Understanding Foster Care Reentry: Assessing Differences in Reentry Across Permanency Types

Background: When a child achieves ‘permanency’ following an out-of-home placement this, ideally, signals an end to child welfare involvement. However, reentry is a reality for many children and the published reentry rates are likely an underestimate, as they only require tracking reentry 12-months post-permanency. Reentry into foster care is a serious problem both due to the resource strain on the child welfare system and the additional trauma faced by children who likely re-experience abuse/neglect.  Most current research looks at reentry of children through reunification. The present study expands upon this research by looking at reentry across common permanency types and over a longer period of time (18 months).  

Method: A cohort of 11,579 children who achieved permanency through reunification, guardianship with kin, and guardianship with non-kin between 2009 and 2013 in a single Northeastern state is examined. Survival analysis is used to analyze the odds of children experiencing reentry over time. The event of interest is reentry of a child into the foster care system during the 18-month observation period.

Analysis: A Kaplan-Meir survival analysis was conducted to assess the bivariate relationship between permanency type and reentry. Multivariate analysis was conducted using a Cox regression survival analysis and included child demographics, post permanency characteristics, and the child’s cumulative risk.

Results: Overall, 14.8% (n=1,294) of the sample reentered the foster care system within 18-months of achieving permanency with an average time of reentry of 6.25 months.  The chi-square test of equality of distributions for permanency type was significant (x²₍₃₎=275.687, p<.001) indicating differences between the survival functions of one or more of the permanency types and pairwise comparisons confirmed statistically significant differences between all permanency types. The final model found when taking into account demographics, services, and cumulative risk, rates of reentry across most permanency types differed. Compared to children achieving reunification children achieving permanency through guardianship with kin, had a significant difference in the rate of reentry (Exp(B)=.505, p<=.001, 95%CI: .432, .590), but not for the those achieving guardianship with non-kin (p=.361). The rate of reentry for guardianship with kin was about 50% lower than those that reunified. The largest effect was found when children are reunified against the agencies recommendations, reentry was over two times higher for those reunified against recommendations (Exp(B)= 0.848, p<=.001, 95%CI: 1.763, 2.616), when controlling for demographics, post-permanency services, and risk. In the final model being male, each year increase in age, services post reunification, and lower cumulative risk decreased the probability of reentry.

Conclusions and Implications: The higher overall rate of reentry compared to current national statistics indicates a need to track reentry rates for longer than a 12-month period to understand the true scope of the problem. Reentry was not equal across permanency type and highlights a need to develop services targeted at specific populations. Additionally, further exploration of children reunified against agency recommendations and how to prevent frequent disruption in the lives of this population of children is needed.