Judith Wildfire

A Comparison of the Governmental Costs of Long‐Term Foster Care and Adoption

Child welfare policy and practice have increased their focus on adoption for those children who cannot rapidly be reunified from foster care. The burgeoning numbers of children receiving adoption subsidies have led some states to be concerned about or even to curtail adoption subsidy levels. Yet, little is known about how the cost of foster care compares to that of adoption. This study uses longitudinal adoption subsidy and foster care placement data to estimate the relative costs of foster care and adoption for a statistically matched group of children. The data show that a sizable proportion of children who are not adopted will leave foster care but that an offsetting proportion of the children who remain will be transitioned to substantially more expensive placements than those used by adopted children. On balance, adoption achieves substantial governmental savings.

Child Welfare Performance Ratings

Abstract The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 mandated the development of a system to rate the performance of state child welfare systems. A few states are developing performance measurement systems that move quality assurance beyond issues of procedural compliance and into the area of outcomes. This article describes some important features of such a system: first, it should track the experience of every child who is reported for abuse or neglect; second, performance data should be presented in a context that achieves something closer to true evaluation; and third, local self-evaluation teams representing diverse perspectives should interpret performance data.

The Association of Team Composition and Meeting Characteristics With Foster Care Placement Recommendations

ABSTRACT Research shows that changing foster care placements is associated with negative outcomes for children. This study examines the extent to which Team Decision Making (TDM) can influence placement recommendations for children currently in foster care. Using administrative data from three sites, logistic regression models are fitted to estimate the association of team and meeting characteristics with placement recommendations. Controlling for demographic differences across sites, results show that caregiver attendance significantly reduces the likelihood that a child will be recommended to change placements, specifically, to less restrictive and more restrictive placements. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Adoption Subsidy Dynamics: Explorations in the Analysis of State Administrative Data

ABSTRACT Adoptions subsidies represent a growing portion of federal, state, and local expenditures for child welfare services. Almost no previous analysis has been done with state level adoption subsidy data. This paper reports on analyses of subsidy data from North Carolina and California. These analyses indicate the significantly different way that subsidies are used in each state. In California, subsidies change markedly because they are used to purchase post-adoption services. In North Carolina, most post-adoption services are paid for through vendor payments. In California, the likelihood of subsidy increases are associated with family income, in unexpected ways. Common findings across states are that few families that begin to receive a subsidy will generally continue to receiving them until the child ages out of the program. Implications for policy and research are forwarded.