Ending racial disproportionality in child welfare: A systematic review

Abstract

Children of colour, especially non‐Hispanic Black, non‐Hispanic Native American, and non‐Hispanic multiracial, continue to be overrepresented across every decision point in the U.S. child welfare system. Existing research has largely focused on documenting the existence of disproportionality, while there has been less focus on interventions and/or approaches specifically designed to reduce this social problem. This study sought to identify and characterize interventions and/or approaches utilized in child welfare for reducing racial disproportionality by conducting a systematic review following PRISMA guidelines. After reviewing over 1000 studies across eight databases, only three studies met criteria for inclusion in this systematic review. The articles all addressed prevention strategies aimed to address risk factors and subjectivity, while employing interventions across both family and organizational/community levels. Three themes emerged, community‐wide targeted intervention, culturally responsive family preservation, and agency‐specific initiatives, which captured the scope of intervention to the extent as possible. Results indicated that training, collaboration, and comprehensive reform are promising, yet large‐scale systemic efforts must take priority for meaningful change to occur.

Measuring due process and fairness in the child welfare court system

“…Reviewing the physical environment of the court could help identify changes to improve the experience of families. Legal professionals can make efforts to monitor internal bias that may influence their decision-making, such as attending anti-bias training (Murphy et al, 2023).…”

“…While it is clear that Black and American Indian or Alaska Native children are disproportionally involved and experience poorer outcomes in the child welfare system, there is far less known about what causes it and how to address it (Murphy et al, 2023). Some suggest that the lack of due process protections results in child welfare system overreach and unnecessary involvement of families in dependency court, which impacts underserved communities that are at higher risk of oversurveillance (Carter et al, 2022;Hernandez & Ismail, 2022;Gupta-Kagan, 2022;Gupta-Kagan et al, 2023;Wayne and Smith, 2016).…”