I Was Anxious and Nervous about What Was Going to Happen: The Role of Expectations across Stakeholder Groups in Child Welfare Dependency Courts

Background and Purpose: The SSWR 2025 conference emphasizes the importance of partnerships between academics and community agencies. This study is a secondary analysis of interviews and focus groups with multiple stakeholders in dependency courts in a Mid-Atlantic state. Stakeholder groups include young adults emancipating from the child welfare system, birth parents, foster, and kinship caregivers. The initial study was designed for reports focusing on the unique experiences of each group. This secondary analysis found that perceptions and experience were similar across all groups, a phenomenon that has been mostly understudied. Thus this study explores how participants across stakeholder groups perceive experiences with the dependency courts.

Methods: The first author, who worked in professional stakeholder roles in dependency courts and was not part of the initial data collection, conducted an extensive review of data by core themes. Maietta and colleagues’ Sort, and Sift, Think and Shift analysis method of compiling power quotes was used. Power quotes were put into thematic buckets and comparative thematic analysis occurred with the research team. Two of the study members had conducted the original study and one was also new to the data. Rigor of the analysis was assured through peer debriefing, memoing, and an audit trail.

Results: The sample (N=92) included seven focus groups of foster parents (n=57) and five focus groups of kinship caregivers (n=14). Young adults (n=15) and birth parents (n=6) were individually interviewed. Birth parents(n=5), young adults (n=11), and kinship caregivers (n=11) were predominantly Black and foster parents were mostly White (n=46). Across all four groups, participants were primarily female (n=73).

Common themes that emerged from the data include expectations around role and inclusion in court proceedings, and lack of clarity about outcomes of hearings. Participants across groups expressed anxiety about their first court appearances, noting feeling unsure about who they’d interact with and how. Participants indicated uncertainty in what their role would be at court, and how they would be expected to participate. All groups reported unmet expectations for permanency and placement outcomes.

Conclusions and Implications: While groups of lay stakeholders in child welfare cases are often viewed differently, we found a shared experience that participation in dependency courts induces significant confusion and anxiety. These feelings can be exacerbated when individuals, across groups, do not know what to expect. Findings indicate that all people involved with dependency cases would benefit from improvements in structures and processes. Professional stakeholders, including social workers and legal staff, should help prepare all members of a dependency case on what to expect at court. This might include specific information like when to speak up, what a judge or magistrate may ask of them, and overall role clarification. Professional stakeholders might also facilitate discussions about policy, practice, and permanency timelines across states. These discussions may help stakeholders feel more prepared when hearing information that can so deeply impact their lives, including whether they will or will not remain or be reunified with their child or caregiver.