Predicting Reentry and Juvenile Services Involvement for Children Exiting the Child Welfare System

Purpose: Concerns about re-entry rates of children in foster care (child welfare recidivism) have been a continuous subject of discussions at all levels of child welfare practice and research for over three decades. Child welfare recidivism can be conceptualized as the re-placement of children back into the child welfare system or the movement of children into a different child serving system, such as Juvenile Services after they had been returned home. Either of these represent an additional trauma faced by children and families which might have been avoided during the initial out-of-home episode. Using linked state level administrative we examine the predictors for child welfare recidivism for youth exiting the child welfare system.

Method: All analyses are based on children, ages 7 to 16 at exit, who exited state supervised out-of-home care between July 1, 2009 through June 30, 2013. Children younger than 7 are not at risk of entry into the juvenile service system and are therefore not included. These data include demographics (i.e., gender, race, dates of birth), placement information (i.e., type and dates of placements), and other information regarding children’s child welfare histories (e.g., whether child behavior was a factor at removal) along with children’s juvenile justice history (e.g. juvenile justice experience prior to removal). Children were followed for three years post-reunification to find any instances of reentry into the child welfare system or movement into the juvenile justice system. Analyses examine reentries into the child welfare system alone or into the child welfare system or the juvenile justice system.

Results/Conclusions: Data analytics suggested that there were ten significant predictors of recidivism in the analyses and that some of these predictors could be combined into a cumulative risk index. The strongest predictors for the child welfare only analysis included: having siblings in care; ever placed in residential care and having a court ordered return home against agency recommendation. The strongest predictors for the child welfare/juvenile justice analysis included: having prior juvenile justice complaint; having siblings in care; and having a court ordered return home against agency recommendation. Results show it is possible to identify groups with high likelihood of child welfare recidivism using linked administrative data. The use of a cumulative risk index allows systems to identify a group of youth with extremely high likelihood of future child serving systems involvement (over 50% of youth identified with 5 or more risks became re-involved through either child welfare or juvenile services). These results will allow states to effectively target intervention dollars to high need populations in a time of fiscal challenge.