Sinking or swimming: perspectives of the children without placement crisis

ABSTRACT

Recently, there have been reports of children without placement (CWOP) in foster care, often resulting in youth sleeping in hotels or child protective service offices. This study explored perspectives of the current crisis among child welfare practitioners who managed CWOP cases. We conducted interviews with 11 child welfare practitioners who had graduated from two universities in a Southern state. Themes aligned with the trauma-informed framework and highlighted challenges related to organizational climate, workforce development, and trauma-informed services. Implications include strategies for cross-sector collaboration, specific training, and continued research to support a healthy, trauma-informed workforce that can better meet youth needs.

KEYWORDS:

• children without placement
• foster care
• child welfare
• trauma-informed care
• child-welfare workforce

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services for their support, provided under our Title IV-E Program collaboration, for this paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine LaBrenz

Catherine LaBrenz, PhD, LMSW, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work. The goal of her research is to increase family and community resilience to decrease child maltreatment. To accomplish this, Dr. LaBrenz focuses on three main areas of research: 1) leveraging big data to multilevel factors that impact wellbeing for child welfare-involved families; 2) building the evidence for innovative practices and policies that improve outcomes for child welfare-involved families; and 3) developing and evaluating trainings to equip current and future child welfare practitioners. She currently is an international consultant on a research project to transform the child protection and adoption systems in Chile, is an external evaluator of a Title IV-E program at a Southern university and is an external evaluator on a federally-funded project to develop, implement, and evaluate an innovative practice model to improve permanency outcomes among youth in foster care. As a former child welfare practitioner, Dr. LaBrenz’s research is informed by practice and integrates key takeaways and implications for practitioners and policymakers. She has authored or co-authored over 50 peer reviewed articles related to child welfare and wellbeing, has presented her work at national and international conferences.

Lacey Jenkins

Lacey Jenkins, MSW, is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work. Lacey holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Texas Christian University and a master’s in social work from the University of Denver. As a licensed social worker in Colorado, Lacey practiced as a caseworker for the Colorado child welfare system, elementary school social worker, and as a case manager for foster to adopt families. Lacey’s research interests are based on her practice experience with children and families. She aspires for her research to contribute to the practice that provides the most effective prevention strategies and intervention practices for children and families that encounter the child welfare system.

Mi Jin Choi

Mi Jin Choi, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Texas State University School of Social Work. Choi’s research focuses on (1) factors associated with the child welfare services provision for maltreated children and the intersectionality of those factors; (2) mental and behavioral health outcomes of children, primarily those who are involved in the child welfare systems; (3) child welfare workforce development and social work education.

Jangmin Kim

Jangmin Kim, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo. Drawing a social justice perspective, his research focuses more on organizational interventions to promote a trauma-informed child welfare workforce, implement family-centered practice, and address racial disproportionality and disparities in the child welfare system.

Scott Ryan

Scott Ryan is Dean and Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington’s School of Social Work. Dr. Ryan is also a faculty affiliate with the UT-Arlington Center for African American Studies and is the Interim Director of UT-Arlington’s Interdisciplinary Studies Program. He is also the Editor of the journal Adoption Quarterly. He also leads UT-Arlington’s Title IV-E Child Welfare Training Program. Dr. Ryan has received the Friend of Children Award from the North American Council on Adoptable Children, an Angel in Adoption Award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, and an Adoption Excellence Award from the U.S. Children’s Bureau. He has published dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters and conducted over 100 presentations of his child welfare/adoption-focused research nationally and internationally. His work has been featured in articles published by the Associate Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Le Monde (in Paris, France), as well as in two documentaries (Breaking the Barriers to Teen Adoption and Finding Family: Gay Adoption in the US).

Martha S. Wildberger

Martha Wildberger, LCSW, is the Director of the Title IV-E Child Welfare Partnership (CWP) at the Texas State University School of Social Work. Through this program, she works to enhance the values, knowledge, and skills of the child welfare workforce in Texas through social work education and ongoing training. Ms. Wildberger has ten years of experience as a child welfare practitioner, and her research interests include foster care and adoption and Title IV-E Agency-University partnerships.