Family poverty, family adversity, neglect, and entry into out-of-home care

ABSTRACT

The critique that child welfare services (CWS) are primarily focused on neglect cases resulting from poverty is longstanding and reemerging from discussions about how to address America’s racial history and structural oppression which begets poverty. Understanding how poverty and CWS involvement operate requires testing relationships between poverty and other factors influencing placement. Drawing on NSCAW II, we identify families (n = 445) investigated for neglect, with children younger than 15, and remaining home upon investigation at the study’s baseline. This study uniquely allows for distinguishing the contribution of poverty and family adversities on foster care placements among neglecting families. Families were followed for 36 months, to observe placements into out-of-home care. Poverty levels were not strongly related to subsequent placement. Children in families with high levels of adversity – especially arrests and domestic violence – were most likely to be placed into foster care. Employment at initial contact was associated with less later foster care placement even when income levels were generally low. The findings add to the evidence that placement into foster care may most significantly result from an accumulation of adversities. Intervention that might help reduce foster care placements for neglected children who begin receiving services at home are considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Poverty
• neglect
• adversity
• employment
• out-of-home care

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Charlotte Bright and four astute JPCW reviewers for helpful commentary, the University of Maryland School of Social Work for a sabbatical to the first author, and the Ruth H Young Center and the Institute for Innovation and Implementation in the UMSSW for general support.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard P. Barth

Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW, is Professor in the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Yanfeng Xu

Yanfeng XU, PhD, MSW is Assistant Professor in the University of South Carolina College of Social Work.