Children leaving foster care: Outcomes of permanency planning

Foster care, created to overcome some of the disadvantages and abuses of institutional care of children, can present its own problems. One problem is overt abuse, but there are other, more subtle, deficiencies and concerns about foster care. In response, the concept of permanency planning has been introduced as a philosophy, a policy, and a technique. It is designed to return every child who enters care to the stability of a family as quickly as possible. This paper presents findings of a longitudinal study of the outcomes of permanency planning. Results show that over half the children returned to their biological parents, that adoptions were more common for Caucasian than black children, that 78% of the children were still in their permanent placements 12-16 months later, that most children were functioning well, and that there was a marked need for services for the families. In addition to the results of the study, the discussion focuses on implications for foster care practice and child welfare policy, including the importance of relatives, the impact of foster care placements, the needs of biological families, and the provision of services and supports for reunified families.     

Changes in first entry to out-of-home care from 1992 to 2012 among children in England

Placement in out-of-home care (OHC) indicates serious childhood adversity and is associated with multiple adverse outcomes. Each year 0.5% of children in England live in OHC but evidence is lacking on the cumulative proportion who enter during childhood and how this varies over time. We measured the proportion of children born between 1992 and 2011 who entered OHC, including variation in rates of entry over time, and explored the determinants of these changes using decomposition methods. We also described changes in placement type, duration and stability. By age 18, 3.3% of children born 1992–94 entered OHC. This proportion varied by ethnicity (1.6% of White vs. 4.5% of Black children born 2001–03 entered OHC by age 9, 95% CI [1.5–1.7] and [4.4–4.6], p < 0.001) and increased over time (0.8% of children born 2009–11 entered OHC by age 1 vs. 0.5% born 1992–94, 95% CI [0.7–0.9] and [0.4–0.6], p < 0.001). This overall increase was driven primarily by the increased rate of entry among White children and not by concurrent changes in the population's ethnic composition. The proportion of children entering OHC in England is increasing and characteristics of the care they receive are changing with earlier intervention and longer, more stable placements. Further research is required to understand the reasons for these changes in practice and whether they are cost-effective, sustainable, and improve outcomes for children and society.     

福斯特生态学马克思主义思想研究现状及评价

约翰·贝拉米·福斯特是西方生态学马克思主义理论的代表人物之一,他以对马克思生态学思想的历史性研究,以及对马克思“物质变换断裂”理论所进行的生态学内涵的深刻剖析而为国内外学界所关注。近年来,对其思想的研究呈上升趋势,其理论所包含的“资本主义生态批判”、“生态学马克思主义的理论建构”,以及“生态危机的政治解放路径”等维度受到了较广泛的研究。文章对这些研究成果进行了梳理,并对一些不足与遗缺进行了说明与评介。     

Government leadership to protect children from foster care "drift"

In the United States public concern about foster care drift is widespread. "Drift" means lengthy placement away from the natural family, without a clear goal to return the child or find some other permanent home. Concern is focused on the negative effect of lengthy foster care on the psychological health of the child, and also on the increasing cost of such placement. Recently, the federal government, in response to extensive testimony about these issues, passed landmark legislation designed to reduce foster care drift, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Funding Act of 1980. Thus the government has now become a leader in child welfare planning. The law requires a reporting and tracking system so that no child already in placement becomes "lost in the system." In addition, all proposed foster placements are now hedged with requirements that there be clear purposes and goals to be achieved by such placements. In effect placements must be defended, tracked, and reviewed periodically. The new requirements pose a rebuke to the professions serving children which have failed to stem the increase in foster care, and to control and place a time limit on such interventions in the family. Federal leadership has created a political climate in child welfare planning. The regulations issued to implement the law in the Carter presidency differ from those of the current administration. The current policy of the government of the United States is to provide protection of the family from excessive foster care placements by child welfare agencies. This is support for greater autonomy for the family, a more conservative approach.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Is higher placement stability in kinship foster care by virtue or design?

Prior research has repeatedly documented higher placement stability for children who enter kinship care rather than non-relative foster care. However, little is known about why, and under what circumstances, kinship care is more stable. This study uses longitudinal state administrative data to explore possible explanations. Results suggest that, while children in non-relative foster care are indeed at higher risk of any placement move than their peers in kinship care, this appears to be partly driven by child selection factors and policy preferences for kinship care. That is, the gap is not explained primarily by different rates of caregiver-requested moves. However, the gap was sizably smaller among select high-risk subgroups of foster children, suggesting that higher stability in kinship care may be partly explained by differences in the characteristics of children entering kinship care (versus non-relative foster care). Moreover, a large portion of the gap is explained by children in non-relative care being moved into kinship care; a move that is likely the result of policy preferences for kinship care rather than a defect in the initial placement. In sum, these results suggest that kinship care provides only a limited stability advantage, and the reasons for that advantage are not well understood.     

Estimating the number of children in formal alternative care: Challenges and results

Given the relatively large body of literature documenting the adverse impacts of institutionalization on children’s developmental outcomes and well-being, it is essential that countries work towards reducing the number of children in alternative care (particularly institutional care), and, when possible, reunite children with their families. In order to do so, reliable estimates of the numbers of children living in such settings are essential. However, many countries still lack functional administrative systems for enumerating children living outside of family care.The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of the availability and coverage of data on children living in residential and foster care from some 142 countries covering more than 80 per cent of the world’s children. Utilizing these country-level figures, it is estimated that approximately 2.7 million children between the ages of 0 and 17 years could be living in institutional care worldwide. Where possible, the article also presents regional estimates of the number of children living in residential and foster care.This work represents an important step to systematically identify and compile sources of data on children in alternative care and provides updated global and regional estimates on the magnitude of the issue. Its findings contribute to raising awareness of the urgent need to strengthen the capacity of countries to improve national systems for counting, monitoring and reporting on these vulnerable children.