The Well-Being of Children Involved with the Child Welfare System: A National Overview

Most children involved with the child wel-fare system have experienced abuse orneglect and separation from a parent.These traumatic experiences can lead to avariety of behavioral and emotional prob-lems including severe attachment disorders(Hughes 1999; Bowlby 1973, 1980).Additionally, many children in the childwelfare system not only come from but areplaced in high-risk home environmentscharacterized by poverty, instability, andparents or caregivers with poor psycholog-ical well-being (Pilowsky 1995; Ehrle andGeen 2002; Ehrle, Geen, and Clark 2001).These factors can also contribute to agreater likelihood of poor child well-being,further compromising the healthy develop-ment of an already vulnerable group ofchildren (Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 2000;McLloyd 1998). Children with poor psychological orphysical well-being present challenges tochild welfare agencies. These children havemore service needs and are in greater needof caseworker attention and time. Ever-increasing caseloads make these needs dif-ficult to meet. Foster parents and relativecaregivers require services and caseworkertime to deal with the challenges of parent-ing troubled children. In addition, since theAdoption and Safe Families Act of 1997,the increase in termination of parentalrights has created the potential for moreadoptions of children involved with childwelfare. Unfortunately, these children’sproblems are not likely to disappear oncethey are adopted. There is a great need forpostadoptive services to help both childrenand parents deal with the potentially life-long effects of abuse, neglect, and separa-tion (Barth, Gibbs, and Siebenaler 2001). A number of studies have documentedthe well-being of children involved withchild welfare services. Repeatedly it hasbeen shown that many of these childrensuffer from psychological, health, and edu-cational deficits or delays (Zima et al. 2000;Chernoff et al. 1994; Pilowsky 1995). Whencomparing them with children not in fostercare on these measures of well-being,researchers have found that foster childrenhave more difficulties (Bilaver et al. 1999;Hulsey and White 1989; Blome 1997).However, most of these studies were limit-ed to small samples of children from a sin-gle agency or state (Orme and Buehler2001). This brief presents the first nationaloverview of the well-being of childreninvolved with the child welfare system.1Findings are based on data from the 1997and 1999 National Survey of America’sFamilies (NSAF), a nationally representa-tive survey of households with personsunder age 65.2Both rounds of the surveyinclude measures of economic, health, andsocial characteristics of more than 44,000households. This analysis uses informationfrom the sample of children under age 18.Information was obtained from the adultin the household, either the parent or care-giver, most knowledgeable about thechild’s education and health. We look at children involved with thechild welfare system who are either livingwith nonrelative foster parents or placedby a child welfare agency in the home of arelative.3Those children living with rela-The Well-Being of ChildrenInvolved with the Child WelfareSystem: A National OverviewKatherine Kortenkamp and Jennifer EhrleChildren in the childwelfare system aremore likely to havebehavioral andemotional problemsthan children livingwith their parents, andeven children livingwith a low-income sin-gle parent.New FederalismNational Survey of America’s FamiliesSeries B, No. B-43, January 2002THE URBAN INSTITUTEAn Urban InstituteProgram to AssessChanging Social Policies An Urban Institute Program to Assess Changing Social PoliciesASSESSING THE NEW FEDERALISM2tives may or may not be in state custody,and the relatives may or may not be fosterparents. In this group of children, 31 per-cent are living with nonrelative foster par-ents and 69 percent are living with rela-tives. The children are evenly distributedbetween the ages of 0 and 17, with 30 per-cent under age 6, 35 percent between ages6 and 11, and 34 percent over age 11. Forty-seven percent are black, non-Hispanic, 35percent are white, non-Hispanic, 14 percentare Hispanic, and 4 percent are of anotherethnicity. About half of the children arefemale (51 percent).4To give a point of reference on themeasures of well-being, we make compar-isons between the child-welfare-involvedchildren in this sample and all children liv-ing with biological, adoptive, or steppar-ents. To create a similar reference group ofat-risk children, we also make comparisonswith a subsample of children living in sin-gle parent, low-income (income less than200 percent of the federal poverty level)families. These are children who live inhigher risk family structure arrangementsand economic situations but who continueto live with a parent and have not neces-sarily experienced abuse or neglect. We callthis group high-risk parent care. Some chil-dren in the child welfare system have thesame risks as the children in high-risk par-ent care. About two-fifths of child-welfa