly pivoting to using virtual platforms to support and engage families in children’s learning. This rapid transition has left little time to assess what we know (and do not know) about family engagement best practices within the virtual space. This brief offers an overview of four best practices and lessons learned from research and practice to assist caregivers and teachers with the transition to engaging families virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Virtual learning can be a strain on parents and children’s mental health and time. It is imperative that caregivers and teachers use all the tools necessary to ensure education and resources are provided in the least intrusive, most beneficial ways possible to ensure children, especially those at the critical ages of 0-5, are getting what they need out of virtual learning and early childhood experiences.

3. Buffing Child Maltreatment: School Connectedness as a Protective Factor in a Community Sample of Young Adults(Goldstine-Cole, K.)

“Identified or not, maltreatment increases the risk for substance use disorder, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder across the lifespan. This study examines whether school connectedness (SC), the sense of belonging at school derived from affective relationships in the school context and commitment to learning, protects against such effects. Specifically, in paper one, data from 349 young adults who completed the Protective Factor Questionnaire is used to develop a retrospective five-indicator, measurement model of school connectedness for K-12 and elementary, middle, and high school.… Paper two evaluates SC as a moderator in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and mental well-being during early adulthood, ages 18-25. Results indicate that SC buffers against intrafamilial maltreatment as well as five individual forms of abuse and neglect.… These results suggest that schools have roles beyond that of mandatory reporter in supporting the wellbeing of maltreated children.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Child abuse and neglect numbers may have risen during the pandemic and schools’ closures, despite fewer reports. Teachers and school staff are one of the main reporters of abuse and neglect, and with the move to virtual learning for many, picking up on the signs is more difficult. TexProtects is working to spread awareness in schools about staff intervening in abuse or neglect, not just as mandatory reporters. See our resources on recognizing abuse on our website.

4. Trauma-Informed Care in Child Welfare: An Imperative for Residential Childcare Workers (Brend, D. & Sprang, G.)

“Rates of traumatization among residential child welfare professionals are alarmingly high. The well-being of these professionals is associated both with their intention to stay in their jobs and outcomes of children in their care.… This manuscript details experiences empirically shown to have potential negative impacts on professional well-being, discusses why these impacts are of particular concern for residential childcare workers, and describes the types of organizational cultures and climates that appear to mitigate these negative impacts. Trauma-informed care at the organizational level is proposed both as a means to reduce harm to child welfare professionals and promote the rehabilitation of children within the child welfare system.”

TexProtects Takeaway: Organizations and agencies working with children from hard places need to implement trauma-informed care training for all staff. Not only does training help mitigate secondary trauma of professionals, but it also helps professionals best serve the children they are working with. TexProtects worked on HB18 last session to ensure school staff receive trauma training; however, Texas has more work to do to ensure high quality training and implementation are consistent across all sectors that impact children and families.

5. AGED OUT: How We’re Failing Youth Transitioning Out of Foster Care (Cancel, S., Fathallah, S., Nitze, M., Sullivan, S., & Wright-Moore, E)

“To understand the aging out experiences of foster youth, Think Of Us and Bloom conducted in-field discovery sprints using proven human-centered design and participatory research methodologies in five participating locations” (Santa Clara, Solano, San Francisco, and San José counties in California, Hennepin County in Minnesota, and New York City). “During these sprints, we spoke to a total of 206 people in 92 research sessions. The research team conducted in-depth interviews and participatory design workshops with a wide range of foster youth, former foster youth, child welfare staff and leadership, supportive adults, foster parents, and more…Over the course of the project, three key themes began to emerge. To us, these themes represent where the child welfare system is most failing transition-age youth, and where we must urgently focus our attention. These themes are: 1. Healing and dealing with trauma; 2. Centering youth in their preparedness; and 3. Helping youth build a supportive network.”

TexProtects Takeaway: The state must not forget the needs of youth transitioning out of the foster care system. TexProtects is supporting our partners’ work this legislative session to support improved services for transitioning youth. Check out our bill tracker to learn more.

6. Why Do We Focus on the Prenatal-to-3 Age Period? Understanding the Importance of the Earliest Years (Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin)

This research brief discusses why researchers and practitioners in early childhood consistently describe the first few years of life as being the most critical period for children’s development. The authors highlight that investing in families during a child’s earliest years can have a lasting impact on children’s lifelong health and well-being. They point to key practices that can strengthen families, and therefore, promote the healthy development of children. Some of these factors include access to quality health care for mothers, safe and supportive childcare settings, and other social services, such as early intervention programs for children with developmental delays or disabilities.

TexProtects Takeaway: TexProtects is part of the Prenatal to Three initiative alongside our partners Children at Risk and Texans Care for Children. We support investment in increasing the following for low-income mothers and infants and toddlers: access to prenatal and postpartum health services; health screening and successful connection to necessary services; and access to high-quality childcare programs. Read more about the initiative.

7. Three Trimesters to Three Years: Promoting Early Development (Princeton University and the Brookings Institution)

“The period from pregnancy through age three is the one in which the most rapid growth of the brain and behavior occurs. Yet most researchers and policy makers have treated the nine months of development during pregnancy separately from the first three years of life. Prenatal experiences are part and parcel of the postnatal experience of mothers and their babies; the postnatal period is sometimes referred to as the fourth trimester, a way to highlight the fact that after a child’s birth, mothers themselves need continuing services and screening. Indeed, children’s wellbeing very much depends on their mothers’ health and wellbeing. The title of this issue of the Future of Children, “Three Trimesters to Three Years,” highlights continuity in development, the continuing intersection of mother and baby, and the rapid growth that occurs from conception to three years of age.”

The prenatal and postnatal periods are critical to a child’s health and development. We advocate for investment in home visiting programs that support families in nurturing their children’s development and resilience from an early age, such as Family Connects and Nurse-Family Partnership. Read more on home visiting programs.