Litigation's Longitudinal Impact on Child Welfare Budgets and Child Outcomes
Child welfare systems across the United States have been criticized for the negative experiences of children in their care, thus, leading to class action litigation against state systems. Scant research has been conducted on the impact of litigation on child welfare systems and child and family outcomes. This study answers the question: Do states that have undergone comprehensive class action litigation differ from states that have not experienced comprehensive class action litigation on trends in state child welfare budget and key child outcomes?
Methods
This exploratory study compared the relationship between litigation and child outcomes over time in all states in the United States that have undergone comprehensive class action litigation to those that have not. Child outcome data was obtained from the Child Maltreatment Reports, 2000-2012. Additionally, the study examined the longitudinal relationship of the state child welfare budget, child outcomes, and timing of the case in the only states that have concluded litigation for at least 4 years (Alabama, New Mexico, Kansas, Utah). This selection criterion was chosen to identify what happens to budgets and child outcomes during and post litigation. State level budget data was obtained from Child Trends biennially from 1996-2008. Child outcome measures examined include rates of reunification, maltreatment recurrence, re-entry after reunification, and children in each state entering the foster system.
Results
Litigation states appear to do better than non-litigation states on the re-entry after reunification measure. The rate of children served in litigation states was steady and was less on average than non-litigation states. Litigation states initially had higher rates of reunification; however, showed a steady trend downward eventually becoming lower than non-litigation states. Non-litigation states began with lower rates of reunification and had no clear trend of increasing or decreasing.
Child welfare budgets in the four states examined had varying trends. In all cases, the child welfare budget increased dramatically during the course of the case. In three cases the state contribution to the child welfare budget dropped dramatically once the case closed. This did not occur in Kansas due to the implementation of privatization.
Conclusions and Implications
In the states included as case studies, litigation appears to have a lasting impact on decreasing maltreatment recurrence (Alabama, Kansas, Utah), decreasing foster care re-entry (New Mexico and Utah), and decreasing the number of children served (Utah). None of the states showed a lasting increase in reunification; in fact, Utah, Alabama and New Mexico all have decreased reunification rates.
There may be a relationship between decreased reunification rates and decreased maltreatment recurrence. Logically, it follows that when fewer children are reunited with their parents, there is less chance for maltreatment recurrence. Decreased reunification rates indicate that some of the budget sensitive institutional changes addressing increased services to parents created by litigation were not sustained. It is also possible that these services to families could not compete with the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act passed in in 1997 which was aimed at increasing permanency measures through increased adoption.