Overview: This poster presents a timeline juxtaposing the development of the U.S. child welfare system and social welfare and child welfare policies to help explain the overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare system. Implications for the promotion of social and economic justice within child welfare will be provided.Proposal text: The U.S. child welfare system developed in the mid-1800s through the early 1900s (Trattner, 1974/2007) and originally served poor, White children and families. Slavery and Jim Crow laws largely excluded Black families and children from services until after the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s (Billingsley & Giovannoni, 1972; Dettlaff, 2014; Pryce & Yelick, 2021). Following their inclusion in child welfare services, Black families and children have been over-represented in the U.S. child welfare system since the early 1970s (Billingsley & Giovannoni, 1972). Relatedly, Black families experience disparate outcomes at every stage of the child welfare system continuum, from intake and assessments to foster care and adoption (see Berger & Slack, 2020; Cénat et al., 2020, for reviews). Efforts to understand and address this disproportionality remain ongoing (e.g., Berger & Slack, 2020; Dettlaff, 2021).
The purpose of this poster is to juxtapose the development of the U.S. child welfare system with social welfare and child welfare policies to help explain the overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare system. Due to the link between poverty and child welfare involvement, social policies relevant to alleviating poverty will be included. For example, the role of Aid to Dependent Children (later Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, will be discussed to overview how social welfare policies disproportionately hindered Black families from achieving financial stability. Additionally, child welfare policies that have implications for racial disproportionality will be included such as the: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974, Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, Inter-Ethnic Adoption Provisions Act of 1996, Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, and policies surrounding child welfare funding (e.g., Title IV-E). These policies will be included to overview how child welfare policy over time may have contributed to the ongoing disproportionate rates of Black youth and families within the child welfare system.
To capture how the development of social welfare and child welfare policies influenced the U.S. child welfare system, a parallel timeline documenting how the child welfare system and policies developed over time will be presented. This timeline will be used in the discussion of the implications for child welfare education and training to prepare students to critically examine and address racial and social injustices through their practice, policy advocacy, and research. Key learning objectives include: (a) understanding the sociocultural and historical context of Black families’ exclusion from, followed by over-inclusion in, the child welfare system, (b) the role of social welfare and child welfare policies in contributing to overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare system, and (c) the importance of incorporating material on the historical, sociocultural context of child welfare in social work education to prepare students to engage in anti-racist practice that advances social and economic justice and protects the rights of Black families involved in the child welfare system.
