Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Services for Homeless Persons

Dynamics of Child Welfare Service Use among Children in Homeless Families

Purpose: Research has shown that a disproportionate amount of the homeless population has a history of child welfare services use. Most of this research has focused on adverse childhood experiences of current homeless adults; little is known about the extent to which homeless children are involved with the child welfare system. This study follows children who stayed in the homeless shelter system and examines the prevalence and dynamics of their use of child welfare services.

Method: A longitudinal analysis was conducted using administrative data for 10,118 children who entered the Philadelphia homeless shelter system for the first time between 1995-2001. Each individual in the study group was tracked in the child welfare system prior and subsequent to their initial episode of homelessness. Descriptive analyses were conducted to report the prevalence of child welfare system involvement in the study group and the sequencing of homelessness and child welfare service use. Survival analysis was applied to examine the impact of selected variables on the risk for child welfare involvement.

Results: The results show that over 45% of the children in homeless families were ever placed in out-of-home care or received non-placement preventive services. With respect to type of services, approximately 25% of the study group experienced out-of-home placement through the child welfare system and 20% received protective services without out-of-home placement. Of those placed in out-of-home care, 63% were placed after their initial episode of homelessness, while the rest, 37%, did so before experiencing homelessness. Homeless shelter utilization, reasons of homelessness, number of children in a household, and children’s age appeared to be associated with an increased risk for receiving child welfare services among homeless children.

Implications: These findings suggest that substantial numbers of homeless children are also involved with the child welfare system, and that it may be beneficial to integrate these services and target homeless children who are identified as being at high risk for child welfare involvement. This may include implementing transitional or permanent supportive housing programs for such at risk families as a means to facilitate more stable housing and more effective family functioning.

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