Ethnic Variations in the Two-Year Living Arrangements of Prenatally Drug-Exposed and Comparison Children Placed at Birth

ABSTRACT

This study reports on the outcomes of foster home placements of 1,038 African American, Latino, and White infants, prenatally exposed to drugs, removed from their mothers' custody at birth and placed in foster care and the outcomes of a comparison group of 203 infants similarly removed, but not known to have been drug-exposed. Twenty-four months after placement, slightly more than half of the White drug-exposed infants were still under court supervision, and two thirds of the African American and Hispanic infants. A similar situation existed for the comparison group, but the ethnic distributions were reversed. Although African American children predominated in the proportion that were in kinship care, the largest proportion of both Latino and White children were in kinship care. Policy and practice implications are discussed in terms of enhancing placement outcomes for prenatally drug-exposed infants in general and in terms of encouraging placement options that may vary depending upon the ethnicity of the child and the child's kinship ties.