Publications on Child Welfare

The Urban Institute partnered with local research organizations in three sites to learn more about children of incarcerated parents through the merging and analysis of local and state level criminal justice and human services data. The purpose of the project was to better understand the experiences and needs of children of incarcerated parents in each locality and to explore the involvement of affected families with the criminal justice, child welfare, and social welfare systems. This report presents findings from the sites and lessons learned regarding the merging and analysis of administrative data on this population.

The increasing recognition of the importance of marriage for the social and economic well-being of children has led to demonstrations aimed at strengthening and stimulating healthy marriages. The next step is to ensure that factors closely linked with healthy marriages are addressed as well. This paper brings together research findings and policy ideas about the interactions between marriage, employment, and family functioning. It presents a framework and proposes several demonstrations aimed at improving employment and family outcomes for disadvantaged populations. The appendix reviews an extensive body of research on specific linkages between marriage, employment, and family functioning.

This study examines employment outcomes for youth who age out of foster care through their middle twenties in three states: California, Minnesota, and North Carolina. The study linked child welfare, Unemployment Insurance (UI), and public assistance administrative data to assess outcomes. Results suggest that youth who age out of foster care continue to experience poor employment outcomes at age 24 and generally follow one of four employment trajectories as they transition to adulthood.

This study follows-up on a prior study of child welfare agencies' efforts to identify, locate, and involve nonresident fathers of children in foster care. These analyses use information from the original survey and administrative data on case outcomes to explore three research questions: (1) Is nonresident father involvement associated with case length? (2) Is nonresident father involvement associated with foster care discharge outcomes? and (3) Is nonresident father involvement associated with subsequent child maltreatment allegations? The study finds that having an involved father is associated with shorter case length and a greater likelihood of reunification. Future research is needed to better understand the nature of nonresident fathers' involvement.

The Moving to Opportunity program targeted families living in some of the nation's poorest, highest-crime neighborhoods and offered them a chance to move to lower poverty areas. One hope was that, away from concentrated poverty and the risks associated with it–including poor physical and mental health, risky sexual behavior and delinquency–families would fare better. This brief examines how adolescent girls benefited from moving out of high poverty and discusses why girls might have fared so much better than boys.