IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v32y2010i4p475-481.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reunification from foster care: Informing measures over time

Author

Listed:
  • Shaw, Terry V.

Abstract

Children's paths through the child welfare system to permanency (adoption, reunification or guardianship) are complicated. Currently, federal policy and the child welfare literature point to reunification with the birth parents as the preferred type of permanent exit. The time it takes to move children towards a permanent exit is an important metric for child welfare. Traditionally, survival analysis was the method utilized when examining exits over time. One of the primary assumptions necessary for survival analysis is that the censoring be uninformed (i.e. that there is no underlying mechanism driving the censoring events). This assumption is violated when the probability of one event occurring is not independent of another outcome. A multi-step statistical model was developed to overcome the informative censoring present in the analysis of child welfare exits to permanency. Results suggest that, for reunification, the standard survival analysis model overestimates the amount of time children spend in care prior to reunification by not accounting for informative censoring. Overestimating the time children spend in care could lead to incorrect caseload projection, inaccurate fiscal projections, and imprecise measurements of time to reunification.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaw, Terry V., 2010. "Reunification from foster care: Informing measures over time," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 475-481, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:32:y:2010:i:4:p:475-481
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190-7409(09)00257-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wells, Kathleen & Guo, Shenyang, 1999. "Reunification and reentry of foster children," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 273-294, April.
    2. Courtney, Mark E. & Needell, Barbara & Wulczyn, Fred, 2004. "Unintended consequences of the push for accountability: the case of national child welfare performance standards," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(12), pages 1141-1154, December.
    3. Shaw, Terry V., 2006. "Reentry into the foster care system after reunification," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 1375-1390, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fernandez, Elizabeth & Delfabbro, Paul & Ramia, Ioana & Kovacs, Szilvia, 2019. "Children returning from care: The challenging circumstances of parents in poverty," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 100-111.
    2. Jedwab, Merav & Shaw, Terry V., 2017. "Predictors of reentry into the foster care system: Comparison of children with and without previous removal experience," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 177-184.
    3. LaBrenz, Catherine A. & Lloyd Sieger, Margaret & Choi, Mijin & Harrell, Danielle R. & Findley, Erin & Robinson, Erica D. & Baiden, Philip, 2023. "Family support services and reunification across diverse racial/ethnic groups: A survival analysis utilizing administrative child welfare data," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    4. Landers, Ashley L. & Danes, Sharon M., 2016. "Forgotten children: A critical review of the reunification of American Indian children in the child welfare system," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 137-147.
    5. Davidson, Ryan D. & Tomlinson, Claire S. & Beck, Connie J. & Bowen, Anne M., 2019. "The revolving door of families in the child welfare system: Risk and protective factors associated with families returning," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 468-479.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Santen, Eric, 2010. "Predictors of exit type and length of stay in non-kinship family foster care -- The German experience," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 1211-1222, October.
    2. Koh, Eun & Testa, Mark F., 2011. "Children discharged from kin and non-kin foster homes: Do the risks of foster care re-entry differ?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1497-1505, September.
    3. Sonia Hélie & Marie-Andrée Poirier & Tonino Esposito & Daniel Turcotte, 2017. "Placement Stability, Cumulative Time in Care, and Permanency: Using Administrative Data from CPS to Track Placement Trajectories," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-17, November.
    4. Victor, Bryan G. & Ryan, Joseph P. & Moore, Andrew & Mowbray, Orion & Evangelist, Michael & Perron, Brian E., 2016. "Foster home licensing and risk of reentry to out-of-home care following family reunification," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 112-119.
    5. Ubbesen, Mads Bonde & Petersen, Liselotte & Mortensen, Preben Bo & Kristensen, Ole Steen, 2012. "Out of care and into care again: A Danish register‐based study of children placed in out-of‐home care before their third birthday," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2147-2155.
    6. Debra A. Strong & Russell Cole & Angela V. D'Angelo & Juliette Henke, "undated". "2012 and 2014 Regional Partnership Grants to Increase the Well-Being of and to Improve the Permanency Outcomes for Children Affected by Substance Abuse: Third Annual Report to Congress," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 25fb6c26bc6a435fbfa9abfd8, Mathematica Policy Research.
    7. Jedwab, Merav & Shaw, Terry V., 2017. "Predictors of reentry into the foster care system: Comparison of children with and without previous removal experience," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 177-184.
    8. Davidson, Ryan D. & Tomlinson, Claire S. & Beck, Connie J. & Bowen, Anne M., 2019. "The revolving door of families in the child welfare system: Risk and protective factors associated with families returning," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 468-479.
    9. Shipe, Stacey L. & Shaw, Terry V. & Betsinger, Sara & Farrell, Jill L., 2017. "Expanding the conceptualization of re-entry: The inter-play between child welfare and juvenile services," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 256-262.
    10. Shaw, Terry V., 2006. "Reentry into the foster care system after reunification," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 1375-1390, November.
    11. Lecompte, Vanessa & Pascuzzo, Katherine & Hélie, Sonia, 2023. "A look inside family reunification for children with attachment difficulties: An exploratory study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    12. Wulczyn, Fred & Parolini, Arno & Schmits, Florie & Magruder, Joseph & Webster, Daniel, 2020. "Returning to foster care: Age and other risk factors," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    13. Lenz-Rashid, Sonja, 2017. "Supportive housing program for homeless families: Foster care outcomes and best practices," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 558-563.
    14. Putnam-Hornstein, Emily & Shaw, Terry V., 2011. "Foster care reunification: An exploration of non-linear hierarchical modeling," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 705-714, May.
    15. Kimberlin, Sara E. & Anthony, Elizabeth K. & Austin, Michael J., 2009. "Re-entering foster care: Trends, evidence, and implications," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 471-481, April.
    16. Whitaker, Tia, 2011. "Administrative case reviews: Improving outcomes for children in out-of-home care," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1683-1708, September.
    17. Hébert, Sophie T. & Esposito, Tonino & Hélie, Sonia, 2018. "How short-term placements affect placement trajectories: A propensity-weighted analysis of re-entry into care," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 117-124.
    18. Havlicek, Judy, 2011. "Lives in motion: A review of former foster youth in the context of their experiences in the child welfare system," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1090-1100, July.
    19. Foster, E. Michael & Hillemeier, Marianne M. & Bai, Yu, 2011. "Explaining the disparity in placement instability among African-American and white children in child welfare: A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 118-125, January.
    20. Chambers, Jeff M. & Lint, Sandy & Thompson, Maggie G. & Carlson, Matthew W. & Graef, Michelle I., 2019. "Outcomes of the Iowa Parent Partner program evaluation: Stability of reunification and re-entry into foster care," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:32:y:2010:i:4:p:475-481. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.