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Infants Entering Foster Care: Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD The number of U.S. children in out-of-home care--kinship care, family foster care, or group home care--swelled from 270,000 in 1984 to an estimated 462,000 in 1994 (Curtis, Boyd, Liepold, & Petit, 1995) and this increase is largely a reflection of the influx of infants into the child welfare system. A pooled analysis using data from five states has shown that nearly 25 percent of first entries to foster care are infants (George, Wulczyn, & Harden, 1994). Although children may be placed in out-of-home care because of imminent risk of harm, many children entering foster care as infants have already suffered assaults to their development. Wulczyn (1994) compared infants entering foster care in New York City between 1984 and 1988 to other infants using both city and national statistics. He found that infants entering care were much more likely to be low birth weight and have late or no prenatal care than other infants, and that children in poor communities had the greatest risk of placement. The current study compares children who entered foster care as infants (n=26,460) to a random sample of all infants (n=68,401) born between 1989 and 1994 in California. Probability matching software was employed to link birth records to foster care administrative data files. Bivariate frequency tables and a multivariate logistic regression procedure were used to identify similarities and differences between placed and not-placed infants on the characteristics contained in the birth records. Infants in foster care were more likely than other infants to be born to unmarried mothers, be born to mothers who had not finished high school, weigh less than 2500 grams at birth, have had late or no prenatal care, and not be a mother's first born child. An interaction between a poverty indicator and maternal age suggested that infants entering foster care were more likely to be poor than other infants, particularly for those born to older mothers. While poor infants entering foster care were more likely than other infants to have older mothers, not poor infants were less likely to have older mothers. Children entering foster care were more likely than other infants to have African American mothers than White mothers, and less likely to have Hispanic mothers than White mothers. However, another interaction between ethnicity and mother's birthplace suggested that infants entering foster care were considerably less likely to be born to immigrant mothers (as opposed to native-born mothers), and that this difference was especially true for infants with Hispanic mothers. These findings indicate that entry into foster care during infancy is associated with many developmental risks. Children born to women who have little or no prenatal care and/or are born with low birth weight, particularly those who are poor, single women of color, are highly over-represented in the foster care caseload. Family size and nativity are also highly associated with foster care. It is important to understand the ways in which the abuse or neglect (including parental substance abuse) that precipitated removal are associated with these risks. Service delivery systems, both preventive and protective, should target programs toward the children and mothers who need them the most.
Model Fitting Information and Testing Global Null Hypothesis BETA=0 Intercept Intercept and Criterion Only Covariates Chi-Square for Covariates AIC 112306.82 68159.813 . SC 112316.28 68396.318 . -2 LOG L 112304.82 68109.813 44195.009 with 24 DF (p=0.0001) Score . . 39275.349 with 24 DF (p=0.0001) Association of Predicted Probabilities and Observed Responses Concordant = 89.1% Somers' D = 0.784 Discordant = 10.7% Gamma = 0.785 Tied = 0.2% Tau-a = 0.315 (1809890460 pairs) c = 0.892
Curtis, P. A., Boyd, J. D., Liepold, M. & Petit, M. (1995). Child abuse and neglect: A look at the States--The CWLA Stat Book. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America. Goerge, R. M., Wulczyn, F. H., & Harden, A. W. (1994). A report form the multistate foster care data archive: Foster care dynamics 1983-1992. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. Wulczyn, F. (1994). Status at birth and infant placements in Hew York City. In Barth, R. P., Berrick, J. D. & Gilbert, N. Child Welfare Research Review, Vol. 1. (pp. 146-184). New York: Columbia University Press. Hard copies are available
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