The Cohort Studies

Children Entering Out-of-home Care in Oregon

Approximately 7,700 children in Oregon enter out-of-home care each year, and 4,600 children are in care on a given day. To ensure administrators, program managers, community partners, and legislators can make informed decisions, a number of studies were initiated. One group of studies, known as the "Cohort Studies," are designed to describe the out-of-home care population; the problems of the children and families, the barriers to returning children home, the services offered to families, and the reasons children do not return home. In addition to describing the out-of-home care population, the cohort studies were designed to improve the Agency's staff allocation system and evaluate the Agency's programs and services.

In addition, the cohort studies have been used to develop agency budgets, recognize trends, and results have been integrated into training for both casework practice and child protective services. The data base contains approximately 4,150 records of children entering out-of-home care between 1987-1993. This data is currently being used to evaluate service effectiveness and to evaluate new programs.

Methodology

A "cohort" represents a grouping; in these studies, a cohort represents a group of children who enter care during a six-month period. A random sample of children entering out-of-home care in the first six months of 1987 represents one cohort; children entering care between July and December 1987 represents a second cohort and so on. Thirteen cohorts between January 1987 and June 1993 are included in this data base. Children must be in out-of-home care for 14 days in the year after removal to be included in this population. The cohort studies involve reading of case records to glean information that complements information from Children's Services Division's Integrated Information System. There were approximately 1,950 records reviewed in the 1987-1990 study and 2,200 records reviewed in 1991-1993.

Many new concepts have been generated from the cohort studies. First, a "level of vulnerability" system has been developed and used to recognize the severity of abuse/neglect and the victim's age. Secondly, a "threshold of removal" has been identified for each branch office. This threshold acknowledges the level of family dysfunction before caseworkers place children in out-of-home care. Thirdly, parental factors found in severe abuse cases have been identified to ensure families with the greatest potential for severe abuse are provided services. Fourthly, the cohort data base provides the foundation for evaluating the effectiveness of programs. This evaluation approach identifies the success rate of particular client populations in the current service delivery system; new programs are compared to the success rate of the current service system without the need for "control groups."

Findings

Oregon's out-of-home population is becoming increasingly difficult. The children entering out-of-home care exhibit more complex problems while the parents are burdened with severe problems that are less responsive to treatment. Oregon's out-of-home population is continually increasing; this increase mimics the national trend of more children being raised in substitute care. The number of children entering the out-of-home care system in Oregon declined between 1987 and 1993. However, the population in care has increased because children entering the system are staying in care longer.

Children's Services Division developed a child welfare priority system known as the "level of vulnerability" system. The system has seven levels. Level one contains the most severely abused and neglected children while level seven contains older and less vulnerable youth. The percentage of children entering out-of-home care classified as level one increased from 17% in 1987-1990 to 20% in 1991-1993. The percentage of children classified as level seven declined from 17% in 1987-1990 to 13% in 1991-1993. Only 35% of the level one children entering care will return home in the year following their removal.

The families with children entering out-of-home care are burdened with more problems and more severe problems. There have been significant increases between 1987-1990 and 1991-1993 in the percentage of families involved in domestic violence and those involved with criminal activities. The percentage of families who are unemployed, who live in inadequate housing, and who have parents who were abused as children also increased significantly. Many of these family factors are common with families who severely abuse their children.

Although, parental involvement with drugs or alcohol is a factor in over half the children entering care, a significant increase between the two studies was not apparent. Drug and alcohol involvement is the predominant reason children are not returned to their parents during the year after their removal. Thirty seven percent of the families with drug and alcohol problems as a barrier to returning the child home have their child returned in the year following the removal. If there is some parental resolution of the drug and alcohol issues, about half the children are expected to return home. The return home rate increases significantly for most barriers when the family resolves the issues which lead to the child's removal.