Characteristics of out-of-home caregiving environments provided under child welfare services.

A national probability sample of children who have been in child welfare supervised placements for about one year identifies the characteristics (e.g., age, training, education, health, and home) of the foster parents, kinship foster parents, and group home caregivers. Caregiving respondents provided information about their backgrounds. Interviewers also used the HOME-SF to assess the caregiving environments of foster care and kinship care. Comparisons are made to other nationally representative samples, including the U.S. Census and the National Survey of America's Families. Kinship care, foster care, and group care providers are significantly different from each other--and the general population--in age and education. Findings on the numbers of children cared for, understimulating environments, use of punitive punishment, and low educational levels of caregivers generate suggestions for practice with foster families.

Substance use in maltreated youth: findings from the national survey of child and adolescent well-being.

The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics associated with different levels of substance use in a national probability sample of maltreated 11- to 15-year-olds (n = 1,179). Bivariate (chi-square tests) and multivariate (logistic regression) analyses were used to examine the association of adolescent substance use with demographics, placement type, and youth and family characteristics. Seventy-one percent of youth reported no use, 20% reported low levels of substance use, and approximately 9% reported moderate to high levels of use. Youth substance use was similar across placement types. Conduct problems and low caregiver relatedness were more prevalent for youth reporting higher levels of substance use. High levels of conduct problems increased the odds of substance use, whereas high caregiver monitoring decreased the odds of substance use. Caregiver monitoring may be a key tactic in attempts to reduce the likelihood of substance use in maltreated youth, regardless of placement type.

Child welfare reform in the United States: findings from a local agency survey.

Efforts to improve the public welfare and child welfare system sparked an unprecedented amount of federal legislation in the 1990s, including the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996 (MEPA-IEP), and welfare reform. Such reforms allow an unprecedented degree of flexibility, but little is known about their implementation. Researchers administered the Local Agency Survey to the first national probability sample of public child welfare agencies from 1999 to 2000. Findings indicate that ASFA has had the most effect on child welfare service delivery. Welfare reform has had less effect, and MEPA-IEP seems to have had little effect at all.

Children's voices: the perceptions of children in foster care.

Scant research exists on how abused and neglected children view the foster care experience and how these perceptions vary by demographic characteristics and placement type. Data come from a national probability sample of children placed in child welfare supervised foster care for at least 1 year. These findings indicate that children generally feel positively toward their out-of-home care providers and maintain hope for reunification with their biological family. Differences are present between children in family foster care, group care, and kinship care placements.