When permanency remains elusive: A longitudinal examination of the early foster care experiences of youth at risk of emancipating Joe Magruder, MSW Emily Putnam-Hornstein, MSW Barbara Needell, MSW PhD Center for Social Services Research School of Social Welfare University of California at Berkeley The California Child Welfare Performance Indicators Project is supported by the California Department of Social Services and the Stuart Foundation
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When permanency remains elusive: A longitudinal examination of the early foster care experiences of youth at risk of emancipating Joe Magruder, MSW Emily.
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When permanency remains elusive:A longitudinal examination of the early foster care experiences of youth at risk of emancipating
Joe Magruder, MSWEmily Putnam-Hornstein, MSWBarbara Needell, MSW PhD Center for Social Services ResearchSchool of Social WelfareUniversity of California at Berkeley
The California Child Welfare Performance Indicators Project is supported by the California Department of
Social Services and the Stuart Foundation
Building on the CFSR…
Children and Family Services Review (CFSR) C3.3: Of all children in foster care during the
year who were either discharged to emancipation or turned 18 while still in care, what percent had been in foster care for 3 years or longer?
The sample used for this analysis allows us to examine the early foster care experiences of those “at risk” of emancipating, for whom permanency was clearly not achieved by their 17th birthday, regardless of the length of the last spell in care.
Overview
Using California’s administrative child welfare database, we present a sample of youth who were born in 1988, entered care for the first time prior to turning 14, and were in care on their 17th birthday.
We are unable to follow all children who were born in 1988 because of data limitations (we do not have fully longitudinal data)
Sample
Birth
1988 2005
In Foster Care at age 17
2002
First Entry to Foster
Care
Data on children who first entered child welfare supervised care before age 14 and were in care at age 17 (child welfare or probation supervised) were drawn from a longitudinal extract of the California Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS)
At risk of emancipating (regardless of
actual permanency
outcome)
Entry to foster care before age 14 (regardless of the
by race/ethnicity, gender, longest placement type, and final exitMedian Percentage of Life Spent in Care at Age 17
(1,467)
(44)
(1,069)(962)
(73)
(1,789)
(1,826)
(317)
(1,263)
(1,375)
(86)
(574)
(81)
(403)
(79)
(300)
(2,502)
Life in Out-of-Home Care for this sample…
01
00
20
00
10
02
00
01
00
20
0
0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
<1yr 1-2yrs 3-4yrs
5-6yrs 7-8yrs 9-10yrs
11-12yrs 13-14yrs Total
Fre
quen
cy
Proportion of Life in CareGraphs by Age Categories
by Age at First EntryProportion of Life at Age 17 Spent in Out-of-Home Care
Life in Out-of-Home Care for this sample…
Exits from Care…
80%
11%
9%
69%
16%
15%
Female (n=1,789) Male (n=1,826)
Emancipated Permanency Other
by Gender (N=3,615)Final Exits:
83%
10%
7%
78%
12%
11%
Female (n=1,693) Male (n=1,561)
Emancipated Permanency Other
Probation cases excluded.
by Gender (N=3,254)Final Exits:
Racial Demographics (sample summary) 41% of the sample is Black (Black children are
roughly 6% of the CA pop) 76% (367) of youth who entered as infants were
Black 25% of Black children had entered as infants, but only 7%
of Hispanic and 4% of White children
The median age at entry for Black children was 4.0 years vs. 6.9 years for children of all other races
Black children in this sample had spent roughly 60% of their lives in out-of-home care by the age of 17 Black children in this sample spent an average of just over
10 years in care vs. 7.9 years for children of all other races
Age Demographics (sample summary)
The median age at entry was 6.9 years Youth in our sample were more likely to
have first entered care as infants than at any other age
Youth who entered during infancy proceeded to spend the vast majority of their lives in out of home care (mean=83%, median=96%) Roughly 60% of this time was spent in a
primary placement even though permanency was not achieved by the age of 17
Model Specification:
covariates of vector a is ),...,( :where 132 iii xxx
iiii xxxy 1313221 ...)}|1{Pr(logit
Model 1: y = probation supervised case (0/1)
Model 2: y = one spell in out-of-home care (0/1)
Model 3: y = final exit to permanency (0/1)
Things to keep in mind…
The experience of a later birth cohort would likely be very different…
We are not drawing conclusions regarding children who were born in 1988, entered care at a young age, but were not in care at age 17
A large proportion of children at risk of emancipating have a very long history with the child welfare system…