The assessment of risk is a critical part of child welfare agency practice. This review of the research literature on different instruments for assessing risk and safety in child welfare focuses on instrument reliability, validity, outcomes, and use with children and families of color. The findings suggest that the current actuarial instruments have stronger predictive validity than consensus-based instruments. This review was limited by the variability in definitions and measures across studies, the relatively small number of studies examining risk assessment instruments, and the lack of studies on case decision points other than the initial investigation.

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Racial/ethnic disproportionality in the child welfare system is a complicated social problem that is receiving increasing amounts of attention from researchers and practitioners. This review of the literature examines disproportionality in the front-end of the child welfare system and interventions that may address it. While none of the interventions had evidence suggesting that they reduced disproportionality in child welfare front-end processes, some of the interventions may improve child welfare case processes related to disproportionality and outcomes for families of color.

Concurrent planning is used increasingly in child welfare practice as one strategy to expedite permanency for children. The strategy was developed in small, private agency contexts utilizing comprehensive and intensive services; how and with what success concurrent planning concepts have been implemented by large public child welfare bureaucracies is not known. This study examines the implementation of concurrent planning in six county child welfare agencies in a large western state. Quantitative data were extracted from case files of a sample of 885 children entering out-of-home care before and after implementation of concurrent planning legislation. Interviews and focus groups with 180 individuals (including agency social workers, supervisors, and court personnel) from the same counties contextualize these findings. Results from the study help to identify factors that may facilitate or hinder successful implementation. D

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Incarcerated parents attempting to reunify with their children in foster care can find it difficult to complete the activities on their court-ordered case plans, such as drug treatment services and visitation with children. Although much has been written regarding the obstacles that are likely to interfere with reunification for incarcerated parents, very little quantitative research has examined the topic. This study uses secondary data to examine the incarceration experiences and reunification outcomes of a sample of 225 parents in one large urban California county. In multivariate analysis controlling for problems and demographics, incarcerated parents were less likely to reunify with their children; however, service use appeared to mediate this relationship, as the negative association between incarceration and reunification did not persist when service use was included as a variable in the model. Suggestions are made for policy and practice changes to improve reunification outcomes for this population of parents.