Identifying divergent foster care careers for Danish children

Abstract

Foster care children who experience placement disruption and foster care instability are at elevated risk for a host of poor outcomes, yet little work considers what these unstable foster care careers look like or what causes them. In this article, I start by using previous studies on foster care drift, instability, and placement disruptions to define the unstable foster care career as a subset of foster care careers. I then use administrative data on 30,239 Danish children born 1982-1987 who entered foster care to generate nine foster care careers, two of which meet the criteria for an unstable career. Children with a high number of risk factors associated with foster care entry were also the most likely to enter an unstable career. I end by discussing implications for recent studies of the effect of foster care on children's later life outcomes and the relevance of the findings for practitioners.Keywords: administrative data; foster care; instability; sequence analysis 3 Foster care is intended to provide children with the best possible opportunity for personal development and stability when their immediate family is unable to secure them a safe and stable upbringing. Nevertheless, some children's placement trajectories end up mirroring the instability they experienced prior to entering foster care (e.g., Andersen, 2012; Havlicek 2011). Previous studies have examined aspects of such unstable foster care trajectories, including foster care drift where children move aimlessly through the foster care system, without reaching a permanent placement, adoption, or successful reunification (e.g., Andersen, 2012;Hartley, 1984)

Family matters? The effect of kinship care on foster care disruption rates

“…We exclude placements that involve a penal element, or somatic or mental treatment, since these types of care would never take place at kin. Instead, we focus on ordinary foster care such as kinship care, non-kin foster home, group care, group homes, and boarding schools (see Fallesen, 2014 for a discussion of the likelihood for experiencing different placement types in a Danish context). We furthermore exclude children placed in out-of-home care at an involuntary basis.…”

“…Using the children's social security numbers, we obtain additional information about them and their mothers from other administrative registers. Drawing on previous work on foster care instability in Denmark (Andersen, 2014;Fallesen, 2014), our models include information known to predict foster care instability, such as age, mother's education level, relationship-status, and whether mothers have changed partner within the last year. We obtain all data on child and mother characteristics from Statistics Denmark administrative data (see Lyngstad & Skardhamar, 2011, for further discussion of the merits of Nordic registry data).…”

“…Previous studies from Denmark show that the tradition -or path dependency -of the case workers and the local child welfare committee is a significant determinant in whether a child enters group care or family foster care, and may often be more important than the child's own characteristics and problems (Ejrnaes, and Andersen 2013;Fallesen, 2014;Frederiksen, 2012; see also Hestbaek, 2011).…”

A controlled trial of implementing a complex mental health intervention for carers of vulnerable young people living in out-of-home care: the ripple project

“…International research confirms that foster care children who experience placement disruption and instability are at heightened risk of a range of poor outcomes [21]. Young people in Australia who were settled in one placement for at least 75% of their time in care had better outcomes a year later than those with multiple placements [12].…”

Does poor school performance cause later psychosocial problems among children in foster care? Evidence from national longitudinal registry data

“…Children in OHC often come from adverse family backgrounds; many have experiences of child maltreatment and some exhibit early emotional and behavioral problems, all of which have been shown to elevate risks for unstable life-course trajectories (Berzin, 2008;Currie & Spatz Widom, 2010;Fallesen, 2014;Havlicek, 2011). Additionally, foster children tend to be low achievers in school and enter adulthood with lower educational attainment than the majority population and peers with similar cognitive ability (Berlin, Vinnerljung, & Hjern, 2011;Clausen & Kristofersen, 2008;Egelund et al, 2008;Jackson & Cameron, 2011;Jackson, 1994;Pecora et al, 2006;Trout, Hagaman, Casey, Reid, & Epstein, 2008;Vinnerljung, Öman, & Gunnarson, 2005;Vinnerljung, Berlin, & Hjern, 2010).…”