Foster Care in a Life Course Perspective

Abstract

To understand what placement outside of one’s home means to the young people involved, we must understand foster care from a life course perspective. I analyze young people’s experiences in foster care from this perspective, accounting for when foster care happens, how long it lasts, and what happens when foster care placements end. I show that the population of children coming into foster care is younger and less urban than it was 20 years ago. I also show reliable measures of exposure to foster care over the life course. Children who enter care early in life are the children who spend the largest proportion of their childhood in foster care—a fact that rarely weighs on the policymaking process. We know very little about state and local variation in foster care placement rates, not to mention the influence of social services, the courts, foster parents, and caseworkers over foster children, so I close by arguing investment in research should be a clear policy priority.

A longitudinal investigation of infants and out-of-home care

“…Depending on the outcome under investigation, local context, and other factors, findings are varied on differential outcomes for Hispanic/Latinx children (see Johnson-Motoyama, Phillips, & Beer, 2021). Similar to findings from other studies (Wulczyn, 2020), results from these data show that at age 18, Black children are less likely to be reunified (28.1%) compared to white children (36.4%). Hispanic/Latinx children are similarly likely to be reunified (37.0%) as white children.…”

“…Efforts to make "permanent" children's permanency outcomes are critical to securing infants' safe and stable childhoods. Fourth, and echoing findings from previous studies (Wulczyn, 2020), Black children are less likely to experience reunification both in the short and long-term, and they are less likely to experience adoption than white children. More research is needed to identify whether children's ethno-racial features or other variables correlated with race (e.g., poverty) are driving the differences in permanency outcomes apparent in the data.…”

“…Some evidence suggests that infants younger than three months at entry remain in care longer than older infants, and longer than children of any other age (Stacks & Partridge, 2011;Wulczyn et al, 2011). These longer lengths of stay for infants appear to be related to their greater likelihood of adoption compared to older children (Wulczyn, 2020), and processes associated with adoption can be lengthy. For several decades, infants have been viewed as more "adoptable" than older children.…”

Research to Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services

“…For children aged 13 or younger, the risk of remaining in foster care to age 18 is less than 10%. Examining entries to care over time, Wulczyn (2020) finds that in more recent years, the likelihood of experiencing long-term foster care declines further, suggesting that the trend toward shorter stays in care continues.…”

“…Black children have a lower likelihood of leaving care to reunification, though the differences are not pronounced during the first 6 months of care when reunification rates are about 20% for all groups. Black children are also less likely to leave care via adoption (Wulczyn, 2020).…”