Child welfare involvement and contexts of poverty: The role of parental adversities, social networks, and social services

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.10.011Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Poor parents highlighted contexts of poverty that led to child welfare involvement.

  • Parents commonly cited adversities such as substance abuse and domestic violence.

  • Disadvantaged and fractured social networks provided opportunities for involvement.

  • Reliance on social services also brought parents into the child welfare system.

Abstract

Research documents a link between poverty and child welfare involvement, but the nature of this relationship is unclear. By providing in-depth accounts of situations leading to child welfare involvement, parents' perspectives can enrich our understanding of how poverty matters for child welfare involvement. Based on in-depth interviews with 40 poor parents previously investigated for child maltreatment, I discuss contexts of poverty that provided pathways to child welfare involvement. Poverty created environments of desperation and disadvantage, combined with reliance on supports that reported parents to child welfare agencies. The vast majority of incidents parents described implicated in their involvement parental adversities related to poverty; embeddedness in disadvantaged networks or volatile personal relationships; and/or involvement in, or need for, social services. These findings suggest a research approach that interrogates this complexity and maltreatment prevention policies that broadly strengthen supports for families and communities.

Introduction

State child welfare agencies receive reports of abuse or neglect of over six million children each year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2015. These agencies are charged with investigating the reports and intervening to protect children as needed, either by providing services to families in the home, or arranging for children's care outside the home. This intervention into the lives of American families is not distributed evenly, with children from poor families and communities having an increased risk of involvement (Drake and Pandey, 1996, Lee and Goerge, 1999, Lindsey, 1991, Putnam-Hornstein and Needell, 2011). For example, in a recent California birth cohort, children eligible for the state Medicaid program were more than twice as likely to be reported for possible maltreatment by age 5, compared with those not eligible, and children born to mothers with a high school education or less were more than six times more likely to be reported by age 5, compared with children born to mothers with a college degree (Putnam-Hornstein & Needell, 2011). Understanding the role of poverty in child welfare involvement is critical to develop and support more effective interventions to protect children and strengthen families.

Despite increasing research on the relationship between poverty and child maltreatment, we know little about how poor parents actually get drawn into the child welfare system. Analyzing poor parents' accounts of the situations leading to child welfare investigations can provide insight into how poverty matters for child welfare involvement. In this article, I draw on 40 qualitative interviews with poor parents in Providence, Rhode Island, previously investigated for child maltreatment, to consider the specific situations, as described by parents, giving rise to child welfare investigations. This micro-level, situational analysis, while acknowledging the role of individual agency and behavior, reveals contexts of poverty that provide opportunities for child welfare involvement, from related adversities to the dynamics of social network and social service provider interactions. These findings suggest a research approach that interrogates these contexts and maltreatment prevention policies that broadly strengthen supports for families and communities.

Section snippets

Poverty and child welfare involvement

Children from poor families and communities are highly overrepresented in the child welfare system (Lee and Goerge, 1999, Lindsey, 1991). Researchers have advanced multiple theories to explain how poverty increases the likelihood that a family will be involved with the child welfare system. Evidence suggests a causal relationship (Cancian, Yang, & Slack, 2013), although empirical support for theorized mechanisms is mixed, calling for additional inquiry into this relationship.

Data collection

This study draws on qualitative interviews with 40 poor, child welfare-investigated parents in Providence, Rhode Island. These respondents are a subsample of a larger interview study of 63 poor parents in Providence interviewed between January and June 20151; I focus here only on respondents who reported being investigated by the child welfare

Results

To probe the relationship between poverty and child welfare involvement as interpreted by poor parents, I analyzed 107 incidents that respondents reported led to a child welfare investigation. Although parents rarely implicated financial constraints directly in their descriptions of how they became involved, an inductive analysis highlighted contexts of poverty that provided opportunities for child welfare involvement. A substantial proportion of these incidents implicated specific parental

Discussion and conclusion

Examining specific situations highlights contexts of poverty, over and above low income, that matter for child welfare involvement. Low income is often one of multiple adversities poor parents face. Disadvantages cluster, accumulating over the life course and intergenerationally (Desmond, 2015, Sharkey, 2008). Many respondents traced their child welfare involvement not to poverty directly, but to related adversities: substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, and criminal justice. Yet

Acknowledgments

I thank Devah Pager, Kristen Slack, Lawrence Berger, Monica Bell, Catherine Sirois, and Julie Wilson for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This research was supported by the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (grant number DGE 1144152).

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