Factors leading to foster care reentry: experiences of housing unstable families

ABSTRACT

Children from housing unstable families have a high risk of reentering the child welfare system. However, to our knowledge, no studies have specifically explored qualitative factors related to child welfare reentry among housing unstable families focusing on their and their service providers’ perspectives. This study was a qualitative follow-up on findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to promote safe and timely reunification among housing unstable families. We explored the perspectives of seven housing-unstable caregivers whose children had reentered the foster care system, and 12 service providers regarding factors associated with foster-care reentry. Applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and ecological systems theory, our findings revealed that individual level (e.g., domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health) and system level (e.g., service provider prejudice and bias) factors were associated with foster care reentry. We offer suggestions for implications for research, policy, and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Foster care reentry
• child welfare
• housing instability
• qualitative study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rong Bai

Rong Bai is a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston College School of Social Work. Her overarching research goal is to examine social determinants that contribute to child maltreatment and child welfare system involvement, with an aim to promote child and family well-being. She is particularly interested in the overlap between housing instability and child welfare involvement.

Cyleste Collins

Cyleste Collins is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Cleveland State University. She has more than 20 years’ experience evaluating community-based programs. She has also published on the impact of paid sick leave policies, substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, homeless and housing unstable families, families experiencing foreclosure, refugee health, infant mortality, and university-community partnerships.

Robert Fischer

Robert L. Fischer is an Associate Professor at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University, where he leads a range of evaluation research studies and teaches evaluation methods to graduate students in social work and nonprofit management. He is also Co-Director of the The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development. Since 2001, he has led the Center’s research on Invest in Children, a county-wide early childhood initiative that includes home visiting, children’s health, and childcare components. Dr. Fischer is also faculty director of the Master of Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) degree program.

David Crampton

David S. Crampton is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University. His research interests focus on the evaluation of family centered and community-based child welfare practices, with the ultimate goal of protecting vulnerable children through the engagement of families, communities and social service providers.