This post was written by Salma Barkad
Children and Youth Services- addressing racial disproportionality in child welfare
This article talked about the disproportionate number of families served in child welfare are of families of color. But relatively few strategies for helping families of color have been monitored for their impact. This article reports early findings from a Los Angeles County based public child welfare office that has continuously developed, tracked, and has now begun to assess strategies supporting preservation and reunification of families of color. I learned that disproportionality has been related to a number of issues that control and all have numerous impacts. According to the article, these issues include parent, family, community, and organizational as well as the systematic issues. In the family risk impact the article stated “overrepresentation exists because of a disproportionate need that exists. One in which families of color are more likely to face risk factors that include unemployment, underemployment, substance abuse, health problems and many others. Unless these risk factors are reduced, the overrepresentation of children of color can be expected to continue.” This was very interesting quote and I am little surprised, how they never mentioned about the historical trauma of people of colored, specially the African American community. This community receives more examination from public agencies and less access to utilizing services that best fit best in their daily lives.
The strength of this article is that it encourages additional community discussions around the importance of racial inequality. It is imperative to include more African-American families in additional research to ensure that the group that is overly represented in the Child Welfare system are benefiting from the work and clearly identify what those benefits are. The strategy, which uses specialized four person case management teams, was evaluated through the use of a comparison group. Public agency data revealed that families served by the team, compared with families served through customary agency services, had improved outcomes, including a higher percentage of cases closed with the child remaining in the home, and greater permanency exits from foster care. Additionally the data revealed that the case management team developed to mitigate disproportionality among African-American families also improved outcomes for Hispanic/Latino families.
References:
1. Annie E. Casey Foundation, “National kids count program child population by race (percent) — 2009”, Retrieved from, 2010,
2. Appell, A.R., “Bad mothers and Spanish-speaking caregivers”, Nevada Law Review, vol. 7, 3, 2007, p.101-123
3. Ards, S.& Harrell, A., “Reporting of child maltreatment: A secondary analysis of the national incidence surveys”, Child Abuse & Neglect, vol. 17, 3, 1993, p.337-344
4. Barth, R., “Child welfare and race: Models of disproportionality”, Derezotes, D. et al. (Eds.), Race matters in child welfare. The overrepresentation of African American children in the system, 2005, p.25-46