Towards an Effective Model of Working with Immigrants Who Are Child Welfare Involved: Promoting Innovative Collaborations and Systems Involvement during a Public Health Crisis

Background and Purpose:

The COVID-19 pandemic had notable impacts on child welfare systems and their ability to serve families. For immigrant families who touch the child welfare system, pandemic-related challenges were levied on top of existing immigration-related stressors and barriers. COVID-19 also impacted the ability of community providers to serve clients, including immigrant families. In the child welfare context, in-person parent-child visits were shifted to virtual; case-worker visits were limited; court closures led to delayed proceedings and permanency; reunifications were delayed, and more. While some research has explored the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable immigrant families, this study examined how child welfare and community-based service provider partners adapted work to meet immigrant clients’ needs in this unprecedented context, as many of these adaptations may continue to be utilized in a post-pandemic context.

Methods:

This qualitative study used in-depth, semi-structured interviews with child welfare agency staff and community-based provider partners working with immigrant families to explore their experiences in providing services during the pandemic. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted via Zoom from February-September 2021 with 31 child welfare agency representatives and community partners who serve immigrant families across 11 states, including California (11), Colorado (4), Georgia (1), Idaho (2), Illinois (1), North Carolina (1), New Jersey (3), New Mexico (2), New York (4), Oregon (1), and Pennsylvania (1). Researchers utilized a thematic analysis approach to analyze the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Three researchers independently coded transcripts using Dedoose qualitative data analysis software, and a second researcher double-coded each transcript to increase reliability.

Findings:

The analysis revealed two main themes. The first theme centered around how child welfare and community-based service providers strengthened and developed new and unique community-based collaboratives to address immigrant child/families’ emergent needs. Specifically, participants reported responding to increased unmet basic needs by creating broad coalitions and partnerships to expand access to necessities like food, cash, and housing. They also reported prioritizing enhanced outreach, advocacy, and information sharing efforts, and building relationships with faith-based entities in order to enhance service access for immigrant communities. The second theme focused on how child welfare agency programming and policies were modified to enhance engagement with immigrant families. In particular,participants reported implementing modifications such as broadening virtual and remote services, increasing flexibility in case requirements, and adding new programming e.g., connections to legal assistance and employment opportunities to respond to immigrant families’ needs. Overall, results highlight the adaptations implemented to engage immigrant clients and facilitate interagency collaboration in light of barriers imposed by the pandemic.

Conclusion and Implications

Findings center the need for child abuse and neglection prevention efforts with immigrant populations to start in community and demand collaboration between government-based child welfare agencies and a range of grassroots, trusted community providers. Partnerships among state and local government and private or non-profit entities may be an effective model of serving the most under reached immigrant families. Furthermore, effective prevention networks with flexible infrastructures can be built locally to serve immigrants, with faith-based agencies as key network members.