Foster Care Research Paper

The Effects of Foster Care Placement on
Young Children’s Mental Health
Beth Troutman, Ph.D., Susan Ryan, M.A., and Michelle Cardi, M.A.
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
Introduction
Young children are more likely than older children to be placed in foster care and to spend a larger proportion of their life in the foster care system (Goerge &
Wulczyn, 1998). In a recent review of foster care in several states, the incidence of placement in foster care for children under age 5 was double that of children aged 5–17 (4 per 1,000 vs. 2 per 1,000) (Goerge & Wulczyn, 1998). Young children are in foster care longer than older children and infants are in foster care significantly longer than other age groups (Goerge & Wulczyn, 1998).
This paper explores the potential impact of foster care placement on young children’s attachment relationships and mental health.
Factors Leading to Placement in Foster Care
Children are removed from their homes to protect them from immediate physical harm (Zuravin & DePanfilis, 1997). Substance abuse and the drug culture account for the majority of young children placed in foster care (Simms, 1991).
Race and socioeconomic status does not appear to have a major impact on decision making regarding foster care placement (Zuravin & DePanfilis, 1997). In general, foster care placement adequately provides for the physical protection of children. For example, in a study comparing home and out-of-home placements of infants born to substance-abusing mothers, there was a 7% death rate and a
4% rate of abuse and neglect in the home placements compared to none of these events in the infants placed in kinship or foster care placements (Tyler,
Howard, Espinosa, & Doakes, 1997). However, foster care placement has implications for the healthy emotional development of young children.
Attachment Disruptions Among Young Children in Foster Care
Out-of-home placement is typically associated with numerous disruptions
In an attempt to expedite placement with a consistent caregiver, concurrent planning has been promoted as a useful tool. Development of concurrent plans, when a child is in foster care, allow efforts to reunify children with their biological parents to take place simultaneously with efforts to achieve an alternative plan.
Concurrent planning is one feature of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) which was passed in 1997. An additional feature of ASFA is that the length of time for the biological parents to make significant progress on the goals outlined by the reunification plan is limited to twelve months, though judges can make exceptions. Both policies have the potential to reduce the attachment disruptions experienced by young children in out-of-home placements.
Concurrent planning has the potential to limit the attachment disruptions faced by infants placed in substitute care. By placing the child in the home of a foster family or family member who could become the child’s adoptive family if the biological parent fails to regain custody, further disruption of attachment relationships is prevented if the child is unable to be reunified with