Session: Child Mental Health Among Understudied Populations in the Child Welfare System (Society for Prevention Research 24th Annual Meeting)

Children in the child welfare system represent a particularly vulnerable population that are at high risk for adverse mental health outcomes. Furthermore, this system is characterized by the overrepresentation of children of color. This symposium leverages the wealth of data available in the second cohort of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) to examine the experiences of understudied children and families involved in the child welfare system. The three papers focus on distinct subgroups of families: (1) American Indian/Alaska Native families, (2) families in which the father is the primary caregiver, and (3) families with neglect.

The NSCAW II is a landmark epidemiological study that follows children and families investigated for maltreatment over three years. It uses a fixed panel design with three waves of data collection and has a stratified two-stage sample.  The primary sampling units (PSUs) are predominantly county child welfare agencies and the secondary sampling units are children (and their families) chosen from a list of completed investigations at the sampled agencies.

Results from the three papers demonstrate that, regardless of the population under study, parental characteristics, such as substance abuse, mental health and family violence, and parenting behaviors have a robust effect on children’s mental health.  Efforts to promote health/mental health equality among these groups may require adaptations to existing prevention and treatment interventions. Furthermore findings suggest the need for a public health approach to prevention that reaches underserved populations.