National Coalition for Child Protection
Reform / 53 Skyhill Road (Suite 202) / Alexandria, Va., 22314 / info@nccpr.org / www.nccpr.org
DOES FAMILY PRESERVATION WORK?
Family
preservation is one of the most intensively-scrutinized programs in all of
child welfare. Several studies -- and real world experience -- show that family
preservation programs that follow the Homebuilders model safely prevent
placement in foster care.
Michigan's
Families First program sticks rigorously to the Homebuilders model. The
Michigan program was evaluated by comparing children who received family
preservation services to a "control group" that did not. After one
year, among children who were referred because of abuse or neglect, the control
group children were nearly twice as likely to be placed in foster care, as the
Families First children. Thirty-six percent of children in the control group
were placed, compared to only 19.4 percent of the Families First children. [1]
Another
Michigan study went further. In this study, judges actually gave permission to
researchers to "take back" some children they had just ordered into
foster care and place them in Families First instead. One year later, 93
percent of these children still were in their own homes. [2] And Michigan's State Auditor concluded that the Families
First program "has generally been effective in providing a safe
alternative to the out-of-home placement of children who are at imminent risk
of being removed from the home The program places a high priority on the safety
of children." [3]
An
experiment in Utah and Washington State also used a comparison group. After one
year, 85.2 percent of the children in the comparison group were placed in
foster care, compared to only 44.4 percent of the children who received
intensive family preservation services.[4]
A
study in California found that 55 percent of the control group children were
placed, compared to only 26 percent of the children who received intensive
family preservation services. [5]
A
North Carolina study comparing 1,254 families receiving Intensive Family
Preservation Services to more than 100,000 families who didn't found that
"IFPS consistently resulted in fewer placements..."[6]
And
still another study, in Minnesota, found that, in dealing with troubled
adolescents, fully 90 percent of the control group children were placed,
compared to only 56 percent of those who received intensive family preservation
services.[7]
Some
agencies are now using IFPS to help make sure children are safe when they are
returned home after foster care. Here again, researchers are beginning to see
impressive results. In a Utah study, 77.2 percent of children whose families
received IFPS help after reunification were still safely with their birth
parents after one year, compared with 49.1 percent in a control group.[8]
Critics
ignore all of this evidence, preferring to cite a study done for the federal
government which purports to find that IFPS is no better than conventional
services. But though critics of family preservation claim that this study
evaluated programs that followed the Homebuilders model, that's not true. In a
rigorous critique of the study, Prof. Ray Kirk of the University of North
Carolina School of Social Work notes that the so-called IFPS programs in this
study actually diluted the Homebuilders model, providing service that was less
intensive and less timely. At the same time, the "conventional"
services sometimes were better than average. In at least one case, they may
well have been just as intensive as the IFPS program - so it's hardly
surprising that the researchers would find little difference between the two.
Furthermore,
efforts to truly assign families at random to experimental and control groups
sometimes were thwarted by workers in the field who felt this was unethical.
Workers resisted assigning what they considered to be "high risk"
families to control groups that would not receive help from IFPS programs. In
addition, the study failed to target children who actually were at imminent
risk of placement.
Given
all these problems, writes Prof. Kirk, "a finding of 'no difference
between treatment and experimental groups' is simply a non-finding from a
failed study."[9]
Prof.
Kirk's findings mirror those of an evaluation of earlier studies purporting to
show that IFPS was ineffective. The evaluation found that these studies
"did not adhere to rigorous methodological criteria."[10]
In contrast, according to Prof. Kirk, "there is a
growing body of evidence that IFPS works, in that it is more effective than
traditional services in preventing out-of-home placements of children in
high-risk families."[11]
Prof.
Kirk's assessment was confirmed by a detailed review of IFPS studies conducted
by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. According to this review:
"IFPS programs that adhere closely to the Homebuilders model significantly reduce out-of-home placements and subsequent abuse and neglect. We estimate that such programs produce $2.54 of benefits for each dollar of cost. Non-Homebuilders programs produce no significant effect on either outcome."[12]
Some critics argue that evaluations of family
preservation programs are inherently flawed because they allegedly focus on
placement prevention instead of child safety. But a placement can only be
prevented if a child is believed to be safe. Placement prevention is a
measure of safety.
Of
course, the key words here are "believed to be." Children who have
been through intensive family preservation programs are generally among the
most closely monitored. But there are cases in which children are reabused and
nobody finds out. And there are cases -- like Joseph Wallace -- in which the
warnings of family preservation workers are ignored. No one can be absolutely
certain that the child left at home is safe -- but no one can be absolutely
certain that the child placed in foster care is safe either -- and family
preservation has the better track record.
And,
as discussed in Issue Paper 1,
with safe, proven strategies to keep families together now widely used in
Alabama, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere, the result is fewer foster care placements
and safer children.
Indeed,
the whole idea that family preservation -- and only family preservation --
should be required to prove itself over and over again reflects a double
standard. After more than a century of experience, isn't it time that the
advocates of foster care be held to account for the failure of their
program?
Updated, April 24, 2006
1. Carol Berquist, et. al., Evaluation of Michigan's
Families First Program (Lansing Mich: University Associates, March, 1993). Back to Text.
2. Betty J. Blythe, Ph.D., Srinika Jayaratne, Ph.D, Michigan
Families First Effectiveness Study: A Summary of Findings, Sept. 28, 1999,
p.18. Back to Text.
3. State of Michigan, Office of the Auditor General, Performance
Audit of the Families First of Michigan Program, July, 1998, pp. 2-4. Back to Text.
4. Mark W. Fraser, et. al., Families in Crisis: The
Impact of Intensive Family Preservation Services (New York: Aldine De
Gruyter, 1991), p.168. Back to Text.
5. S. Wood, S., K. Barton, C. Schroeder, "In-Home
Treatment of Abusive Families: Cost and Placement at One Year."
Psychotherapy Vol. 25 (1988) pp. 409-14, cited in Howard Bath and David
Haapala, "Family Preservation Services: What Does the Outcome Research
Really Tell Us," Social Services Review, September, 1994, Table A1,
p.400. Back to Text.
6. R.S. Kirk, Tailoring Intensive Family Preservation
Services for Family Reunification Cases: Research, Evaluation and Assessment,
(www.nfpn.org/resourcess/articles/tailoring.html). Back to
Text.
7. I.M. Schwartz, et. al., "Family Preservation
Services as an Alternative to Out-of-Home Placement of Adolescents," in K.
Wells and D.E. Biegel, eds., Family Preservation Services: Research and
Evaluation (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991) pp.33-46, cited in Bath and Happala,
note 3, supra.Back to Text.
8. R.E. Lewis, et. al., "Examining family
reunification services: A process analysis of a successful experiment," Research
on Social Work Practice, 5, (3), 259-282, cited in Kirk, note 6, supra.Back to Text.
9. R.S. Kirk, A Critique of the
"Evaluation of Family Preservation and Reunification Programs: Interim
Report," May, 2001. Back to Text.
10. A. Heneghan, et. al., Evaluating intensive family
preservation services: A methodological review. Pediatrics, 97(4),
535-542, cited in Kirk, note 6, supra.Back to Text.
11. Kirk, note 6, supra.Back to Text.
12. Washington
State Institute for Public Policy, Intensive Family Preservation Programs:
Program Fidelity Influences Effectiveness. February, 2006, available online
at http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/06-02-3901.pdf
|
|
|
|
