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Abstracts from Selected Articles

Issue 1, 2009 - Special Issue: Mental Health Practice Guidelines for Child Welfare: Context for Reform

Issue 2, 2008 Special Issue: Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in Care

Issue 1, 2008

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September/October 2007

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March/April 2006 Special Issue: LGBTQ Youth in Child Welfare

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March/April 2004 Special Issue

January/February 2004

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January/February 2002

Issue 1, 2009 - Special Issue: Mental Health Practice Guidelines for Child Welfare: Context for Reform
Mental Health Services for Children Placed in Foster Care: An Overview of Current Challenges
Peter J. Pecora, Peter S. Jensen, Lisa Hunter Romanelli, Lovie J. Jackson, and Abel Ortiz: Given the evidence from studies indicating that children in care have significant developmental, behavioral, and emotional problems, services for these children are an essential societal investment. Youth in foster care and adults who formerly were placed in care (foster care alumni) have disproportionately high rates of emotional and behavioral disorders. Among the areas of concern has been the lack of comprehensive mental health screening of all children entering out-of-home care, the need for more thorough identification of youth with emotional and behavioral disorders, and insufficient youth access to high-quality mental health services. In 2001, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the ChildWelfare League of America (CWLA) formed a foster care mental health values subcommittee to establish guidelines on improving policy and practices in the various systems that serve foster care children (AACAP and CWLA, 2002). Because of the excellent quality and comprehensiveness of these statements, the Casey Clinical Foster Care Research and Development Project undertook consensus development work to enhance and build upon these statements. This article presents an overview ofmental health functioning of youth and alumni of foster care, and outlines a project that developed consensus guidelines.
Identification of Mental Health Service Need Among Youth in Child Welfare
Jessica Mass Levitt: Despite the recognized importance of mental health concerns among youth in the child welfare population, data suggest a significant gap between children who need services and children who receive services. This paper aims to address this problem by focusing on the ways in which the system identifies--or fails to identify--children as needing mental health services. The paper reviews current guidelines, policies, and practices for mental health screening and assessment of youth in child welfare including available evidence-based screening instruments that have been evaluated in child welfare or other settings. It is concluded that the use of evidence-based screening and assessment instruments will improve the identification of children needing mental health services and offer the opportunity to provide appropriate care to children who are currently being overlooked.
Psychosocial Interventions for Children and Adolescents in Foster Care: Review of Research Literature
John A. Landsverk, Barbara J. Burns, Leyla Faw Stambaugh, and Jennifer A. Rolls Reutz: Between one-half and three-fourths of children entering foster care exhibit behavioral or social-emotional problems warranting mental health care. This paper, condensed and updated from a technical report prepared for Casey Family Programs in 2005, reviews evidence-based and promising interventions for the most prevalent mental conditions found among children in foster care. This paper also makes several recommendations regarding increasing access to mental health care and effective psychosocial interventions for foster care children.
The Use of Psychotropic Medication for Children in Foster Care
M. Lynn Crismon and Tami Argo: The use of psychotropic medication for foster children is in itself not unique; however, these children are of particular interest because of the stress associated with their life situations. A thorough assessment of the child and family should occur before beginning these medications, and in general, they should only be used in the presence of a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, diagnosis of a mental disorder. Parents and caregivers need to be aware of principles of use, potential side effects, and monitoring parameters.
Engaging Parents in Child Welfare Services: Bridging Family Needs and Child Welfare Mandates
Susan P. Kemp, Maureen O. Marcenko, Kimberly Hoagwood, and William Vesneski: Calls for expanded use of tested child mental health interventions in child welfare practice add new urgency to the longstanding question of how to enhance parent engagement in child welfare services, where low and uneven levels of engagement are pervasive, and services to parents and children tend to be separated, leaving important opportunities for parent-child interventions underutilized. Tackling these issues requires both expanded understandings of what engagement entails and the incorporation into child welfare practice of systematic, research-based strategies for supporting parental involvement. Drawing on a review of factors that shape (and often confound) efforts to engage parents in child welfare, and on relevant research, this paper lays the initial foundation for such an approach by identifying and describing six core dimensions of engagement and related intervention strategies.
Dissemination of a Multilevel Evidence-Based System of Parenting Interventions with Broad Application to Child Welfare Populations
Ron Prinz: Parenting interventions are relevant to many touch points of the child welfare system. This paper describes a multilevel system of parenting interventions called "Triple P" that matches intervention intensities to families, builds on a strong scientific base, provides multiple access points for parents, and offers a destigmatized, cost-efficient approach. This population approach can simultaneously address child-maltreatment prevention and promotion of child mental health.
Enhancing the Empowerment of Youth in Foster Care: Supportive Services
Sandra J. Kaplan, Louise Skolnik, and Ayme Turnbull: This paper reviews the research on youth empowerment in seven child welfare programmatic areas. A lack of studies specifically focused on the empowerment of youth in foster care was found. Conceptual perspectives and existing data, however, suggest that the empowerment of youth in and transitioning out of care is essential and should be overtly facilitated through policy and program development.
Best Practices for Mental Health in Child Welfare: Screening, Assessment, and Treatment Guidelines
Lisa Hunter Romanelli, John Landsverk, Jessica Mass Levitt, Laurel K. Leslie, Maia M. Hurley, Christopher Bellonci, Leonard T. Gries, Peter J. Pecora, Peter S. Jensen, and the Child Welfare–Mental Health Best Practices Group: The Best Practices for Mental Health in Child Welfare Consensus Conference focused on developing guidelines in five key areas (screening and assessment, psychosocial interventions, psychopharmacologic treatment, parent engagement, and youth empowerment) related to children’s mental health. This paper provides an overview of issues related to the first three areas, presents the guidelines developed in these areas, and discusses the implications these guidelines have for the field of child welfare.
Best Practices for Mental Health in Child Welfare: Parent Support and Youth Empowerment Guidelines
Lisa Hunter Romanelli, Kimberly E. Hoagwood, Sandra J. Kaplan, Susan P. Kemp, Robert L. Hartman, Casey Trupin, Wilfredo Soto, Peter J. Pecora, Theressa L. LaBarrie, Peter S. Jensen, and the Child Welfare–Mental Health Best Practices Group: This paper, the second in a series of two guideline papers emerging from the 2007 Best Practices for Mental Health in ChildWelfare Consensus Conference, provides an overview of the key issues related to parent support and youth empowerment in child welfare and presents consensus guidelines in these important areas. The paper also discusses some of the implications these guidelines have for the child welfare field.

Issue 6, 2008
The Connections Project: A Relational Approach to Engaging Birth Parents in Visitation
Charyl E. Gerring, Susan P. Kemp, and Maureen O. Marcenko: This paper presents a practical framework for relational practice with birth families, organized around parental visitation. The approach was developed in the Birth Family Foster Family Connections Project, a three-year collaborative research demonstration project between a large private agency and the Washington State Department of Child and Family Services. The overall goal of the Connections Project, which served young children from infancy to age six, was to create supportive connections among birth families, foster families, children, and the child welfare system. Although engaging parents in child welfare services is a challenging task for social workers, the Connections Project resulted in strong parent-worker relationships, very high participation in weekly visitation by birth parents, and quite extensive contact between birth- and foster families. The paper describes relational strategies used by Connections social workers before and during visits, with the goal of providing child welfare social workers with a practical and effective framework for engaging parents through this core child welfare service.
Implementation of Group Supervision in Child Welfare: Findings from Arizona's Supervision Circle Project
Cynthia A. Lietz: The process of supervision plays an important role in developing the skills necessary to respond effectively to reports of child maltreatment. Specifically, educational supervision prompting discussion and critical thinking can enhance the analytic skills needed to consider the complexity commonly found in child welfare practice. To this end, group supervision was implemented with supervisors in Arizona to enrich supervisory dialog to better prepare for the unique and often unexpected challenges of child welfare. Post-test data collected from participants suggest group supervision may be one way the field of child protection can enhance critical thinking.
Serious Illness, Injury, and Death in Child Protection and Preparation for End-of-Life Situations Among Child Welfare Services Workers
Ellen L. Csikai, Charlotte Herrin, Maggie Tang, and Wesley T. Church II: A mailed survey of child welfare workers in one southern state assessed various aspects of encounters with end-of-life situations in practice. Findings revealed that child deaths, children with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses, and parental deaths were most commonly encountered and that coworkers were relied on for support. Many had no specific end-of-life coursework in educational programs and fewer had continuing education in this area. These respondents indicated course content was most needed in the psychological and social needs of patients and families. Agencies can support staff by providing specific training on end-of-life issues that affect child welfare practice.
Primary Factors Related to Multiple Placements for Children in Out-of-Home Care
Lars Eggertsen: Using an ecological framework, this study identified which factors related to out-of-home placements significantly influenced multiple placements for children in Utah during 2000, 2001, and 2002. Multinomial logistic regression statistical procedures and a geographical information system (GIS) were used to analyze the data. The final model included delinquency, sexual abuse, minor health problems, and mental health problems. Implications for child welfare practice, training, and policies are discussed, as well as recommendations for further research.
Recreating Family: Parents Identify Worker-Client Relationships as Paramount in Family Preservation Programs
Annemarie Gockel, Mary Russell, and Barbara Harris: Although existing family preservation program research has focused on identifying the components of effective treatment, we remain far from fully developing empirically supported interventions (Barth, Chamberlain, Reid, Rolls, Hurlburt, Farmer, James, McCabe, & Kohl, 2005; Dufour, Chamberland, & Trocme, 2003). The current longitudinal study expands existing efforts to understand the active ingredients of effective interventions by learning from parents who experienced a family preservation intervention themselves. The current study reports on the reflections of 35 parents who child protection social workers referred to family preservation programs. In contrast to a focus on intervention components, parents related the helpful interventions they received to the effectiveness of intervention processes-namely, to the quality of the relationships they had with their individual family preservation workers and with service teams at the programs they attended. Parents identified that workers in effective programs used specific relational skills to recreate a nurturing family environment that fostered parent engagement and change throughout the process of intervention.
Resiliency in Children and Youth in Kinship Care and Family Foster Care
Jed Metzger: This study examined self-concept, resiliency and social support in 107 children and youth placed in foster care in New York City. Of the children and youth, 55 were placed in family foster care, while the remaining 52 children and youth were placed in a kinship foster home. Significantly more of mothers of the kinship foster care children and youth were homeless or substance abusing, yet visited their children more often than the family foster care youth. These same kinship-placed children and youth had significantly more robust self-concept, performance, and personal attribute scores. Implications for these findings are highlighted.
Walking the Tightrope: Using Power and Authority in Child Welfare Supervision
Marion Bogo and Katharine Dill: Recognizing the importance of understanding the way in which supervisors in child welfare perceive their administrative responsibilities and use of power and authority, an exploratory study was conducted. Supervisors in child welfare agencies in urban and rural settings participated in focus groups and discussed the impact of macro and micro factors on their performance. Policy changes, including using new approaches to child welfare, and organizational culture had a major affect on the way they offered supervision. At the micro level, their use of power was related to elements in their relationships with frontline workers and their own professional development. Implications for child welfare practice and for new and experienced supervisors are presented.

Issue 5, 2008
The Relationship of Child Neglect and Physical Maltreatment to Placement Outcomes and Behavioral Adjustment in Children in Foster Care: A Canadian Perspective
Robyn A. Marquis, Alan W. Leschied, Debbie Chiodo, and Arlene O'Neill: Dramatic increases in child welfare rates in Canada over recent years have been largely driven by an increased reporting of neglect cases (Trocmé, Fallon, MacLaurin, & Neves, 2005). To a large extent, exploring the importance of neglect separate from physical maltreatment has been ignored in the child maltreatment literature. This study examined the differential effects of foster care in the child welfare system with children who presented as either experiencing physical maltreatment or neglect prior to their admission to care. Findings from this study are important to child welfare decision making about the differential needs of these two groups of children. The files of a sample of 110 children (79 neglected children and 31 physically maltreated children) were examined for differences in their adjustment while in foster care and on discharge. Some distinct differences in presentation were noted between the children experiencing the two types of maltreatment. Children experiencing neglect were younger, were more likely to have caregivers diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder, and had higher rates of exposure to spousal violence than maltreated children. Physically maltreated children displayed greater difficulty during their foster care adjustment. Once discharged from care, neglected children were more likely to be returned to the care of the agency. This study draws attention to the differential needs of children who experience neglect prior to their admission to a child welfare agency. Longer-term outcome studies are necessary to more completely understand how these two types of maltreatment influence the outcomes of children who are provided care within the child welfare system.
Cascading Implementation of a Foster and Kinship Parent Intervention
Patricia Chamberlain, Joseph Price, John Reid, and John Landsverk: Most foster parents in the United States are required to participate in training, yet no empirical support exists for the training's effectiveness. During the past two decades, high-quality clinical trials have documented that parent management training (PMT) programs produce positive outcomes for children and families in clinical and school settings; yet, these advances have not transferred to foster/kinship parents. Here, we describe a randomized control trial testing the effectiveness of a PMT-based treatment with 700 foster/kinship parents in San Diego County. The collaborative processes to engage stakeholders, the strategies for involving parents, and the results of two levels of developer involvement in training and supervision on child behavioral outcomes are also described.
The Parent-Child Home Program in Western Manitoba: A 20-Year Evaluation
Barbara M. Gfellner, Lorraine McLaren, and Arron Metcalfe: This article is a 20-year evaluation of the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP) of Child and Family Services in Western Manitoba. Following Levenstein's (1979, 1988) approach, home visitors model parent-child interchanges using books and toys to enhance children's cognitive development through appropriate parenting behaviors. The evaluation provides a profile of PCHP families and performance outcomes. Findings show impressive gains in cognitive competence and parenting behaviors. Recommendations are given for program development and future research.
Planning and Evaluating Child Welfare Training Projects: Working Toward a Comprehensive Conceptual Model
Mary Elizabeth Collins, Maryann Amodeo, and Cassandra Clay: Training is widely believed to be an important element in promoting good child welfare practice. Scholarly attention to training, however, has been limited. To facilitate further development of child welfare training, in this article, we discuss the importance of conceptualization in the design and evaluation of training projects, offer a conceptual model developed for a national evaluation project, and suggest modifications to the model for further use in other settings.
Impact of Intensive Family Preservation Services on Disproportionality of Out-of-Home Placement of Children of Color in One State's Child Welfare System
Raymond S. Kirk and Diana P. Griffith: This study examines the impact of intensive family preservation services (IFPS) on racial disproportionality of placement into out-of-home care. A large sample was partitioned on the basis of race, risk, and services received. The probability of placement is examined as a function of these variables. High-risk minority children receiving traditional services are at higher risk of placement than white children are, but minority children receiving IFPS are less likely to be placed than white children are. When only minority children are examined, those receiving IFPS are less likely to be placed than those receiving traditional services are. IFPS is associated with a reduction in racial disproportionality of out-of-home placement among high-risk families. Within-race analysis suggests that IFPS may mitigate racial disparity in out-of-home placement existing in the remainder of the child welfare population that receives traditional services.
Placement History of Foster Children: A Study of Placement History and Outcomes in Long-Term Family Foster Care
Johan Strijker, Erik J. Knorth, and Jana Knot-Dickscheit: The files of 419 children in family foster care and kinship foster care were used in a retrospective longitudinal design study that examined their placement histories in child welfare. Significant associations were found between the number of placements on one hand, and the prevalence of attachment disorders, severity of behavioral problems, and breakdowns of new foster care placements on the other hand. It appears that a breakdown can be predicted to a certain extent, the implications of which are discussed.
The Impact of Child and Family Service Reviews on Knowledge Management
Pamela A. Mischen: This article uses knowledge management as a framework to analyze the impact of the child and family review process on child protective service agencies. Results of a qualitative analysis of child and family service reviews and program improvement plans indicated that the process has led to an increase in the use of family team meetings and risk assessment tools as ways of managing information and increasing knowledge.

Issue 4, 2008
Labor of Love: Foster Mothers, Caregiving, and Welfare Reform
Filomena M. Critelli: Using a telephone survey, this study examined the experiences of 100 foster mothers who receive aid through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Foster mothers reported numerous difficulties with TANF, including frequent sanctions and case closings, limited work and training opportunities, and pervasive material hardships. Foster children exhibited high levels of emotional and behavior problems. The data suggest that lack of access to child care and pressure to become self-sufficient may contribute to a decreased pool of foster mothers.
Does Family Group Decision Making Affect Child Welfare Outcomes? Findings from a Randomized Control Study: Stephanie Cosner Berzin, Ed Cohen, Karen Thomas, and William C. Dawson This article describes the evaluation of two family group decision-making programs administered under the California Title IV-E Waiver Demonstration Project. This is the only evaluation using random assignment to examine FGDM. Overall, results did not indicate more positive outcomes for children receiving the intervention, but did indicate that children were not worse than those receiving traditional services; outcomes examined were related to child safety, placement stability, and permanence.
The Nature of Parental Supervisory Neglect
Carol Coohey: The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether different types of supervision problems such as leaving a child alone and leaving a child with an inadequate caregiver have different correlates and consequences for children. A case-comparison design was used to compare four types of supervision problems. Data were extracted from child protective services investigative reports. The results showed that each type of supervision problem had a distinct set of characteristics. Recommendations for assessing and treating different types of supervision problems are addressed.
Children in Foster Care: Before, During, and After Psychiatric Hospitalization
Joe Persi and Megan Sisson: Although it is generally accepted that foster children are at greater risk for mental health problems than are children in the general population, very little is known about the smaller group of foster children admitted to psychiatric hospitals. The present study sought to determine whether foster children admitted to inpatient care are a distinct and more vulnerable group than other hospitalized children and found that they are. Youth admitted from the foster care system were found to have higher rates of externalizing problems and diagnoses and lower social competence relative to other inpatient children. They were also found to have a distinguishing pattern of service use including first admissions at younger ages, higher numbers of restraints in hospital, and greater likelihood of readmission. These findings point to pressing needs for additional research to improve understanding of the vulnerabilities and inpatient care needs of foster children and for better initiatives to prevent early and recurrent hospitalization.
The Social Service Divide: Service Availability and Accessibility in Rural Versus Urban Counties and Impact on Child Welfare Outcomes Kathleen Belanger and Warren Stone: An empirical study of 75 counties in a state found that social services are more available and accessible in urban versus rural counties signaling a need for public policy addressing service allocation. The study also found a relationship between the accessibility of intensive family preservation services and reentry into foster care, a child welfare outcome. Implications for achieving outcomes affecting safety, permanence, and well-being of children, are discussed.
Should I Stay or Should I Go? A Comparison Study of Intention to Leave Among Public Child Welfare Systems with High and Low Turnover Rates
Jessica Strolin-Goltzman: This comparison study analyzes the commonalties, similarities, and differences on supervisory and organizational factors between a group of high turnover systems and a group of low turnover systems. Significant differences on organizational factors, but not on supervisory factors, emerged from the statistical analysis. Additionally, this study found that low turnover is not necessarily predictive of a healthy organizational environment. Implications for turnover reduction and prevention are provided in conclusion.
Meeting the Long-Term Needs of Families Who Adopt Children Out of Foster Care: A Three-Year Follow-Up Study
Doris M. Houston and Laurie Kramer: The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which agency and nonagency supportive resources contributed to the stability and well-being of 34 newly adoptive families over 3-years. Results revealed significant pre- to postadoption declines in families' contact and satisfaction with formal and informal helping resources. Greater preadoption contact with formal adoption agency staff predicted adoption stability and lower levels of family conflict at the 3-year assessment. The results highlight the importance of providing adoptive families with formal and informal support that meet their evolving needs.

Issue 3, 2008
Characteristics of Out-of-Home Caregiving Environments Provided Under Child Welfare Services
Richard P. Barth, Rebecca Green, Mary Bruce Webb, Ariana Wall, Claire Gibbons, and Carlton Craig: 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.
Engaging Families in Child Welfare Services: Worker Versus Client Perspectives
Julie Cooper Altman: Part of a larger mixed-method study of engagement in neighborhood-based child welfare services, the qualitative data this article reports on highlights the extent to which parents and workers differ in their views of engagement, the best ways to foster engagement in services, and the importance each group places on it as a process. Strategies designed to improve engagement are offered, including knowledge that can help workers interact more effectively with families and in so doing improve permanency for children.
Accessing Substance Abuse Treatment: Issues for Parents Involved with Child Welfare Services
Anna Rockhill, Beth L. Green, and Linda Newton-Curtis: The complex issues associated with barriers to treatment entry for parents who are involved with child welfare has not been well explored. Accessing timely treatment is now critical for these parents since the introduction of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, limiting the time until a permanency decision is made. Using a longitudinal, qualitative approach, substance-abusing parents from 15 families, their relevant family members, and service providers were interviewed approximately every 3 months over an 18-month period. The experiences of these parents add to our knowledge of the unique barriers this population faces, and expands our understanding of the mechanisms by which certain barriers may delay treatment.
Parents with Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Abuse Conditions Involved in Child Protection Services: Clinical Profile and Treatment Needs
Layne K. Stromwall, Nancy C. Larson, Tanya Nieri, Lynn C. Holley, Diane Topping, Jason Castillo, and José B. Ashford: This article reports findings of an exploratory study of 71 parents with substance abuse conditions involved in a child dependency court. Over half (59%) of the parents had a co-occurring mental health condition. Parents with cooccurring conditions (PWCC) differed in several important ways from those with only substance abuse conditions. PWCC were also more likely than their case managers were to report a need for mental health treatment. Implications for child welfare practice and research are offered.
Perceptions of Child Neglect Among Urban American Indian/Alaska Native Parents
Teresa Evans-Campbell: A survey of 101 American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) parents in Los Angeles was conducted to explore perceptions of child neglect among urban AIAN parents and factors associated with perceptions. Participants rated substance abuse by parents as the most serious type of neglect. Providing material necessities and providing adequate structure were ranked as the least serious types of neglect. Gender, education, marital status, and indirect experience with Child Protective Services were significantly related to perceptions of neglect among urban AIAN parents.
Citizen Review Panels for Child Protective Services: A National Profile
Blake L. Jones and David Royse: Citizen Review Panels (CRPs) for Child Protective Services are groups of citizen-volunteers throughout the United States who are federally mandated to evaluate local and state child protection systems. This study presents a profile of 332 CRP members in 20 states with regards to their demographic information, length of time on the panel, and attitudes regarding the variables that promote and hinder collaboration between the panels and state child welfare agencies. Results indicate that the average review panel member tends to be a professional, middle-aged female with an advanced degree. Better communication (between child protective services and the CRPs) and clearer goals/objectives for CRPs were the most cited suggestions of how CRPs and child welfare agencies can work together. Lack of funding and the defensiveness of the child welfare agency were seen as the top obstacles to such collaboration. Policy implications and avenues of further study are discussed.
Reasonable Efforts? Implementation of the Reunification Bypass Provision of ASFA
Jill Duerr Berrick, Young Choi, Amy D'Andrade, and Laura Frame: The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 includes provisions to deny reunification services under specified conditions and gives states latitude to develop any number of additional "aggravated circumstances" in which parents need not be offered services. California legislators have developed a relatively large number of conditions enabling agencies to bypass reunification services. Based upon a case record review involving 1,055 parents, this study attempts to identify the proportion of parents eligible for a reunification bypass, the proportion recommended to the courts, and the proportion of parents who were denied reunification services, and examines the characteristics of parents associated with reunification bypass recommendations. Based upon focus groups and interviews with child welfare and judicial personnel in six counties, the study also examines the implementation of reunification bypass provisions. Implications for public policy and practice are provided.

Issue 2, 2008 Special Issue: Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in Care
Introduction: Gaps in Research and Public Policies
Kathleen Belanger, Deborah K. Green, and Lloyd B. Bullard
Editorial: Commentary on Disproportionality in Child Welfare
Terry L. Cross

PART I - UNDERSTANDING AND MEASURING RACIAL DISPROPORTIONALITY AND DISPARITY OF OUTCOMES
Measuring Racial Disparity in Child Welfare
Terry V. Shaw, Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Joseph Magruder, and Barbara Needell: Overrepresentation of certain racial/ethnic groups in the foster care system is one of the most troubling and challenging issues in child welfare today. In response, many states have started reporting outcomes by race and ethnicity to identify disproportionately high rates of system contact. The identification of disproportional representation is the first step in developing targeted strategies to address disproportionality--highlighting where resources should be directed and guiding future research. However, present and future efforts to address disproportionality must be accompanied by statistically sound and meaningful methods of measurement. In this article, we argue for the adoption of a relative rate measure of representation--a "Disparity Index"--as the primary instrument for assessing racial disparity in child welfare.
Deconstructing Disproportionality: Views From Multiple Community Stakeholders
Alan J. Dettlaff and Joan R. Rycraft: While the existence of racial disproportionality has been well documented, the causes of disproportionality are less clear. Studies identifying contributing factors have relied largely on analyses of state and national data sets, which may lack the robust data necessary to fully explain the factors related to this issue. Further, a limitation of existing research is the lack of data from the voice of those in communities affected by disproportionality. This study was designed to develop a deeper understanding of disproportionality from the views of multiple community stakeholders. Using a qualitative approach, data were collected to provide a greater depth of information that can be used alongside existing studies toward developing an enhanced understanding of disproportionality in child welfare.
Visible Minority, Aboriginal, and Caucasian Children Investigated by Canadian Protective Services
Chantal Lavergne, Sarah Dufour, Nico Trocmé, and Marie-Claude Larrivée: The aim of this descriptive study was to compare the report profiles of Caucasian, Aboriginal, and other visible minority children whose cases were assessed by child protective services in Canada. The results show that children of Aboriginal ancestry and from visible minority groups are selected for investigation by child protective services 1.77 times more frequently than are children in the general population. Physical abuse is reported and substantiated more often for Asian children, whereas neglect is chiefly an issue with Aboriginal and black children. Child vulnerability factors and parental and housing risk factors alone cannot explain the higher substantiation percentages, except for Aboriginal children, for whom the risks are higher than for the other groups. The individual and family profiles of Asian and black children appear to be significantly less of a burden than those of Aboriginals and Caucasians. These results may reflect a certain degree of racial bias in the identification and reporting of maltreatment cases to child protective services and in decisions about the substantiation of maltreatment.
Connective Complexity: African American Adolescents and the Relational Context of Kinship Foster Care
Ann Schwartz: Attempts to address racial disproportionality in child welfare must include a focus on the benefits and challenges facing children in kinship care. African American children not only are overrepresented in the child welfare system, but also are placed disproportionately in kinship foster care. Using a sample of 18 African American adolescents ages 11 to 14, this article explores how the relational context of care experienced by adolescents in kinship foster care differs from that of adolescents in nonkinship foster family placements. Findings are presented regarding the stability of relationships as well as complex role dilemmas experienced by kinship youth as they relate to caregivers and birthparents in the child welfare context. Implications are given for practice with kinship families.
The Role of Faith in Adoption: Achieving Positive Adoption Outcomes for African American Children
Kathleen Belanger, Sam Copeland, and Monit: African American children are overrepresented in foster care by more than twice their proportion in the population (U.S. Government Accountability Office [USGAO], 2007). Building upon research relating faith (religiosity) to positive health and mental health, this study utilized cognitive and religious coping theories to examine the influence of faith on choosing to adopt, achieving positive adoption outcomes, and reducing disproportionality. From Louisiana and Texas, 113 families who adopted 226 children, 48% African American, participated in a survey measuring children's behavior and parent distress (PSI-SF Difficult Child and Parent Distress Subscales) and religiosity (Hoge Intrinsic Religiosity Index). Of the respondents, 93% of the respondents belonged to a religious congregation, 86% attended church weekly. Controlling for child's behavior, religiosity predicted lower stress in adoptive parenting; church attendance was related to improvement in parental health since adopting. Faith was rated most frequently as essential in parents' decisions to adopt. The study concludes that faith may be an asset in increasing adoptions and improving adoption outcomes resulting in increased numbers of African American children adopted.
The Racial Geography of Child Welfare: Toward a New Research Paradigm
Dorothy E. Roberts: This article examines the community-level impact of concentrated child welfare agency involvement in African American neighborhoods. Based on interviews of 25 African American women in a Chicago neighborhood, the study found that residents were aware of intense agency involvement in their neighborhood and identified profound effects on social relationships including interference with parental authority, damage to children's ability to form social relationships, and distrust among neighbors. The study also discovered a tension between respondents' identification of adverse consequences of concentrated state supervision for family and community relationships and neighborhood reliance on agency involvement for needed financial support. The author discusses the implications of these findings for a new research paradigm aimed at understanding the community-level effects of racial disproportionality.
The Intersection of Race, Poverty, and Risk: Understanding the Decision to Provide Services to Clients and to Remove Children
Stephanie L. Rivaux, Joyce James, Kim Wittenstrom, Donald Baumann, Janess Sheets, Judith Henry, and Victoria Jeffries: Studies have found that certain racial groups, particularly the children of African American families, are placed in foster care at a higher rate than children of other races. These families are also sometimes found to be afforded fewer services that might prevent these removals, relative to families of other races. It is unclear why this is so. Poverty has been suspected, and sometimes found, to be the primary cause of the disparity. Lacking in some of these analyses, however, was how risk of future abuse/neglect to the child entered into the decisions and particularly, how assumptions about race, poverty, and risk are factored into the decision-making process. It is important to understand this process if we are to find a way to correct it. The current study addresses this process.

Findings indicate that even when controlling for risk and poverty (as well as other relevant factors), race affects the decision to provide services and to remove. We find that poverty is associated with higher risk scores. We also find that the risk scores of African American families in cases that are closed, those receiving Family Based Safety Services, and those resulting in children being removed are lower than the risk scores for Anglo families in the same groups. This suggests that rather than racial bias in the assigning of the risk score itself, disproportionality may be better explained by racial/ethnic differences in the risk threshold workers use to decision to take action on a case. In particular, the risk threshold for providing services or removing a child is higher for Anglo Americans than for African Americans.
Children Ever in Care: An Examination of Cumulative Disproportionality
Joseph Magruder and Terry V. Shaw: Most studies of ethnic disproportionality in child welfare examine data in one of two ways: a point in time approach or an entry cohort approach. While each provides insight into disproportionality, neither gives a full picture of the differences among ethnic groups in the experience of the child welfare system over time. This study uses longitudinal administrative child welfare data to examine ethnic disproportionality in involvement with the child welfare system during the first seven years of life at three levels of contact: (1) initial referrals, (2) substantiated referrals, and (3) first entries. Findings suggest the experience of African American families, and probably Native America families, with the child welfare system is much different from other families.
The Benefits of Life Table Analysis for Describing Disproportionality
David Crampton and Claudia J. Coulton: This article reviews how life table analysis can improve on cross-sectional analysis of disproportionality by comparing African American and Caucasian children's risk of being investigated for child maltreatment or being placed in foster care before their 10th birthday. We then highlight the application of life table results in advocacy. Newspaper commentaries and presentations for community groups using these results raised awareness with policymakers and in turn helped to increase funding and programming that addresses disproportionality. Life table results point to the role of age and geography in understanding why disproportionality occurs. We conclude by describing how one community is using these results to develop interventions and reform strategies based on addressing these age and geography factors.

PART II: PRACTICE METHODS TO REDUCE RACIAL DISPROPORTIONALITY AND DISPARTY OF OUTCOMES

Editorial: Acknowledging Disproportionate Outcomes and Changing Service Delivery
Ruth G. McRoy
Emerging Strategies for Reducing Racial Disproportionality and Disparate Outcomes in Child Welfare: The Results of a National Breakthrough Series Collaborative
Oronde A. Miller and Kristin J. Ward: Racial disproportionality in child welfare has been discussed as a seemingly intractable challenge with complex contributing factors. Some argue that these dynamics are far too difficult to be significantly impacted by public child welfare systems alone. The Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC) methodology, incorporating an analysis of structural racism and potential system bias, was proffered as a tool for engaging public child welfare agencies in a rapid, action-oriented process for identifying innovative strategies and practices to reduce racial disproportionality and disparate outcomes. This article describes the Disproportionality BSC process, as well as the work of participating jurisdictions with respect to transforming organizational culture and testing/implementing child welfare practice improvements. A theory of change is presented and critical lessons learned are shared in the form of collaborative reflections.
Evaluating Multisystemic Efforts to Impact Disproportionality Through Key Decision Points
Dennette Derezotes, Brad Richardson, Connie Bear King, Julia Kleinschmit-Rembert, and Betty Pratt: Working in four communities, Casey Foundation/Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) Alliance on Racial Equity (the Alliance) have developed a Racial Equity Scorecard for measuring disproportionality at key decision points for use in impacting disproportionality in the child welfare system. The four communities include King County, Washington, Guilford County, North Carolina, Ramsey County, Minnesota, and Woodbury County, Iowa. Data from one site--Woodbury County, Iowa--are used as an example. This article provides the background and method for identification and measurement of key decision points in the child welfare system to track change affected by multisystemic approaches to reduce disproportionality. Interpretation of the results in the scorecard is provided and recommendations for future interventions based on the data are discussed.
Addressing the Disproportionate Representation of Children of Color: A Collaborative Community Approach
Monique Busch, Jacqueline Remondet Wall, Steven M. Koch, and Clara Anderson: The state of Indiana recommended a committee be formed to address the disproportional representation of black youth in out-of-home placements. In response, the Indiana Disproportionality Committee (IDC) was established. This article presents the development, objectives and future of the IDC. One of the objectives, research, will be offered as an example of the committee's collaborative strategies. The IDC, in partnership with another organization, has begun exploring relationships between ethnicity, risk factors and treatment outcomes. The results of this research effort have examined disproportion and disparity, leading the IDC to identify needs for change within the state. Barriers and successes of the IDC will be shared, so that others can use these efforts to guide their own strategies to reduce disproportionality.
Addressing Disproportionality Through Undoing Racism, Leadership Development, and Community Engagement
Joyce James, Deborah Green, Carolyne Rodriguez, and Rowena Fong: In 2005 the Texas 79th legislature passed Senate Bill 6, which included mandates to address disproportionality. This article will describe how the Texas Department of Family Protective Services in collaboration with Casey Family Programs' Texas State Strategy systems improvement initiative is addressing disproportionality statewide through promising practices and innovations in undoing racism trainings, values-based leadership development, and community engagement strategies
Comparative Analysis of Two Community-Based Efforts Designed to Impact Disproportionality
Brad Richardson: Children of color are overrepresented in child welfare in Iowa at a rate double their percentage of the population. In 2005 the Iowa Department of Human Services implemented two pilot demonstration projects to address overrepresentation of Native American and African American children in the child welfare system. The projects, called the Minority Youth and Families Initiative (MYFI), included ongoing evaluation. Results obtained over two years indicate improved worker and participant alliance, family functioning, and outcomes for children. Findings are discussed and recommendations are provided for further improvements in practice, research, and evaluation to reduce racial disparities the child welfare system.
Taking Action on Racial Disproportionality in the Child Welfare System
Patricia Clark, Jackie Buchanan, and Lyman Legters: Mirroring national trends, children of color in Washington state's King County are overrepresented at every point in the child welfare system and fare worse by most measures than are Caucasian children. The King County Coalition on Racial Disproportionality was formed to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial disproportionality in the county's child welfare system. The research-based strategies implemented to address the issue focused on children in care longer than two years. They included participation in the Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Racial Disproportionality, implementation of benchmark hearings, and development of Champions for Permanence.

Now in the beginning stages, perhaps the most significant success is heightened awareness within the community of the disparate outcomes for children of color in the child welfare system.
Point of Engagement: Reducing Disproportionality and Improving Child and Family Outcomes
Eric J. Marts, Eun-Kyoung Othelia Lee, Ruth McRoy, and Jacquelyn McCroskey: This paper describes an innovative service delivery model to reduce the number of children entering the child welfare system. Point of Engagement (POE) is a collaborative family- and community-centered approach initiated in Compton, a regional office in Los Angeles County that serves south Los Angeles, a predominantly African American and Hispanic/Latino area. Over the past two years, the POE has been implemented in the Compton area by providing more thorough investigations, engaging families, and delivering needed services to children and families within their homes and communities. POE has demonstrated a reduction in the number of children removed from their families, an increase in the number of children returned to their families within one year, and an increase in the number of children finding legal permanency.
Closing: Gaps in Research and Public Policies
Robert B. Hill

Issue 1, 2008
Children With Problematic Sexualized Behaviors in the Child Welfare System
Amy J. L. Baker, Len Gries, Mel Schneiderman, Rob Parker, Marc Archer, and Bill Friedrich: This study assessed the utility of the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory (CSBI) in a child welfare sample. In this study, 97 children from ages 10 to 12 from either foster boarding homes or a residential treatment center participated. Researchers interviewed foster parents or primary therapists about children's sexual behavior, traumatic events, clinical symptoms, and their attitudes toward the child. Findings revealed that problematic sexualized behaviors were more prevalent in the residential treatment center (RTC) sample than they were in a normative sample. The pattern of associations between sexual behavior problems, traumatic events, and clinical syndromes in both the RTC and the foster boarding home (FBH) samples was similar to what has been found in samples in which biological custodial parents were the respondents. Analyses comparing youth who met the criterion for having problematic sexualized behaviors and youth who did not meet the criterion revealed that the two groups differed on clinical symptoms, prior traumatic events, and negative reports by caregivers. Results confirm the utility of the CSBI measure for this population and highlight several important clinical and programmatic concerns for addressing problematic sexual behavior in children in the child welfare system.
The Role of Interagency Collaboration for Substance-Abusing Families Involved With Child Welfare
Beth L. Green, Anna Rockhill, and Scott Burrus: Meeting the needs of families who are involved with the child welfare system because of a substance abuse issue remains a challenge for child welfare practitioners. In order to improve services to these families, there has been an increasing focus on improving collaboration between child welfare, treatment providers, and the court systems. This paper presents the results from qualitative interviews with 104 representatives of these three systems that explore how the collaborative process works to benefit families, as well as the barriers and supports for building successful collaborations. Results indicate that collaboration has at least three major functions: building shared value systems, improving communication, and providing a "team" of support. Each of these leads to different kinds of benefits for families as well as providers and has different implications for building successful collaborative interventions. Despite these putative benefits, providers within each system, however, continue to struggle to build effective collaborations, and they face such issues as deeply ingrained mistrust and continued lack of understanding of other systems' values, goals, and perspectives. Challenges that remain for successful collaborations are discussed.
Safety, Family, Permanency, and Child Well-Being: What We Can Learn From Children
Adair Fox, Jill Duerr Berrick, and Karie Frasch: This study is an attempt to infuse into discussions about system accountability the notion that children can speak to issues of safety, family, permanency, and well-being in child welfare. The study utilized a cross-sectional survey design involving in-home, semistructured interviews with children ages 6 to 13 in two urban California counties. Of the 100 children who participated in face-to-face interviews, 59 were living with kin caregivers and 41 were living with nonkin. Standardized instruments and measures developed specifically for this study were employed. Findings indicate that while children assess their homes as safe, neighborhood conditions are often challenging. A significant proportion of children reveal less than optimal relationships with their caregivers, and many experience feelings of impermanence. Nevertheless, children report positive regard for the caregiving they receive and are optimistic about the future. Implications for practice and research are addressed.
The Climate of Child Welfare Employee Retention
Helen Cahalane and Edward W. Sites: This article describes differences in perceptions of the child welfare work environment among Title IV-E educated individuals who remain within public child welfare and those who sought employment elsewhere after fulfilling a legal work commitment. Job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment were predictive of staying versus leaving. The empirical evidence suggests that efforts to retain highly skilled and educated public child welfare workers should focus on creating positive organizational climates within agencies.
African American Males in Foster Care and the Risk of Delinquency: The Value of Social Bonds and Permanence
Joseph P. Ryan, Mark F. Testa, and Fuhua Zhai: Juvenile delinquency remains a significant problem for child welfare systems throughout the United States. Victims of child abuse and neglect are more likely relative to children in the general population to engage in delinquency (Ryan & Testa, 2005; Widom, 1989). Although the magnitude of this relationship is not fully understood (Zingraff, Leiter, Myers, & Johnsen, 1993), the risk of delinquency is particularly high for African American males, adolescents, and children in substitute care settings. Unfortunately little is known about the factors that connect the experiences of maltreatment and delinquency. This lack of knowledge makes it nearly impossible to decrease the risk of delinquency for children in foster care. To improve the understanding of juvenile delinquency in the child welfare system, the current study tests aspects of social control theory within the context of foster care. We focus specifically on the effects of foster parent-foster child attachment, commitment, and permanence. The results indicate that strong levels of attachment decrease the risk of delinquency for youth in foster care. Involvement with religious organizations also decreases the risk of delinquency. In contrast, perceptions of placement instability, placement with relatives, and school suspensions are associated with an increased risk of delinquency.
Child Abuse and Neglect in Cambodian Refugee Families: Characteristics and Implications for Practice
Janet Chang, Siyon Rhee, and S. Megan Berthold: This study examines the characteristics and patterns of child maltreatment among Cambodian refugee families in Los Angeles and assesses the implications for child welfare practice with Cambodian refugee families. Data were extracted from 243 active Cambodian case files maintained by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (LAC-DCFS). Some of the major findings include (1) Cambodian child maltreatment cases were most frequently reported to the LAC-DCFS among various Asian Pacific ethnic groups; (2) Cambodian refugee families were more likely to be charged with neglect, while their Asian Pacific counterparts were more likely charged with physical abuse; (3) the circumstance under which maltreatment occurred most frequently was parental substance abuse and mental illness; and (4) while fathers who maltreated their child were likely to use alcohol, mothers were also more likely to have a mental health problem such as depression. This study suggests the importance of collaboration between Child Protective Service agencies, substance abuse programs, traditional healers, mental health services, and other social service agencies for effective child abuse prevention and intervention efforts.

November/December 2007
Youth Characteristics Associated with Behavioral and Mental Health Problems During the Transition to Residential Treatment Centers: The Odyssey Project Population
Amy J. L. Baker, Marc Archer, and Patrick Curtis: This study aimed to determine what youth characteristics were associated with emotional and behavioral problems exhibited within the first three months of placement in residential treatment centers (RTCs) in a sample of youth from 20 agencies in 13 states. Two primary research questions were addressed: 1) What characteristics were associated with behavior during the transition to care? 2) Were the characteristics associated with behavior during the transition the same for boys and girls? Data were drawn from the Time 1 phase of the longitudinal national Odyssey Project dataset developed by the Child Welfare League of America. Measures included an extensive child and family characteristics (CFC) form and the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The results revealed significant gender-specific patterns of associations between youth characteristics and behavior exhibited during the transition to RTC placement. Notably, a sexual abuse history was associated with Externalizing for girls and Internalizing for boys and entering on psychotropic medication was associated with Internalizing for girls and boys and Externalizing for boys only. Results suggest many avenues for refining practice.
Child Welfare Workplace: The State of the Workforce and Strategies to Improve Retention
Maria Scannapieco and Kelli Connell-Carrick: Child welfare systems throughout the United States are being closely scrutinized as sensational cases appear in the media in nearly every state. At the federal level, with the Child and Family Service Review process, the government is documenting that states across the country are not conforming to federal child welfare requirements (DHHS, 2007) put in place to ensure the safety and well-being of children. One of the most crucial underlying causes of these inadequacies is a workforce that lacks the manpower for the tasks it confronts. To meet performance standards for the seven major Adoption and Safe Family Act child welfare safety outcomes, child protection agencies must stop the outward flow of staff from the workplace. This paper presents a study examining correlates related to retention. It was found supervisors and co-workers play a crucial role in the retention of workers. Strategies are presented aimed at assisting states in ways to slow the turnover rate of workers in child welfare.
Social Networks, Informal Child Care, and Inadequate Supervision by Mothers
Carol Coohey: The purpose of this study is to determine whether less informal child care support from family and friends is related to supervisory neglect, and if there is a relationship, to test several explanations for why some mothers receive less child care. Thirty-two low-income mothers who did not adequately supervise their children were matched to 32 mothers who provided adequate supervision. The results showed the mothers who provided inadequate supervision received less child care support from their partners and relatives, but not their friends. These differences appear to be linked to several properties of the mothers' social networks. For example, the majority of the mothers who provided inadequate supervision either did not have a partner or knew them for less than one year. They had fewer family members living nearby and more negative relationships with them than the mothers who provided adequate supervision. To reduce chronic supervisory neglect, mothers may need assistance with both informal and formal child care support.
The Training Process of the Maryland Guardianship Assistance Project: A Collaborative Model for Kinship Foster Care
Pamela L. Thornton, Joshua N. Okundaye, and Donna Harrington: Understanding models of multidisciplinary collaborations in child welfare has become essential for policy development, program success, and improving outcomes for children in foster care. The authors present the state of Maryland's Guardianship Assistance Project (GAP) as a model of multidisciplinary collaboration in child welfare and describe the training process that supported the development of the model. Key components for effective collaborative practice, lessons learned, and recommendations from the GAP collaboration are presented.
Outcomes of a Randomized Trial of Continuum of Care Services for Children in a Child Welfare System
E. Wayne Holden, Susan Rousseau O'Connell, Qinghong Liao, Anna Krivelyova, Tim Connor, Gary M. Blau, and Dorian Long: The Connecticut Department of Children and Families Title IV-E waiver demonstration evaluated whether the well-being of children approved for residential mental health services could be improved, and lengths of stay in restrictive placements reduced, by providing case rate payments to community agencies to provide continuum of care services. Children between ages 7 and 15 were randomly assigned to either the demonstration group (n = 78) or to usual state-supported services (n = 79). One-year outcome results indicated that in a situation that is less costly, improvement in outcomes occurred in less restrictive settings. Continuum of care services were more effective in 1) returning children to in-home placements, 2) reducing the length of stay in restrictive placements, and (3) utilizing higher levels of case management through coordination among agencies and family support services.
Shaping Child Welfare Policy Via Performance Measurement
Clare Tilbury: Performance measurement is generally depicted as a neutral, technical exercise providing objective data for decision-making. But it also has a normative role in framing policy problems and solutions. This article explores the role of indicators in shaping child welfare, comparing stated policy with performance indicator regimes in England. It shows how indicators construct child welfare narrowly as investigation and placement, contradicting the more comprehensive family support approaches of policy and legislation.

September/October 2007 Special Issue: Effectively Addressing Mental Health Issues in Child Welfare Practice Edited by Julie Collins Members of the Mental Health Advisory Board
Introduction
Julie Collins: This volume is dedicated to advances in policies, programs, and practices for effectively addressing the mental health issues in child welfare practice, and it reflects CWLA's and the Mental Health Advisory Board's commitment to ensuring children and their families receive effective mental health services that lead to their optimal well-being.
Creating More Trauma-Informed Services for Children Using Assessment-Focused Tools
Robyn Igelman, Nicole Taylor, Alicia Gilbert, Barbara Ryan, Alan Steinberg, Charles Wilson, and Gail Mann: This article promotes integrating assessment and evidence-based practice in the treatment of traumatized children through a review of two newly developed trauma assessment tools: (1) the Child Welfare Trauma Referral Tool (CWT), and (2) Assessment-Based Treatment for Traumatized Children: A Trauma Assessment Pathway Model (TAP). These tools use pathways and algorithms to increase understanding of individual child trauma victims, and assist professionals working with children to make appropriate referral and treatment decisions within both child welfare and mental health contexts.
Mental Health Assessment of Infants in Foster Care
Judith Silver and Sheryl Dicker: Infants placed in foster care are at high risk for emotional and behavioral problems. Assessment of their mental health must account for their often-adverse life experiences prior to placement and the involvement of multiple systems that shape their lives in lieu of parents' authority. This article presents practice guidelines for infant mental health evaluations with consideration of legal requirements and the unique issues conferred by foster care.
The Influence of Family Environment on Mental Health Need and Service Use Among Vulnerable Children
Richard Thompson, Michael A. Lindsey, Diana J. English, Kristin M. Hawley, Sharon Lambert, and Dorothy C. Browne: Children in child welfare are especially likely to have unmet mental health needs. The role of family factors in children's use of mental health services was examined in a longitudinal sample of 1,075 maltreated or at-risk children. Vulnerable family environment (poor family functioning, low social support, and caregiver psychological distress) is an important predictor of children's mental health needs. It also predicts them not having these needs met.
Effectively Addressing Mental Health Issues in Child Welfare Practice: The Family Connection
Elisabeth Pufahl: Nonprofit family-run organizations, such as Tennessee Voices for Children (TVC), are providing leadership in advocating for and delivering services to children and families in need. Utilizing a family-driven approach and a staff partially comprised of parent-professionals, TVC's Nashville Connection and Family Connection programs have strengthened families by providing alternatives to state custody for children and families living with serious emotional or behavioral problems. TVC's Nashville Connection and Family Connection programs did this by coordinating support services, building community bridges, and providing comprehensive in-home services.
Effectively Addressing Mental Health Issues in Permanency-Focused Child Welfare Practice
Laura A. Ornelas, Deborah N. Silverstein, and Sherylle Tan: Children and families built by adoption or relative caregiving have specialized needs. This paper proposes a rubric for the central elements of permanency-focused mental health services in child welfare practice. Kinship Center provides an innovative mental health service delivery system, weaving foster and adoptive placement programs, adoption specialty Wraparound1, and a relative caregiver support program into its permanency-focused children's clinics. Named a 'promising practice' in child behavioral health services (McCarthy & McCullough, 2003), Kinship Center's mental health clinics are publicly funded and are a significant contribution to a managed care behavioral health approach in three diverse California counties. Six years of clinical outcomes data provide promising preliminary information for the field.
Fostering Healthy Futures: An Innovative Preventive Intervention for Preadolescent Youth in Out-of-Home Care
Heather N. Taussig, Sara E. Culhane, and Daniel Hettleman: Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF) is a randomized, controlled trial of an innovative preventive intervention for preadolescent youth (ages 9-11) placed in out-of-home care. The program is designed to promote child well-being by identifying and addressing mental health issues, preventing adolescent risk behaviors, and promoting competence. This paper describes the design, implementation, and uptake of the FHF program as well as our approaches to the challenges of conducting research-based prevention work within a child welfare setting.
Reducing Transfers of Children in Family Foster Care Through Onsite Mental Health Interventions
Carmen Collado and Paul Levine: This article describes a successful pilot project in New York City that effectively reduced the number of transfers or replacements of children in family foster care through the placement of mental health clinicians onsite at two foster care agencies.
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: Using Strength-Based Approaches to Enhance the Culture of Care in Residential and Day Treatment Education Environments
Thomas Kalke, Ann Glanton, and Maria Cristalli: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports model, first introduced into public schools, has been extended to alternative settings. This article highlights applying PBIS to day treatment and residential treatment education programs increasingly challenged to serve seriously emotionally disturbed youth whose risk factors have become more complex. The results demonstrate a more positive environment enhancing children's treatment and education along with decreasing numbers of safety holds and need for out-of-classroom supports.
Psychotropic Medication Management for Youth in State Care: Consent, Oversight, and Policy Considerations
Michael W. Naylor, Christine V. Davidson, D. Jean Ortega-Piron, Arin Bass, Alice Gutierrez, and Angela Hall: The use of psychotropic medications in youth with emotional disturbances in state custody is increasing and presents unique challenges concerning consent and oversight. We examine various means that state child welfare agencies use to provide consent for and oversight of psychotropic medications for children in state custody and describe benefits of a consent process that provides for expert consultation to the child welfare agency and prescribing clinicians, case-specific and systemic oversight of psychotropic medication use, and education for stakeholders.

July/August 2007
Racial Disparity in Minnesota's Child Protection System
Erik P. Johnson, Sonja Clark, Matthew Donald, Rachel Pedersen, and Catherine Pichotta: Minnesota has been recognized by several studies as a state with a significant amount of racial disparity in its child protection system. This study, using 2001 data from Minnesota's Social Services Information Service, was conducted to determine at which of the six decision points in Minnesota's child welfare system racial disparities are statistically significant. The authors employ a nested model to examine a child's journey through the Minnesota child protection system. Using binary logistic regression, they are able to determine the odds that a child belonging to a particular racial or ethnic group would progress to the next decision point.
Addressing the Impact of Foster Care on Biological Children and Their Families
Maha N. Younes and Michele Harp: This study explores from a dual perspective the impact of the fostering process on biological children in the home. Ten foster parents and their biological children were interviewed separately. The impact of foster care on the psychological, educational, and social well-being of biological children and their relationship with parents and siblings were examined. The exploration reveals a paradoxical and life-changing process as seen through the eyes of biological children and their parents.
Mothers' Strategies for Protecting Children from Batterers: The Perspectives of Battered Women Involved in Child Protective Services
Wendy L. Haight, Woochan S. Shim, Linda M. Linn, and Laura Swinford: During in-depth, individual interviews, seventeen battered women involved in the public child welfare system discussed the effects of domestic violence on their children, and their strategies for protecting and supporting them. Most mothers articulated the detrimental effects of domestic violence on their children and coherent strategies to protect them physically, but described difficulties supporting young children psychologically. Collectively, mothers reported a number of apparently useful strategies for supporting childrenís psychological resilience. Implications for intervention are discussed.
Immigrant Families and Public Child Welfare: Barriers to Services and Approaches for Change
Ilze Earner: This article describes the results of two focus groups of immigrant parents who recently experienced child protective investigations in New York City. The purpose of this study was: 1) to hear immigrant parents describe their experiences with child welfare services, 2) to identify barriers to services these parents encountered, and 3) advocate for changes in policy, program, and practice so that public child welfare services can effectively address the special needs of immigrant families, children, and youth. Barriers to child welfare services identified by immigrant parents in this study were caseworker's lack of knowledge about immigration status, cultural misunderstanding, and language access issues. Recommendations for addressing these barriers are offered.
What Criteria Do Child Protective Services Investigators Use to Substantiate Exposure to Domestic Violence?
Carol Coohey: The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether child protective services investigators apply a recognizable set of criteria to substantiate batterers and victims of battering for exposing their children to domestic violence. Although domestic violence occurred in 35% of the 1,248 substantiated incidents of child maltreatment, only 31 (7.1%) couples were investigated for exposing a child to domestic violence or failing to protect a child from domestic violence. All of the batterers investigated and in the caregiver role when their children were exposed to domestic violence were substantiated. The unsubstantiated victims of battering tended to use more protective behaviors (M=3.82) than the substantiated victims (M=2.00); yet, at the case level, using more than one protective behavior did not seem to be a criterion used to substantiate the victims. Instead, it appears that investigators were discriminating between those protective behaviors by the victims that ended contact between the batterers and the children-for a substantial amount of time-and those that did not in both the substantiation and removal decision. Key issues related to applying criteria in incidents involving domestic violence are discussed along with recommendations to further refine and document them.
The tables for this article appeared incorrectly in the July/August issue. They will be reprinted in our November/December issue.
Improving Healthcare for Children Entering Foster Care
Christina Risley-Curtiss and Belva Stites: Despite the fact that children in foster care are, perhaps, the most vulnerable children, healthcare for them has been lacking woefully for many years. A growing body of research has documented the need for such care as well as the failure of child welfare agencies to make major improvements in providing healthcare to foster children. Nonetheless, current efforts are being made to change this situation. This article reports on one effort to improve the provision and timeliness of health exams for children entering care. One rural and one urban county served as project treatment sites, with two additional rural and urban counties serving as control sites. The treatment sites achieved a statistically significant improvement in their rate of exam completion as compared to the control sites. The study finds that despite an existing policy for healthcare for children entering foster care, legislation mandating additional efforts, shortened time frames, and provision for judicial oversight are needed for improvement.

May/June 2007
Partitioning the Adoption Process to Better Predict Permanency
Tom McDonald, Alan Press, Peggy Billings, and Terry Moore: Under federal outcome standards established by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, discharges to adoption are expected to occur within 24 months of the most recent removal from home for at least 32% of cases. In the research recounted here, adoption is treated as a process composed of two discrete steps: adoptive placement, and adoption finalization. It was hypothesized that the predictors of completion may differ for each step, offering direction for practice and policy. Predictors included child characteristics, maltreatment history, placement history, system variables, and service delivery variables. Children's adoption event history was viewed through five annual entry cohorts, including all children with adoption case plans, rather than the exit cohorts of the federal measure, which includes only adopted children. Over this five-year period, the length of time from removal to adoption finalization decreased significantly, primarily as a result of decreased time from adoption placement to finalization. Child and family characteristics and abuse/neglect history were found to be much more predictive in the analysis of timely adoption placement than of time from placement to finalization. These and other significant predictors suggest strategies for improving timely adoption outcomes.
An Exploratory Study of Drug-exposed Infants: Case Substantiation and Subsequent Child Maltreatment
An-Pyng Sun, Margaret P. Freese, and Mark Fitzgerald: This study explores factors related to drug-exposed infants' case substantiation and subsequent child maltreatment. Child protective services computerized administrative data (from January 1998 to October 2001) were obtained from an urban Nevada county. The data included 457 drug-exposed infant cases. Chi-square, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that: (1) drug-exposed infant case substantiation was related to type of drug exposure and the unit to which the case was assigned, but not to the mother's ethnicity; and (2) subsequent maltreatment among drug-exposed infants was related to the mother's age and prior parental alcohol abuse, but not to the type of drug exposure, nor to the initial drug-exposed infant status of case substantiation. Implications for child welfare practice and research are discussed.
Family Group Decision Making and Disproportionality in Foster Care: A Case Study
David Crampton and Wendy Lewis Jackson: Research on the disproportionate number of children of color in the child welfare system suggests that we should focus on key decision points such as investigations, substantiations, and placements to understand how experiences of children vary by race and ethnicity. This article describes one community's efforts to use Family Group Decision Making in placement decisions to reduce disproportionality in foster care by diverting children from regular foster care services and keeping them within their extended families.
Characteristics of Difficult-to-Place Youth in State Custody: A Profile of the Exceptional Care Pilot Project Population
Marilyn P. Armour and James Schwab: This study examines the characteristics of Texas youth designated as 'most difficult to place' recipients of service under the "Exceptional Care Pilot Project" (N = 46). Findings include, among others, high levels of comorbid psychiatric disturbance (> 3 diagnostic groupings), physical (78.3%) and sexual (88%) maltreatment, and placement breakdowns (m = 4.8 therapeutic placements). This initial profile of the population provides a base for helping other states identify and plan for the needs of their most troubled youth.
Mental Health and Behavioral Problems of Youth in the Child Welfare System: Residential Treatment Centers Compared to Therapeutic Foster Care in the Odyssey Project Population
Amy J.L. Baker, David Kurland, Patrick Curtis, Gina Alexander, and Cynthia Papa-Lentini: This is the first multisite, prospective study of behavioral and mental health disorders of youth in residential treatment centers (RTC) and therapeutic foster care (TFC), and the first study to compare the two. This study addressed two questions in a sample of 22 agencies in 13 states: (1) how prevalent were emotional and behavioral disorders in the youth admitted to RTCs and TFC?, and (2) were the youth in RTCs significantly more likely to be disturbed than youth served in TFCs? Data were drawn from the Time 1 phase of the longitudinal national "Odyssey Project" developed by the Child Welfare League of America (1995). Measures included an extensive child and family characteristics form (CFC) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The results revealed extremely high levels of behavioral and mental health disorders in the sample as a whole, well above the norms for a non-child welfare population. The prevalence of disorder in the RTC population was substantially greater than in the TFC population.
Methamphetamine and the Changing Face of Child Welfare: Practice Principles for Child Welfare Workers
Kelli Connell-Carrick: Methamphetamine use and production is changing child welfare practice. Methamphetamine is a significant public health threat (National Institute of Justice, 1999) reaching epidemic proportions (Anglin, Burke, Perrochet, Stamper, & Dawud-Nouris, 2000). The manufacturing of methamphetamine is a serious problem for the child welfare system, yet child welfare has not addressed the needs of children living in homes where methamphetamine is manufactured (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002; DOJ, 2003; Altshuler, 2005). This article presents key issues for child welfare workers related to the use, production, and effects of methamphetamine on children and families, and identifies practice principles for child welfare workers in order to ensure safety for victims, parents, and workers themselves.

March/April 2007
Sibling Kinnections: A Clinical Visitation Program
Joyce Maguire Pavao, Melissa St. John, Rebecca Ford Cannole, Tara Fischer, Anthony Maluccio, and Suzanne Peining: The growing literature on sibling relationships throughout their lifespans is of great importance to those working in the child welfare system, and in adoption services in particular. Sibling bonds are important to all of us, but they are particularly vital to children from disorganized or dysfunctional families. These relationships assume even greater importance when children from these families enter the care system. Supporting and sustaining sibling bonds should be, and most often is, a priority throughout the child welfare system, with practice literature providing guidelines for arranging and sustaining sibling contact. However, children in the care system may also have dysfunctional sibling relationships as a result of their early experiences, and sibling visitation alone may not be enough to ensure a healthy, long-lasting relationship among siblings. Some form of sibling therapy, or 'clinically supervised visitation,' may be required to help children remove the barriers to form mutually satisfying relationships and to reinforce life-long relationships with each other.
Adoption Now: A Joint Initiative of New York's Courts and Child Welfare System
Kathleen R. DeCataldo and Karen Carroll: In November 2002, Chief Judge Judith Kaye attended the National Adoption Day festivities in Albany County and New York County (Manhattan). Although pleased that 600 adoptions were being finalized statewide on this special day, she was concerned to learn more than 6,000 other children were free for adoption but had not yet found permanent families. Judge Kaye reached out to New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) Commissioner John A. Johnson and New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) then-Commissioner William Bell to come together and begin a discussion to identify and resolve systemic barriers to adoption. At a press conference in May 2003, Chief Judge Kaye, Governor Pataki, New York City Mayor Bloomberg, and Judges and Commissioners representing counties from across the state announced the Adoption Now initiative that set a goal of finalizing adoptions for 5,000 children (3800 in New York City and 1200 upstate) by the end of 2003.
Making MEPA-IEP Work: Tools for Professionals
Ruth McRoy, Maryanne Mica, Madelyn Freundlich, and Joe Kroll: The Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and the Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996 (MEPA-IEP) require states to develop plans that "provide for the diligent recruitment of potential foster and adoptive families that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the state for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed." This paper explores the background of MEPA-IEP, describes the disparate outcomes for minority children in the child welfare system, and identifies agency challenges in finding permanent families for African American children. Tools are provided for successfully recruiting families while following MEPA-IEP and avoiding potentially discriminatory practices in placement decisionmaking.
Assessing Lesbian and Gay Prospective Foster and Adoptive Families: A Focus on the Home Study Process
Gerald P. Mallon: Foster care and adoption by gay men and lesbians is not a new phenomenon. Children and youth have always been placed by states and public agencies in homes with gay and lesbian parents. Some gay men and lesbians have fostered or adopted children independently from private agencies or have made private adoption arrangements with individual birthmothers, while others have fostered or adopted through the public system. Drawing on research literature, practice wisdom from 31 years of child welfare experiences, and case examples, this article offers child welfare professionals guidelines for competent assessment with prospective foster or adoptive parents who identify as lesbian or gay.
Strengthening Adoption Practice, Listening to Adoptive Families
Anne Atkinson and Patricia Gonet: In-depth interviews with 500 adoptive families who received postadoption services through Virginia's Adoptive Family Preservation (AFP) program paint a richly detailed picture of the challenges adoptive families face and what they need to sustain adoption for many years after finalization. Findings document the need for support in a variety of forms, including respite, counseling, and information. Numerous implications for strengthening adoption practice through effective training and technical assistance are discussed.
Supporting Child Welfare Supervisors to Improve Worker Retention
Miriam Landsman: Recent child welfare research has identified supervisors as key to retaining qualified and committed workers. This paper describes implementation of a federally funded child welfare training initiative designed to improve worker retention largely through developing, implementing, and evaluating a statewide supervisor training program in a Midwestern state. Unique to this collaborative effort was involving all child welfare supervisors in identifying needed content components, developing competencies, and conducting self-assessments.
A Comparative Evaluation of Preservice Training of Kinship and Nonkinship Foster/Adoptive Families
Brian Christenson and Jerry McMurtry: In 2003, Idaho selected the Foster PRIDE/Adopt PRIDE preservice training and resource family development program. PRIDE participants (n=228) completed a pre and posttest survey based on the PRIDE training competencies in 2004-2005. Results indicate that PRIDE is an effective training and resource family development program. Providing and evaluating foster/adoptive parent preservice training programs can assist child welfare programs in making a positive difference in the lives of families and children involved in the child welfare system while increased cost-savings by retaining foster/adoptive families over time.
Home Study Methods for Evaluating Prospective Resource Families: History, Current Challenges, and Promising Approaches
Thomas M. Crea, Richard P. Barth, and Laura K. Chintapalli: Every state requires a home study before the placement of foster children for adoption. This article examines the history of home studies, presents results from expert interviews on the changing processes and purposes of home studies, and explores current challenges for the field. The article also introduces the Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE), a uniform home study format that encourages consistent family evaluations across workers, agencies, and jurisdictions. The article clarifies how SAFE may address challenges facing foster care and adoption practice.

January/February 2007
Characteristics of Children in Residential Treatment in New York State
Nan Dale, Amy J.L. Baker, Emily Anastasio, and Jim Purcell: This study addresses three questions about the population of children and families served in the highest level of care in the child welfare system in New York State residential treatment centers (RTCs): (1) How prevalent are emotional and behavioral problems in the youth entering RTCs? (2) Has the proportion of youth with such problems increased compared to ten years ago? (3) Are there identifiable subgroups of youth entering RTCs? One-fourth of RTC admissions in FY 2001 were randomly selected from a representative sample of 16 RTCs. The study completed standardized data collection instrument based on a review of agency records, and included information that was known at the time each child was admitted. The results show significant increases compared to ten years earlier in the proportion of youth with mental health problems and juvenile justice backgrounds. The findings suggest that youth who traditionally have been served by other systems of care are now being served in the child welfare system. The increased treatment needs of these youth and the heterogeneity of the RTC population have important implications for policies, programs, and practice.
Birthfamilies as permanency resources for children in long-term foster care
Susan C. Mapp and Cache Steinberg: Provisions of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 mandated shorter time frames for making permanency decisions and facilitating adoption. Yet for many children, foster care continued to be a significant portion of their life experiences. This project explored the potential permanency option of birthfamilies and extended kin for children who languished in foster care while being free for adoption. Eighteen children achieved permanent placement with their birthfamilies. In addition, staff found that although many families could not provide permanent placements, they could offer appropriate relationships with the children. This project team recommends viewing family relationships as an integral component where placement is one option on a continuum that includes letters, phone calls, and visits.
Organizational Constructs as Predictors of Effectiveness in Child Welfare Interventions
Jane Yoo, Devon Brooks, and Rino Patti: Organizational context, including line-worker characteristics and service settings, may help explain the equivocal findings of intervention studies in the field of child welfare. Yet organizational context has been largely ignored in studies of child welfare interventions. The purpose of this article is to expound upon the likely role of the organizational context in explaining service effectiveness in child welfare. Several bodies of literature within child welfare and human service organization and administration are reviewed and synthesized. A conceptual framework that can be used to guide future child welfare research is then proposed.
A Clinical Consultation Model for Child Welfare Supervisors
Virginia C. Strand and Lee Badger: This article presents findings from a consultation project conducted by faculty from six schools of social work with approximately 150 child welfare supervisors over a two-year period. The purpose of the program was to assist supervisors with their roles as educators, mentors, and coaches for casework staff, specifically in relationship to case practice decisions. The consultation model, the development of the curriculum, the project implementation, and the results of the initial assessment are described.
Improving Child Welfare Performance: Retrospective and Prospective Approaches
Dennis E. Zeller and Thomas J. Gamble: Some of the key outcome measures used in the first federal Child and Family Service Reviews rely on retrospective cohorts and exclude key portions of the population from the analysis. Most discussions of this issue have focused on the extent to which retrospective measurement is a valid basis on which to judge states' performance (Courtney, Needell, & Wulczyn, 2003). The analyses presented here suggest that in some instances the relative or comparative results of retrospective and prospective measurements exhibit few differences. On the other hand, the analyses also make clear that retrospective measurements have two serious deficiencies in relation to improving performance. First, they are likely to identify the wrong issues, and, second, even when they identify the correct issues they fail to provide information needed to improve performance. This article suggests some practical ways in which the information currently available to child welfare agencies can be used to correct these problems.
Domestic Violence Screening and Service Acceptance Among Adult Victims in a Dependency Court Setting
James E. Rivers, Candice L. Maze, Stefanie A. Hannah, Cindy S. Lederman: Many child welfare systems are unable to effectively identify and address co-occurring domestic violence and child maltreatment. In response, the Dependency Court Intervention Program for Family Violence implemented a protocol to identify indicators of domestic violence in families involved with child protection proceedings. This article highlights data that demonstrate the ability of an outreach and screening process to identify adult victims of domestic violence in dependency court and to offer them appropriate intervention services.

November/December 2006
Facilitating Visitation for Infants with Prenatal Substance Exposure
Caroline Long Burry and Lois Wright: Permanency planning for infants with prenatal substance exposure is challenging due to characteristics of the infants and the ongoing substance use, or relapse of the parents. Visitation is a primary mechanism through which child welfare workers determine and support permanency planning. Productive use of visitation for permanency planning for infants with prenatal substance exposure is described, along with strategies for skillfully focusing visits on issues and needs relevant to this population.
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: Application of an Empirically Supported Treatment to Maltreated Children in Foster Care
Susan G. Timmer, Anthony J. Urquiza, Amy D. Herschell, Jean M. McGrath, Nancy M. Zebell, Alissa L. Porter, and Eric C. Vargas: One of the more serious problems faced by child welfare services involves the management of children with serious behavioral and mental health problems. Aggressive and defiant foster children are more likely to have multiple foster care placements, require extraordinary social services resources, and have poor short- and long-term mental health outcomes. Interventions that work with challenging foster children and enhance foster parents' skills in managing problem behaviors are needed. This article presents the successful results of a single case study examining the application of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) with an aggressive young boy and his foster-adoptive parent. PCIT is a dyadic intervention that has been identified as an empirically supported treatment for abused children and for children with different types of behavioral disruption. The application of PCIT to assist foster parents is a promising direction for child welfare services.
The Impact of Serial Transitions on Behavioral and Psychological Problems Among Children in Child Protection Services
Marie-Christine Saint-Jacques, Richard Cloutier, Robert Pauzé, Marie Simard, Marie-Hélène Gagné, Amélie Poulin: This study focuses on the impacts of serial transitions on externalized and internalized behavior disorders, anxiety, and depression among children in child protection services. The research was carried out with a sample of 741 children. The findings demonstrate that the number of times a family is blended is a stronger predictive factor for children's adjustment than is the family structure at the time of the interview. In predicting externalized and internalized behavior problems among children, however, the effect of family structure disappears in favor of the variables associated with family functioning and family climate.
The Relationship Between Child Disability and Living Arrangement in Child Welfare
Stephanie C. Romney, Alan J. Litrownik, Rae R. Newton, Anna Lau: The influence of disabilities on placement outcomes was examined for 277 children who were removed from their biological parents due to substantiated maltreatment. Results indicated that children with a disability were less likely to reunify and more likely to reside in non-kin foster care two years later than typical children. Children with cognitive, emotional/behavioral, and physical disabilities were over four times more likely to be permanently living in non-kin foster care than to be reunified.
An Analysis of Selected Measures of Child Well-Being for Use at School- and Community-Based Family Resource Centers
Mieko K. Smith and Carl F. Brun: This article describes standardized instruments designed to measure physical and emotional health outcomes among children for a statewide implementation of community- and school-based family resource centers. It includes descriptive and psychometric information, and strengths and weaknesses of two measures of physical well-being and four measures of emotional and behavioral well-being, based on criteria selected by the evaluation team. The authors conclude by recommending those instruments that accommodated the evaluation goals of the family support programs.
Adolescents' Feelings about Openness in Adoption: Implications for Adoption Agencies
Jerica M. Berge, Tai J. Mendenhall, Gretchen M. Wrobel, Harold D. Grotevant, Ruth G. McRoy: Adoption research commonly uses parents' reports of satisfaction when examining openness in adoption arrangements. This qualitative study aimed to fill a gap in the adoption research by using adolescents' voices to gain a better understanding of their adoption experiences. Adopted adolescents (n = 152) were interviewed concerning their satisfaction with the openness in their adoption arrangements with their birthmother. Results and implications are discussed in relation to how adoption agencies can use this information to further their work with adopted adolescents and their families and to understand more fully the recent trend towards adoption agencies offering more open adoption arrangements.

September/October 2006
Thinking Mindfully About Parenting and Parenting Education
Dana McDermott: This volume is dedicated to advances in the theory, research, and practice of parenting education and support, and it reflects CWLA's and the National Parenting Education Network's focus on improving the lives of children by supporting the parents and care providers who nurture and guide them. The work of CWLA is well known to readers but that of the National Parenting Education Network (NPEN) may not be. In this introduction, NPEN's vision, mission, and core principles are briefly described (see www.npen.org for further elaboration), and an overview of the articles included in this volume is provided.
Parenting: A Relationship-Oriented and Competency-Based Process
Harriet Heath: Parents have a complex task of guiding a specific child to maturity by using the opportunities offered by the environment, while avoiding its detrimental aspects. This article develops a theory of the parenting process that describes components of the parental role; situations where development and, thus, parenting occurs; the responsibility of parents in those situations; the attributes parents use to fulfill their role; and implications for professionals.
Parents as Developing Adult Learners
Catherine Marienau and Joy Segal: Drawing largely on the literature from adult learning and development, this article presents parents as continuous learners whose critical reflections on their experiences with parenting can be rich fodder for their growth and development. Theories and models are highlighted that may suggest a wider repertoire of approaches for helping professionals who are facilitating parents in their learning and growth.
Competencies of a Parent Educator: What Does a Parent Educator Need To Know and Do?
Betty Cooke: This article examines efforts by organizations and states to describe the competencies of a parent educator, to explain what parent educators teach parents through parent education, and to show how that informs parent educator competencies. It summarizes examples of certification, licensure, and other accountability programs, and identifies the issues involved, along with ways practitioners can use these identified competencies to assess their level of competency. Finally, the article concludes with a call to continue developing certification and other accountability programs to insure quality in parent education.
Building a Professional Development System: A Case Study of North Carolina's Parenting Education Experiences
George M. Bryan, Jr., Karen DeBord, and Karen Schrader: Designing a professional development system for parent educators requires weaving together multiple pieces from within the network of organizations providing parenting education. North Carolina examined how to build a system using the influence of evidence-based programs as well as professional credentialing for parenting educators. A system built with professionals who understand sound parenting practices and networked together to use be