Promoting Racial Equity in Child Welfare: Perceptions of Public Child Welfare Administrators

Overview: This study explored the perceptions of public child welfare agency administrators regarding the inequities they observe in the system, challenges experienced in promoting racial equity/antiracist practice, and strategies they believe have the greatest potential for moving the field forward. Participants described what they need from university partners to move forward.Proposal text: Background
Concerns regarding the differential involvement of families of color in the child welfare system is not new. Children of color are disproportionately exposed to risks impacting their wellbeing and have disproportional contact with the public child welfare (PCW) system (Garcia et al. 2017). Research has begun to examine how racist perceptions, practices and policies within the system influences how families are served (Dettlaff et al., 2020). A groundswell of calls for abolishing or reforming the PCW system to implement antiracist practices and promote racial equity continues (Barth et al., 2020; Jonson-Reid & Drake, 2018). Although many public agencies have implemented initiatives in response, the literature has not documented the perspective of PCW administrators. This study explored the perceptions of PCW agency administrators regarding the inequities they observe in the system, challenges experienced in promoting racial equity/antiracist practice, and strategies they believe have the greatest potential for moving the field forward.

Methods
A snowball sample of executive-level agency administrators was recruited through a partnership with the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators and editorial board members of the Journal of Public Child Welfare. Attention was paid to recruiting a diverse sample in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, geographic location and state/county responsibility. Online semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using constant comparative analysis to generate broad themes. Participants were offered the opportunity to review themes to provide feedback and correct misinterpretation.

Results
Sixteen managers participated, three serving as regional directors and the remaining with state-level responsibility. Geographically, five represented eastern, four western, four central, and three southern states. The sample was racially diverse (56% non-Caucasian), with a mean of 23 years in child welfare and 3.8 years in their current position. Participants identified inequities at each decision point in the service delivery system. Challenges in addressing these issues ranged from inadequate social work education to the tendency to observe and measure but not solve the problem to systemic racism across all institutions impacting families. Managers offered specific strategies they believe have the greatest potential to promote racial equity, including shifting funding and service delivery to authentically support families through community agencies, engaging all staff in courageous conversations regarding racism and promoting self-reflective antiracist practice, identifying effective practice through research, revising all policies and practices through a racial equity lens, and empowering families as program co-designers. Participants described what they need from university partners to move forward.

Conclusions/Implications
As dialogue continues regarding how best to refocus services, reform or abolish the PCW system, the field can benefit from the perspectives of those administrators working every day to deliver and improve the services provided to children and families. The results of this study provide a glimpse of the real challenges facing these agencies and a rich pool of strategies either currently underway or conceptualized which can inform the broader discussion about how to best support children and families in an equitable way. Themes also address what agencies need in partnership with universities. Research into approaches to promote equity is needed.