Family preservation or child safety? Associations between child welfare workers' experience, position, and perspectives

Fluke, John D.; Corwin, Tyler W.; Hollinshead, Dana M.; Maher, Erin J.

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.08.012

Cited by 46 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Such considerations also require that child welfare staff and social workers be trained in the unique service needs of sexual minority youth and the family dynamics that may result when youth come out in unsafe family and community environments (Ryan et al, 2009). Research on child protection is making progress in identifying contextual factors important for decision-making of placements (Fluke, Corwin, Hollinshead, & Maher, 2016;Graham, Dettlaff, Baumann, & Fluke, 2015). Several states require by law that out-of-home care is affirming, and that caregivers be educated about providing adequate care for sexual minority youth (Foster Care Services: Cultural Competency Bill, 2012;Human Rights Campaign, n.d.).…”

Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Are sexual minority youth overrepresented in foster care, child welfare, and out-of-home placement? Findings from nationally representative data

Fish

Baams

Wojciak

et al. 2019

Child Abuse & Neglect

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Background-Preliminary evidence suggests that sexual minority (e.g. lesbian, gay, bisexual, and same-sex attracted) youth are overrepresented in child welfare services. Yet, no study to date has been able to test this hypothesis with national data.Objective-Using a two-study design, we test whether sexual minority youth are overrepresented in child welfare, foster care, and out-of-home placement using nationally representative data from the United States. Participants and setting-Study 1 data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 14,154; Mean age = 15.4). Study 2 data are from wave three of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II (n = 1,309; Mean age = 15.0). Methods-ForStudy 1, we use adjusted logistic regression models to test differences in lifetime foster care involvement between sexual minority and heterosexual youth. In Study 2, we calculate a Disproportionality Representation Index (DRI) -a ratio of sample prevalence relative to the general population -to estimate whether sexual minority youth were overrepresented in child welfare and out-of-home care.Results-Study 1 results indicate that sexual minority youth are nearly 2.5 times as likely as heterosexual youth to experience foster care placement (aOR = 2.43, 95% CI 1.40, 4.21, p = .002). Results from Study 2 show that sexual minority youth were largely overrepresented in child welfare services (DRI = 1.95 to 2.48) and out-of-home placement (DRI = 3.69 to 4.68).

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Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Are sexual minority youth overrepresented in foster care, child welfare, and out-of-home placement? Findings from nationally representative data

Fish

Baams

Wojciak

et al. 2019

Child Abuse & Neglect

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In states with over-taxed and unstable front-line child welfare workforces, investigations may linger incomplete, with potential consequences for child safety and family stability as cases are handed over to new workers (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2016;Farber & Munson, 2010). More experienced workers tend to prefer a family preservation focused approach to casework, while workers with shorter tenures tend to prefer a child safety orientation to decision-making (Fluke et al, 2016). The frequency of workercoordinated visits between family members for children in care may also decline, affecting the likelihood of successful reunification (Farber & Munson, 2010).…”

Section: Why the Child Welfare Workforce Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, an agency's ability to pursue both safety and permanency for children may be negatively affected when agencies are understaffed, when workers are overburdened with high caseloads, when workforces have high turnover, and when the workforce is inexperienced (Fluke, Corwin, Hollinshead, & Maher, 2016;Graef & Hill, 2000;Hansung Kim, 2011;Pietrowiak & Gambino, 2003;Strolin, McCarthy, & Caringi, 2006;N. J. Williams & Glisson, 2013).…”

Section: Why the Child Welfare Workforce Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of the front-line child welfare workforce

Edwards

Wildeman

2018

Children and Youth Services Review

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In this study, we provide new national-and state-level estimates of workload and workforce instability among child welfare agencies using previously unavailable data that includes unique identifiers for US child welfare caseworkers in 46 states and supervisors in 43 states. We identify and describe 139,921 unique caseworkers and 31,124 unique supervisors who were in the child welfare workforce between 2003 and 2015. The median caseworker handles 55 cases annually and is on the job for about 1.8 years. The median state has an annual front-line caseworker turnover rate of between 14 and 22 percent annually, and a supervisor turnover rate of about 20 percent annually.3

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“…Another UK study found that an 'inverse intervention law' seemed to be operating, where poor children in neighbourhoods surrounded by a larger less deprived neighbourhood were much more likely to have contact with the child protection system than equally deprived children surrounded by a highly deprived neighbourhood (Bywaters et al 2015). Others point out that decisions to notify, substantiate and investigate child abuse can be shaped by multiple factors such as the values and beliefs of the social worker, experience, role type, perceptions of risk, available resources and professional or institutional cultures (Bywaters et al 2018;Davidson-Arad and Benbenishty 2016;Fallon et al 2013;Fleming et al 2014;Fluke et al 2016;Keddell 2014Keddell , 2016. Variations in specific ethnic groups' contact rates can be particularly affected by both bias and service factors.…”

Section: The Social Production Of Data and The Feedback Loopmentioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithmic Justice in Child Protection: Statistical Fairness, Social Justice and the Implications for Practice

Keddell¹

2019

Social Sciences

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Algorithmic tools are increasingly used in child protection decision-making. Fairness considerations of algorithmic tools usually focus on statistical fairness, but there are broader justice implications relating to the data used to construct source databases, and how algorithms are incorporated into complex sociotechnical decision-making contexts. This article explores how data that inform child protection algorithms are produced and relates this production to both traditional notions of statistical fairness and broader justice concepts. Predictive tools have a number of challenging problems in the child protection context, as the data that predictive tools draw on do not represent child abuse incidence across the population and child abuse itself is difficult to define, making key decisions that become data variable and subjective. Algorithms using these data have distorted feedback loops and can contain inequalities and biases. The challenge to justice concepts is that individual and group rights to non-discrimination become threatened as the algorithm itself becomes skewed, leading to inaccurate risk predictions drawing on spurious correlations. The right to be treated as an individual is threatened when statistical risk is based on a group categorisation, and the rights of families to understand and participate in the decisions made about them is difficult when they have not consented to data linkage, and the function of the algorithm is obscured by its complexity. The use of uninterpretable algorithmic tools may create ‘moral crumple zones’, where practitioners are held responsible for decisions even when they are partially determined by an algorithm. Many of these criticisms can also be levelled at human decision makers in the child protection system, but the reification of these processes within algorithms render their articulation even more difficult, and can diminish other important relational and ethical aims of social work practice.

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Family preservation or child safety? Associations between child welfare workers' experience, position, and perspectives

Cited by 46 publications

References 39 publications

Are sexual minority youth overrepresented in foster care, child welfare, and out-of-home placement? Findings from nationally representative data

Are sexual minority youth overrepresented in foster care, child welfare, and out-of-home placement? Findings from nationally representative data

Characteristics of the front-line child welfare workforce

Algorithmic Justice in Child Protection: Statistical Fairness, Social Justice and the Implications for Practice

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