Black child foster care placement rates are higher than White child placement rates in most counties. However, in some counties the placement rates are nearly the same for both Black and White children. This variation in placement disparities across counties may offer clues about systemic processes that contribute to the disparities.

This brief presents findings from a small-scale mixed-methods study that asked whether county differences in prevention services allocation may influence racial disparities in foster care placement rates.

Why This Matters

Deciding if a child can remain safely at home may depend in no small part on whether in-home supports are available and on child welfare workers’ perceptions that such services are effective at keeping children safe. Thus, the availability, accessibility, and quality of in-home prevention services may factor into workers’ decisions about child removal. Addressing inequitable prevention services allocation may reduce racial disparities in child welfare involvement and ultimately ensure safety for all children.

What We Found

• The two study counties with low racial disparities in placement rates had more prevention services per 1,000 children younger than 5 than the comparison county with a high racial disparity in placement rates.
• Prevention services were concentrated in Black neighborhoods that had high child poverty rates. White neighborhoods with high child poverty rates had fewer prevention services located near them. One theory for this finding is that areas of high White child poverty tended to also have lower populations, which may not allow them to support prevention services at scale.
• Interview respondents did not think that the availability or quality of prevention services factors into foster care placement decisions. Some respondents stated that lack of access to transportation can make it more difficult for rural families, who are mostly White, to access some prevention services.

Although these findings should be replicated in other locations, they suggest that the methods we used for this study show promise in helping understand the impact of system structures on racial disparities in child welfare.

What We Did

We identified three counties in a single state with similar rates of overall child poverty but different Black child–White child placement gaps (i.e., placement disparity). We used three methods to answer our study questions:

1. semistructured interviews with child welfare agency administrators and managers who oversee maltreatment investigations as well as administrators of prevention services provider agencies;
2. a comprehensive online search—or environmental scan—of prevention services; and
3. a site observation—or windshield survey—in select census tracts in two counties.

The methods were used in an iterative fashion, with each refined based on data collected from the others.