Since the codification of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 and the earlier passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, child welfare values support placing children in the least restrictive settings with proactive and effective intervention and services. In 2015, the Children’s Bureau released a brief[1] about children in the child welfare system and reported that there are 402,387 children in the care of the child welfare system, and one in seven of those children is in a non-family[2] placement setting. Of the 55,916 children in non-family placement, 41% had no documented clinical or behavioral need that might warrant such a placement.[3] Also unsettling is that 31% of children in non-family placement settings were children 12 and younger.[4] Experts agree, the risk of clinical attachment disorders in young children who are placed in these types of settings is high.[5]
Research tells us that children fare much better in family-based care and yet we continue to see children inappropriately placed in non-family placement environments. This would suggest that perhaps we should be better assessing whether children should be placed in a non-family placement, and if a residential intervention is determined to be appropriate, inquire what expectations and safeguards are in place to ensure that the child’s stay is short-term and that a plan is in place to transition that child back to a family setting once his/her therapeutic needs have been met.
Over the past decade, non-family placement providers have been challenged to better define their intervention services, improve the efficacy of their intervention models, and develop ways to better help the children placed in their care get the skills that they need to overcome their mental health and behavioral issues. While these efforts have made a positive impact, outcomes for youth would indicate that we need to do better. We already know that most children who have been subjected to abuse or neglect are more biologically vulnerable because of their maltreatment, and the developmental and physical outcomes for these children can be further compromised by the nature and quality of their placements. We know that types of placement, quality of placement, and number of placements have a significant impact on the physical and psychological well-being of children and youth.[6]
Judges are responsible for critical legal decisions concerning the well-being, safety, and permanency of children. Unlike in other case types, judges in child protection cases play a unique oversight role of the social service agencies that are responsible for delivering services to children and their families involved in the child welfare system. In 2015 the Annie E. Casey Foundation published Every Kid Needs a Family, a policy report that highlighted recent statistics about children in child welfare system who are placed in non-family placement settings. The report challenged policymakers, courts, social service agencies, and communities to do a better job in assessing and treating children who are living in a non-family placement setting. Annie E. Casey supported the collaboration between NCSC and other critical legal partners and experts to develop the set of tools presented in this Toolkit.[7] The purpose of this Toolkit is to assist judges, attorneys, and advocates in making better decisions regarding the placement of children to ensure the least restrictive and most family-like placement possible for each child under court jurisdiction. This Toolkit provides information about what constitutes quality in placement, practices that one should see in placement for children, and what circumstances might support a short-term residential intervention. This Toolkit will also present systems reform strategies to judges and other court system administrators and program managers. Among these strategies include adequate planning, education and training, data collection, and an understanding of what is available in each court’s local jurisdiction.
To also inform this project, in the spring of 2017, Child Focus fielded three surveys, all asking for perspectives on nonfamily placements. The survey was sent out online by the American Bar Association, the National Association of Counsel for Children, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association to their respective listserves, memberships and in the case of National CASA, their staff and volunteers. The three surveys were fielded to judges, attorneys, and CASAs. The results of the survey are summarized here.
[1] A National Look at the Use of Congregate Care in Child Welfare. Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau (2015).
[2]Non-family placement is defined as the any setting in which a child is placed that is not a family or child-specific foster home.
[3] Id., at II.
[4] Id., at III.
[5] The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Every Kid Needs A Family, Baltimore. (May, 2015). The Annie E. Casey Foundation, retrieved from
[6] Harden, J.B. (2004). Children, Families, and Foster care. The Future of Children. 14(1), 44.
[7] This production of this Toolkit was made possible with the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, who remains a strong partner to the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) in improving outcomes for children and families involved in the child welfare system. During the planning process for this Toolkit, NCSC established a focus group of judges, court staff, child welfare leaders, and lawyers from across the country to solicit their input, expertise, and recommendations about the placement of children. NCSC would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following members of the focus group:
- Lori Battin, Senior Research Analyst, Court Improvement Program, Supreme Court of Virginia
- Rachel Bingham, Executive Officer, Department of Family and Juvenile Services, Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts
- William DeLisio, Family Law Program Manager, Colorado Judicial Branch
- Hon. Jay Dugger, Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Hampton, Virginia
- Judge Patricia Walker FitzGerald (ret.), Judicial Consultant, Louisville, Kentucky
- Joseph Homlar, Division Director, Child Welfare, Department of Human Services, City and County of Denver
- Judge William Thorne (ret.), Judicial Consultant, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Hon. Brett Woods, Presiding Judge, Denver Juvenile Court
This Toolkit was also informed and strengthened through collaboration and feedback from the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, National Association of Counsel for Children, National CASA Association, National Association of American Indian Court Judges Association, Association of Children’s Residential Centers, and the Building Bridges Initiative.
Project Staff: Nora Sydow, JD, Senior Court Management Consultant, National Center for State Courts; Melinda Taylor, JD, Court Consultant.