Exploring the Impact of Geographic Instability of Children in Foster Care Using Geographic Methods

Background and Purpose: Child welfare intervention includes an inherently spatial element, such as in terms of removing children from their families and placing them in foster homes. By keeping a child in a stable housing environment  it reduces their  emotional and behavioral problems, criminal conviction, and dropout rates (Batsche & Reader, 2012).  There has been growing attention to spatial issues in child welfare, yet the use of appropriate geographic methods may be limited (Kemp, 2011).  Geographic methods, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), can be a useful tool that assists child welfare workers in ensuring placement stability by determining access to services, distance between placements, and socioeconomic indicators across neighborhoods.  The use of GIS has been widely adapted in public health, justice, and other fields to improve the delivery of services by enhancing the knowledge of community and resources.   This paper examines the use of GIS and geographic methods in child welfare and proposes that the effective use of geographic methods could help reduce placement instability for children involved in the child welfare system

Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted from June 2014 to January 2016  to explore the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other geographic methods in child welfare research.  Database searches included PubMed, JSTOR, GeoBase and EBSCOhost. 40 articles have been identified that support the use of using GIS to enhance child welfare.  Exploring the use of geography, health, and child welfare through a diverse search of databases was needed to find the intersection of the two disciplines.  Articles that were included contained the terms geographic information systems, access to health services, child welfare, and placement.  

Findings: The use of geographic information systems (GIS) is limited in child welfare and the broader umbrella of social work. The current literature in child welfare provides a superficial use of geographic methods without taking into account geographic principles. Thus, the current literature falls short of understanding the extent to which understanding the geography of the community could be used as a mapping tool to guide decision making, improve placement outcomes, and understand accessibility to services.  There is a need to utilize geographic methods, beyond GIS, to enhance the understanding the geography in child welfare. 

Conclusion and Implications: There is a need for geographic research to explain how geography impacts a child within the child welfare system.  More research is needed in child welfare that includes the use of geographic methods, such as access delivery models and space time distance matrixes.  Implementing geographic practices to determine the best placement for children will strengthen organizational operations and systems; improve capacity to place children in family environments; and improve the knowledge of the availability of services, thereby improving placement stability.