Current federal legislation identifies three goals for the child welfare system: safety, permanence, and family and child well-being. Unfortunately, child well-being becomes subordinate to the more easily achievable and measurable goal of permanence--returning children to the biological family, facilitating an adoption, or placing them with…

Historically, American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) children have been disproportionately represented in the foster care system. In this study, nationally representative child welfare data from October 1999 was used to compare urban AI/AN children to non-Indian children placed into out-of-home care. Compared to non-Indian children, urban AI/AN…

Using three waves of data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, this study examines differences in cognitive, academic, and affective well-being of youth first placed in nonkinship foster care (N=259) and youth first placed in group care (N=89). To compare nonrandomized groups, propensity score matching was used. Results…

Appraises foster care and advocates its change from a largely custodial system to one that is essentially treatment-oriented. Development of a placement continuum from least intrusive (day care) to most intrusive (hospitalization), with a variety of intermediate options including foster home care, is crucial. (NH)

Offers recommendations to help advocates of the team approach in group care facilities for children and adolescents overcome some of the problems they may have with implementing team models according to their own designs. (NH)

The Child Health and Illness Profile--Adolescent Edition (CHIP-AE) was administered to 63 adolescents in group settings. Domains studied were satisfaction, resilience, risk, achievement, and disorders. Compared to a normed group, youth in group homes or institutions felt physically healthy and safe and were resilient. Of concern were low…

Statistical validation is reported for the Child Care Perceiver Interview instrument, used in employing residential child care workers. Results indicate that the interview is effective in predicting job performance in group care settings and is acceptable in meeting Equal Employment Opportunity requirements. (Author/BB)