Abstract: Caseworker Documentation of Mothers in Foster Care: A Case Study in California (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Schedule:

Friday, January 12, 2024

Marquis BR Salon 13, ML 2 (Marriott Marquis Washington DC)

* noted as presenting author

Andrea Eastman, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Mayra Cazares-Minero, PhD, Research Analyst, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Lindsey Palmer, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, The Pennsylvania State University, PA

Wendy Wiegmann, PhD, Project Director, California Child Welfare Indicators Project, University of California, Berkeley

John Prindle, PhD, Research Faculty, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Joseph Magruder, PhD, Specialist, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Background and Purpose: Young people living in foster care frequently experience early parenting and with the extension of foster care from age 18 to 21, an increasing number of young parents are served by the child protection system (CPS). In response, policies have been enacted that intend to better identify and serve those who become parents. The extent to which the CPS has accurately collected information on parents in care remains largely unknown. In the current study, we leveraged data from California to conduct an exploratory examination of the statewide documentation of mothers in foster care since the adoption of the federal requirement to document parents in 2014.

Methods: All females aged 15–21 who were documented as mothers by vital birth records (2014 and 2019) were linked to CPS records, yielding 3,199 mothers in care. Mothers in foster care were classified as: (a) documented by vital records and identified in CPS records and (b) documented in vital records but not identified in CPS records. We compared mothers who were or were not identified in CPS records using bivariate statistics. A chi-square test for trends examined differences in documentation over time.

Results: A third of mothers were not identified as such in CPS records (n = 1,136). The proportion of mothers identified by caseworkers rose from 50% in 2014 to 71.5% in 2019 (p < .001). Many mothers in foster care were nonminor dependents (NMDs; 58.6% of all mothers gave birth between ages 18 and 21). The age of mothers differed between the two groups (χ2 = 80.4, p < .001) and 69.1% of mothers in care who were not identified by caseworkers were NMDs. The correct classification of mothers did not vary significantly by race and ethnicity but there were differences in placement type across groups (χ2 = 140.9, p < .001). Mothers in kin, foster homes, and group homes were more likely to be identified by caseworkers compared to the non-identified group. In contrast, a higher percentage of mothers who were not identified in CPS records lived in independent living placements than mothers who were identified in CPS records.

Conclusions: Mothers may not be documented in CPS records; however, significant improvements were evident. Nonminor dependent mothers and those placed in independent living programs were more likely to be misclassified in CPS data. Results suggest that all nonminor dependents should be informed of available services for expectant and parenting individuals, especially if they are living in less restrictive placements, given they are more likely to give birth and less likely to be identified in CPS records than minor dependents. Future research about pregnant and parenting adolescents and NMD should seek to explore more deeply the reasons for underidentification, including fear of self-report, social worker strategies for engagement, and administrative barriers to documentation of parenting.