Understanding Re-Entry of Older Youth Following Reunification in the USA

Background and Purpose: Prior research needed to address high rates of re-entry to foster care has generally only looked at age, race, gender, and length of time to re-entry. Existing research lacks information about the type of re-abuse (if any) that occurs prior to re-entry as well as the number of prior placements. Information from the Report and Placement Integrated Data Set (RAPIDS) provides unique opportunities to understand the maltreatment types and experiences of youth who re-enter foster care. This study is the first about the peak re-entry rate and experience among older youth reunified from foster care and clarifies whether and which youth return to foster care as a preventive measure (without a new child abuse allegation) compared to re-admissions following new instances of child maltreatment.

Methods: This study used the RAPIDS, which integrates individual-level child maltreatment and foster care data from The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) across 51 states and territories. The sample included 89,302 youth who re-entered foster care between the age of 13 to 17 post-reunification between 2006-2021. We investigated the characteristics of these older youth, including age, gender, race, and other child-welfare characteristics, ranging from the number of placements in their first spell to removal reasons for the second. Most uniquely, we also examined their maltreatment between reunification and reentry.

Results: The largest sub-groups of older youth who re-entered foster care are male (51.6%) and White (46.9%). The majority (59.2%) of youth experienced a single placement setting throughout their previous spells in foster care (59.2%), followed by two settings (23.4%) and three settings (9.2%). Around 69.9% of the youth re-entered foster care with new child maltreatment reports consisting of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, child sex trafficking, other types, and multiple-type abuse, although only 38.9% of those were substantiated. The remainder appeared to enter in order to prevent maltreatment. In all, about 55.3% of re-entries did not have substantiated maltreatment reports. However, 5% of youth who had a subsequent child maltreatment report after their second foster care spell. The primary removal reasons to enter the second spell were child factors, such as alcohol, drug abuse, child disability, and behavior problems (48.3%), neglect (37.1%), parent cannot cope (16.7%), parental substance abuse (16.0%), physical abuse (8.9%), and abandonment (6.0%).

Conclusions and Implications: Results using RAPIDS offer unmatched opportunities to understand the interplay with child abuse reports and substantiation and to better target services so that preventive responses can better reduce re-entries and prevent repeated maltreatment. Given the longevity of the file and the potential for state-level analyses, RAPIDS provides significant policy-informing opportunities. The findings that about half of re-entries of older youth are a result of new maltreatment and a large proportion are because of child (not parent) factor suggests the need to more effectively expand the service array that helps transition children home without harm—especially after reunification services. Improvements in recording of re-entry reasons are also indicated.