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Opportunities for Healing: Exploring Strategies to Improve Racial Disproportionalities & Disparities in Child Welfare

 

Research shows that due to substantial histories of abuse, neglect, and increased exposure to trauma, youth in foster care have exceptional concerns regarding their mental health needs. “Rates of psychiatric symptoms and disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and reactive attachment disorder, are much higher in children in foster care” (Lohr & Jones, 2016). When we couple this knowledge with data on racial disproportionality and disparities among Black/African American youth in foster care as well as overall access limitations to mental and behavioral health services for Black Americans, we can find opportunities to use this information to identify new avenues for overcoming the seemingly dismal outcomes the evidence suggests.  

While tackling such a dense and deeply conflated issue may seem like an overwhelmingly arduous battle, there are ways in which we all can contribute within our own spheres of control and expertise. As leaders in project management and design, one of the ways in which we at Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQi) have been working to decrease gaps related to racial disparities and disproportionality has been by bringing attention and awareness of the issue to our partners through data. Through analyzing local foster care populations data and comparing it to the general public, we plan to assist leaders in our various partnerships in identifying areas of disproportionality and support them through troubleshooting activities aimed at identifying and overcoming barriers that may be contributing to inequities.

When looking at ways to tackle racial disproportionality and disparity issues in child welfare, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau published an article in spring of 2021 emphasizes five areas of focus in addressing the issue. The outline includes strategies specific to each focus area which can be used as a springboard to assist organizations and their partners in developing and implementing their own approaches to tackle the issue.

Areas of focus include:

  1. Prevention Services—This includes examining the cultural relevancy and relatability of concrete supports, home visiting programs, and in-home services offered by agencies and their partners
  2. Reporting—This involves enhancing education and training offered to mandated reporters on topics such as racial bias and cultural practices specific to your area. This also includes providing clearer guidelines on report criteria that make clearer distinctions between neglect and poverty
  3. Screening & Assessment—This includes assessing how well the agency controls for biases and the cultural relevancy of instruments agencies use in their decision making like assessment tools. In addition to implementing practices such as predictive risk modeling, blind removal meetings, and differential response
  4. Culturally Specific & Responsive Services—This involves assessing the accessibility and availability of current services and materials (brochures, forms, etc.) offered to children and families with culturally diverse backgrounds, increasing staff education on historical/intergenerational trauma and its impact on wellbeing, as well as exploring culturally relevant engagement methods as Family-Group Decision Making (FGDM), parent partner, and cultural broker programs
  5. Permanency for Children in Out-of-Home Care—This includes implementing strategies that demonstrate promise in improving well-being and permanency outcomes for children of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds such as increasing focus on kinship placements, more deliberate efforts to increase diversity in foster family recruitment, and connecting parents to providers with a culturally responsive record to achieve permanence sooner

While there is still so much information out there to be explored, the reality is that there is also much to be done. Racial disparity and disproportionality are issues that if going to improve need attention from child welfare systems and their partners throughout the country. We at Benchmarks are proud to have partners from multiple spheres of this particularly important work who are interested in achieving equity and decreasing disparate outcomes for those at greatest risk.



References

  1. Lohr, W. D., & Jones, V. F. (2016). Mental Health Issues in Foster Care. Pediatric annals, 45(10), e342–e348. https://doi.org/10.3928/19382359-20160919-01
  2. Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2021). Child welfare practice to address racial disproportionality and disparity. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau. https://www.childwelfare.gov/p...l-disproportionality

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