Outcomes of the Parent Advocacy Initiative in child safety conferences: Placement and repeat maltreatment

In the past years, peer support programs in child welfare have been used to increase family participation in the case decision-making, give voice to parents, promote parent engagement with services, and ultimately improve child and family outcomes. These programs employ peers, who are parents with lived child welfare system experience, and who offer advocacy and support to parents presently involved in the system. The current study examined the impact of one such intervention, Parent Advocacy Initiative in Initial Child Safety Conferences at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, on case outcomes of families served by parent advocates as part of this intervention. A multivariable analysis compared cases receiving the intervention (calendar year 2016; n = 3224) to cases from pre-intervention period—prior to the Initiative implementation (calendar year 2013; n = 5598) and cases not receiving the intervention in 2016 (n = 3450), to determine whether the presence of a parent advocate was associated with positive case outcomes, such as (a) reduced foster care placements and (b) reduced or unchanged rates of repeat indicated maltreatment investigations within six months of initial investigation. The results revealed that the rates of out-of-home placements significantly decreased, and children remained at home at higher rates when a parent advocate was present at the conference. Whenever out-of-home placement was recommended, placements in non-relative foster care significantly decreased and kinship care placements increased. The rate of repeat indicated maltreatment investigations within six months was unchanged. The results demonstrate that parent advocacy could have a significant impact on placement decisions and thus improve the outcomes of children and families. Study implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.