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1. Introduction

1.1 Background of NSCAW

To better understand what happens to the children and families who come in contact with the child welfare system, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has undertaken the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW). In 1996 in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,2 Congress directed the Secretary of HHS to conduct a national study of children who are at risk of abuse or neglect or are in the child welfare system. Congress mandated that the study do the following:

  • include a longitudinal component that follows cases for a period of several years;

  • collect data on the types of abuse or neglect involved, agency contacts and services, and out-of-home placements; and

  • yield reliable state-level data for as many states as feasible.

The first national longitudinal study of its kind, NSCAW examines the characteristics, needs, experiences, and outcomes for these children and families. This study also provides information about crucial program, policy, and practice issues of concern to the Federal government, state and local governments, and child-welfare agencies. NSCAW makes available for the first time nationally representative longitudinal data drawn from first-hand reports from children and families or other caregivers, as well as from service providers. Moreover, NSCAW is the first national study that examines child and family well-being outcomes in detail and seeks to relate those outcomes to the subjects’ experience with the child welfare system.

The NSCAW cohort includes 6,231 children, ages birth to 15 (at the time of sampling), who had contact with the child welfare system within a fifteen-month period that began in October, 1999. These children were selected from two groups: 5,504 interviewed from those entering the system during the reference period (October 1999 - December 2000), and 727 from among children who had been in out-of-home placement for about 12 months at the time of sampling. These 6,231 children were selected from 92 Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) in 97 counties nationwide.

Both children who remain in the system and those who leave the system will be followed for the full study period. The current overall study design provides for

  • baseline face-to-face interviews or assessments with children, their parents or other permanent caregivers, nonparent adult caregivers (e.g., foster parents and custodial kin caregivers) if applicable, teachers (for school-aged children), and child welfare investigators;

  • interim interviews at 12 months after the close of the investigation or assessment focused on the services received since the baseline interview. With the current caregiver, these interviews are primarily conducted by telephone, although families that cannot be contacted by phone are interviewed in person. The interview includes a brief child well-being measure. This round also includes interviews with the child welfare worker providing services, conducted in person; and

  • face-to-face interviews or assessments with children, their parents or other permanent caregivers, nonparent adult caregivers (e.g., foster parents and custodial kin caregivers) if applicable, teachers (for school-aged children), and child welfare workers at 18 months (Wave 3) and at 36 months (Wave 4) after the close of the investigation or assessment.

1.2 Overview of the One Year in Foster Care (OYFC) Study

Special concerns of Congress included the length of time that children spend in foster care and other out-of-home care (OOHC) settings, as well as how children fare developmentally during these experiences. For these reasons, an additional 727 child and family participants at baseline supplement the 5,504 children entering NSCAW through Children’s Protective Services (CPS) investigations or assessments. The One Year in Foster Care (OYFC) component of the NSCAW study is intended to identify important processes and outcomes involved in the provision and experience of out-of-home care, which includes conventional foster care, kinship foster care, group care, residential treatment, and other settings.

The OYFC component focuses on children who were in out-of-home care for approximately 12 months at the time of sampling. This choice of focus stems primarily from an analysis of foster care data collected in other studies, showing that the vast majority of children who have been in OOHC for 12 months remain in placement for stays of three years or more (e.g., Wulczyn, Harden, & Goerge, 1997). By focusing on a 12-month period, NSCAW enrolled children in the sample who likely will continue in OOHC for a lengthy stay and began studying them early in their placement history. This group is of substantial interest at this time because Federal child welfare law3 calls for a decision to be made about the permanent plan (i.e., reunification, adoption, guardianship) for children in foster care and discourages stays beyond one year without “compelling reasons.”

1.3 NSCAW Reports and Data Access

This report provides the first national look at the characteristics of this “one year in foster care” sample component based on the individual case-level data from NSCAW and seeks to identify key findings from these baseline data. The report is not intended to be comprehensive in scope, but rather focuses on the following key questions:

  • Who are the children in foster care one year after entry?

This report begins with a description of the children’s demographic characteristics, which were compared across types of out-of-home placements. An in-depth description of the types of abuse suffered by the children, subtypes of abuse, the severity and duration of abuse, and the relationship between the severity and duration of abuse and developmental measures follows the description of demographic characteristics. We also assess measures of the children’s social and behavioral characteristics, including analyses of cognitive development and behavior problems. Analyses were also conducted to compare OYFC children with the general population in terms of cognitive capacities, language development, and academic achievement.

  • Who are the current caregivers?

This report examines the demographic characteristics of the children’s current caregivers, including their age, race, marital status, education level, employment status, length of experience as a foster parent, and mental and physical health status. Comparisons are made between kinship and non-kinship caregivers.

  • What kind of home environment do these children live in?

Many analyses in this report assess aspects of the environment in which the children are living, such as the number of household members, how household size varies by type of out-of-home placement, punitiveness of the caregivers, and the physical environment, including the safety, cleanliness, and warmth of the home. We also examine child-level effects of the environment such as cognitive stimulation, emotional support for the children, and the children’s exposure to violence, including estimates of how frequently the children are exposed to violence and the severity of the events that they have witnessed.

  • Who are the child welfare workers?

We provide basic demographic characteristics—age, race, education level, and relationships between child and child welfare worker characteristics—of the child welfare workers assigned to these children.

  • What risk factors existed, and what services did children and their permanent primary caregivers receive?

This report explores which types of social and health services children and their permanent primary caregivers receive, including information on children’s health problems, the medical and mental health services children have received, and the types of social and substance abuse services to which caregivers have been referred and have actually received.

  • What are children’s experiences in out-of-home care and their expectations for the future?

Information on the children’s experiences in out-of-home care and their expectations for the future includes discussion of the children’s feelings about where they live and go to school.

  • To what extent are reunification plans in place?

In addition to estimates of how many children have current reunification plans, we examine whether reunification plans have ever been made. Child’s age, race, out-of-home placement type and abuse type were tested to find any correlation with having a reunification plan.

  • How are agency and county characteristics related to service delivery?

The report examines several child and family attributes from the perspective of four system-level characteristics: administration of the child welfare agency, size, urbanicity, and poverty level.

Because this report is the first utilizing NSCAW child and family data, the data collection and analytical methods and measures are thoroughly detailed. Further analyses can be generated from these data, which are available to the research community in the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) at Cornell University.4 Two previous NSCAW reports (June 2001) looked at state- and county-level child welfare services characteristics and can be found on the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/nscaw/index.html

1.4 Organization of the Report

This report is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 2 provides a general overview of the NSCAW survey design and data sources, with a particular emphasis on the OYFC component. The chapter also addresses response rates and potential sample bias.

Chapters 3 through 5 examine the characteristics of the children and families in the OYFC component of NSCAW. Of the eight main research questions above, these chapters focus on the characteristics of the children, the children’s current caregivers, and the environment in which these children live.

Chapter 6 addresses the services children and their current caregivers receive, children’s experiences in out-of-home care, reunification plans, characteristics of child welfare workers, and the relationship between agency and PSU characteristics.

Finally, Chapter 7 provides a summary of the findings and offers possible lessons for policy and practice that may be drawn from the OYFC baseline data and analysis.



2Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Sec. 429A, National Random Sample Study of Child Welfare (PL No. 104-193). (back)

3Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Sec. 429A, National Random Sample Study of Child Welfare (PL No. 104-193). (back)

4NSCAW baseline data are available as of January 2002. (back)

 

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