Annotated Bibliography 2
Annotated Bibliography
Choi, K. R., Stewart, T., Fein, E., McCreary, M., Kenan, K. N., Davies, J. D., Naureckas, S., &
Zima, B. T. (2020). The Impact of Attachment-Disrupting Adverse Childhood
Experiences on Child Behavioral Health. The Journal of Pediatrics, 221, 224–229.
https://10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.03.006
The study provides an account of the sorts of adverse childhood experiences that occur in
households and communities overall and within the vulnerable neighborhoods in which
the children live. The objective was to discern the patterns of ACEs experienced by the
257 children who were seen in the two clinics and to determine what sorts of ACEs were
predictive of the children needing mental healthcare services and what individual ACEs
stood out as particularly predictive. The children were from families seeking primary care
and were between the ages of 3 and 16.
Dettlaff, A. J., & Boyd, R. (2021). Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in the Child Welfare
System: Why Do They Exist, and What Can Be Done to Address Them?
Https://Doi.Org/10.1177/0002716220980329, 692(1), 253–274.
There are too many kids of color caught up in the child welfare system. Even more
disturbing, the kids who are most affected by all of this are Black. Why is this
happening? Several forces appear to be at work. For one, an old bias that's never fully
been overcome definitely plays a role. Those who are or have been part of the child
welfare system haven't always seen people of color as good parents. Not everyone
associated with child welfare has this bias, of course. But those who've had a bad
experience with a parent of color tend to remember it. So external and internal bias
appear to be part of the problem and do play a very harmful role. To make this issue
Annotated Bibliography 3
much, much better, we need to eliminate bias, as well as parental separation, from the
equation.
Eva, A. S., Tuitt, I., Hill, D., Midgley, N., & Sleed, M. (2021). No typical care story: How do
care-experienced young people and foster carers understand fostering relationships?
Adoption & Fostering, 45(3), 248–264. https://10.1177/03085759211037156
This research aims to glean insights about the foster care experience for young people.
Prior work has been mostly about the young people who are not in a caring or family-like
setting until they meet social work professionals. We were told that social workers have
to do a great deal of "relationship repair" because the children they work with have had
"trust" issues and other challenges that don't lead to appearances of social worker-friendly
diligence. So, if these young people are having "relationship" challenges with their case
workers, then should we be surprised that they don't talk about their lived experiences in
a favorable light?
Font, S. A., & Gershoff, E. T. (2020). Foster care and best interests of the child : integrating
research, policy, and practice., 103.
This report looks at the U.S. foster care system, trying to get at its core, to understand
why it does what it does, why it functions as it does, and what it might look like if it
functioned more closely to the ideal we would all hope for. It defines and evaluates the
main problems in the foster care system that compromise the safety and well-being of
children. It highlights the main competing values and priorities that create a kind of tug-
of-war within the system, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using foster
care to achieve the aims of the system. The report also looks at the yardsticks by which
the federal government evaluates the states that run the foster care systems. Finally, it
Annotated Bibliography 4
offers a number of recommendations for turning a system that's kind of "not bad but
could be a whole lot better" into one that is really good.
Gupta-Kagan, J.America's Hidden Foster Care System.
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarshiphttps://
scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3588
Protective agencies sometimes compel families to give up custody of their children, but
they do this in several steps, starting with sending a deputy sheriff to the home and
ending, if the family does not then comply, with taking the child and the promise that the
case will go to court. This happens in tens of thousands of cases every year. In many
respects, it resembles the formal foster care system but is hidden from courts and
policymakers. State agencies dodge federal laws that require them to reunite parents and
children, to carry out background checks and home studies before placing children with
relatives, and to pay relatives who take in children foster care maintenance payments.
The child protection funding system and recent federal financing reforms encourage this
trend by giving agencies more ways to hide the kids and less incentive to keep the kids in
the light. Hiding the kids during a custody dispute isn't right, and giving agencies the
incentive to do it isn't right, either. If we're going to fix the problem, we must identify it
first. Reporting is the first step toward fixing.
Jedwab, M., Xu, Y., & Shaw, T. V. (2020). Kinship care first? Factors associated with placement
moves in out-of-home care. Children and Youth Services Review, 115, 105104.
https://10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105104
This study inspects the reasons behind decisions made regarding a child's placement and
the movements of children already placed when those children are in kinship care.
Annotated Bibliography 5
Kinship care is the highest level of out-of-home placements for children in the child
welfare system. The authors of the study followed a large number of children—3,838—
over a lengthy period of time—three years. They looked at a number of "risk" factors—
such as race, impacts of parental substance abuse, problems of various kinds exhibited by
children, and impairments, among others—that might be associated with placement
decisions and movements of children already placed. They found that certain factors
(African American race, parental substance abuse) did correlate with placement
decisions. They found that parental characteristics were primarily behind the movements
of children already placed. The movements of already placed children were examined in
detail because the authors consider this to be a significant problem in child welfare.
Kelly, C., Thornton, A., Anthony, E. K., & Krysik, J. (2021). “Love. Stability. Boundaries.”
Kinship perspectives of social-emotional well-being of youth residing in out-of-home
care. Children and Youth Services Review, 127, 106097.
https://10.1016/J.CHILDYOUTH.2021.106097
This research delves into the well-being of youth living in residential care in the United
States. Even though youth placed in congregate care have been historically pathologized,
the authors argue that understanding social and emotional well-being requires looking
beyond individual and family dynamics to consider the larger ecological context and,
particularly, the role of non-parental adults in their lives. They interviewed 20 non-
parental adults to understand the well-being of youth from their vantage point. Their
findings suggest that not only are academic achievement, caregiver relationships, and
interpersonal relationships important for youth’s social and emotional well-being, but
also that having a stable and supportive environment makes all the difference.
Annotated Bibliography 6
Rogowski, S. (2024). Critical social work with children and families : theory, context and
practice., 240.
Critical social work (CSW) is an emancipatory practice with a clear focus on addressing
social injustice. In this text, the author, a social worker with almost 40 years of
experience, reflects on CSW as it pertains to the core social work practice area of
children and families. It is an accessible text, not least because the core practitioner areas
the author writes about are ones that many social workers—the author included—have
practiced in for decades. It is a timely book in that it has been fully updated to address the
many impacts and ripple effects these have had on social work and our clients: austerity,
Brexit, the pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis.
Sprecher, E. A., Tuitt, I., Hill, D., Midgley, N., & Sleed, M. (2021). No typical care story: How
do care-experienced young people and foster carers understand fostering relationships?
Adoption & Fostering, 45(3), 248–264. https://10.1177/03085759211037156
The lived experience of foster care can inform social work practice and policy. But not a
lot of research has been done in this area. We have done this research and present the
findings here. Our research is qualitative in nature and aims to get at the essence of the
experience of individuals. To achieve this, we placed in-depth interviews with eight
young people and nine foster carers at the very core of our study. To analyze these
interviews, we did not look for superficial themes, but rather looked at what these
interviews could tell us about the experience of fostering. Also, we had two very capable
individuals help us with the analysis. One person had experience being a foster child, and
the other is an experienced foster carer.
Testa, M. F., & Kelly, D. (2021). The Evolution of Federal Child Welfare Policy through the
Annotated Bibliography 7
Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018: Opportunities, Barriers, and Unintended
Consequences. Https://Doi.Org/10.1177/0002716220976528, 692(1), 68–96.
A chance to fund interventions that are effective
The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 gives child welfare agencies a new
opportunity to fund interventions that have some scientific basis for believing they would
work (and that might during some periods and for some families in some settings) to stop
removals into foster care and to help those in foster care have a more family-like
experience. In a way, this law, which has been a long time coming, now gives critics and
supporters of the child welfare system something to discuss. Critics have long pointed out
that family-type placements are better (and more like what most people would want) than
traditional treatment facilities, so why don’t we do that? Well, now we have a chance.
