Changing Course: Improving Outcomes for African-American Males Involved With Child Welfare Systems

Mar 01, 2014 | by

Frank Farrow Judith Meltzer Oronde Miller Susan Notkin

Description
Key findings

This paper draws attention to African-American boys and young men who are involved with the nation's child welfare systems and identifies policies and practices that can help to improve their experiences and outcomes.

African-American males are over-represented in the foster care system: They are 2.5 times more likely to be in foster care than their non-African-American peers. Tweet
They are less likely to be placed in foster family homes (either relative or non-relative placements) and more likely to be placed in congregate care (group homes or other institutional settings), with more frequent placement moves. Tweet
For many African-American youth, their cumulative experiences in the child welfare system reinforced their isolation and their feeling that their presence was a burden to the professional adult figures to whom they were most closely connected. Tweet
Child welfare agencies and their allies must establish an overarching organizational commitment to race equity; understand and respond to the complex ways in which structural racism shapes the experiences and well-being of African-American males; and create ways for the voices, aspirations and input of youth to be visible and influential in all aspects of programming and accountability. Tweet
These efforts should be linked to the growing movement to improve the opportunities of African-American boys and young men, so that youth involved with child welfare are positively affected by initiatives such as My Brother's Keeper. Tweet

Published by
Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)

Document type
Report/Whitepaper

Geography
North America / United States

Language
English

Copyright
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Linked data
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Title

Changing Course: Improving Outcomes for African-American Males Involved With Child Welfare Systems

Publication date

2014-03-01

Publication year

2014

Authors

Frank Farrow , Judith Meltzer , Oronde Miller , Susan Notkin

Copyright holder(s)

Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)

Geographical focus

North America / United States

Keywords

child welfare systems, foster care, welfare, african, improving outcomes

Document type

Report/Whitepaper

Language

English

URL

https://search.issuelab.org/resource/changing-course-improving-outcomes-for-african-american-males-involved-with-child-welfare-systems.html

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