Custodial Grandparent's Job Loss During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Relationship With Parenting Stress and Mental Health.

Involuntary job loss during the COVID-19 pandemic adds challenges, especially for custodial grandparents that are taking care of grandchildren. Grandparents are relatively vulnerable, and they need more attention and support when facing the negative impacts of COVID-19. This study analyzed cross-sectional survey data collected from 234 custodial grandparents via Qualtrics Panels in June 2020 in the United States. After using the propensity score weighting adjustment, results from logistic and ordinary least squares regression showed that compared with grandparents that did not lose their job during the pandemic, grandparents that did had more parenting stress and worse mental health. Moderation analysis also showed that social support was a significant moderator of the relationship between job loss and mental health, but not the relationship between job loss and parenting stress. The findings and implications are discussed.

Child support and justice-involved military veterans.

The study examines and evaluates the effectiveness of a federal and county collaboration in Pennsylvania designed to help military veterans with child support arrearages in the criminal justice system. The study focused on the veteran participants (n=232) identified psychosocial problems, their range of justice involvement, strategies to mitigate, address barriers and legal dilemmas through the collaborative. The average age 40, majority male, Caucasian, divorced, enrolled in Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare, serving on supervised parole or probation, homeless episodes, and income <$500.00 per month. In general, the findings enhance the limited body of knowledge about military-veteran child support and provide strategies and specific insight into the problems veterans face on individual, familial, and societal levels.

Self-esteem in children in joint physical custody and other living arrangements.

OBJECTIVES: Parental support has been shown to be important for children's self-esteem, which in turn is related to later important life outcomes. Today, an increasing number of children in the Western world spend time in both the parents' respective households after a separation. Children who live with both parents report more parental support than children who live only with one parent after a divorce. We took the opportunity of the commonness of children sharing their time between their parents' homes in Sweden to investigate children's self-esteem in relation to family type. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: With nationally representative survey data (ULF) collected from both parents and children, we analyze differences in children's self-esteem among 4823 10-18 year olds in nuclear families, joint physical custody and those living mostly or only with one parent after a separation using ordinary least squares regression, adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. RESULTS: We found no significant difference in self-esteem between children who lived equally much with both parents, mostly with one parent and those in nuclear families, whereas children in single care showed lower self-esteem compared with children in the other living arrangements. The difference was not explained by socioeconomic factors. CONCLUSION: The self-esteem of children who share their time between their parent's respective homes after a separation does not deviate from that in their peers in nuclear families. Instead, those in single care reported lower self-esteem than those in the other living arrangements. These differences were not explained by socioeconomic factors. Longitudinal studies are needed to establish pre- and post-separation family characteristics that influence self-esteem and well-being in young people.

Health Information Needs for Child-in-Care.

When a child is taken into care the State is legally required to provide healthcare. Six forms were reviewed by medical care providers, foster parents and government social workers to understand their health information needs in caring and planning for child-in-care. The qualitative study used a sociotechnical systems framework and NVivo 10 for encoding. Interview findings include that the forms, if completed and available, meet most basic health information needs with additional forms used for complex health needs. The majority of participants indicate interest in electronic options. Focus groups will enable further study.

Child Support Conviction and Recidivism: A Statistical Interaction Pattern by Race.

An estimated 50,000 parents are behind bars on average daily for child support nonpayment, but information about these fathers and their recidivism rates are lacking. Using a jail sample (N = 16,382), multinomial logistics regression method was utilized; subgroup analysis was used to investigate differential beta weights of predictor variables. Informed by Critical Race Theory, findings showed that fathers incarcerated for arrears had significantly higher rates of recidivism than other jailed men, but had an interaction effect with race. After controlling for age, education, and prior attendance at 12-step meetings, Black fathers but NOT White fathers showed significant post-release recidivism. Implications are discussed.

Who gets custody now? Dramatic changes in children's living arrangements after divorce.

This article reexamines the living arrangements of children following their parents' divorce, using Wisconsin Court Records, updating an analysis that showed relatively small but significant increases in shared custody in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These changes have accelerated markedly in the intervening years: between 1988 and 2008, the proportion of mothers granted sole physical custody fell substantially, the proportion of parents sharing custody increased dramatically, and father-sole custody remained relatively stable. We explore changes in the correlates of alternative custody outcomes, showing that some results from the earlier analysis still hold (for example, cases with higher total family income are more likely to have shared custody), but other differences have lessened (shared-custody cases have become less distinctive as they have become more common). Despite the considerable changes in marriage and divorce patterns over this period, we do not find strong evidence that the changes in custody are related to changes in the characteristics of families experiencing a divorce; rather, changes in custody may be the result of changes in social norms and the process by which custody is determined.

The challenge of pregnancy among homeless youth: reclaiming a lost opportunity.

Young, homeless women often become pregnant, but little is known about how street youth experience their pregnancies. We documented 26 pregnancy outcomes among 13 homeless women (ages 18-26) and eight homeless men through interviews and participant-observation. Eight pregnancies were voluntarily terminated, three were miscarried, and fifteen were carried to term. Regardless of pregnancy outcome, street youths' narratives focused on ambivalence about parenting, traumatic childhood experiences, and current challenges. Despite significant obstacles, almost all were convinced of their personal capacity to change their lives. While most wanted to be parents, the majority lost custody of their newborns and consequently associated contact with medical and social services with punitive outcomes. Most of the youth who chose to terminate successfully sought safe medical care. We offer recommendations for changing the approach of services to take full advantage of pregnancy as a potential catalyst event for change in this highly vulnerable and underserved population.

Addressing the disproportionate representation of children of color: a collaborative community approach.

The state of Indiana recommended a committee be formed to address the disproportional representation of black youth in out-of-home placements. In response, the Indiana Disproportionality Committee (IDC) was established. This article presents the development, objectives and future of the IDC. One of the objectives, research, will be offered as an example of the committee's collaborative strategies. The IDC, in partnership with another organization, has begun exploring relationships between ethnicity, risk factors and treatment outcomes. The results of this research effort have examined disproportion and disparity, leading the IDC to identify needs for change within the state. Barriers and successes of the IDC will be shared, so that others can use these efforts to guide their own strategies to reduce disproportionality.

[Familiy mediation within the counselling system]. / Praxis der Familienmediation in der Beratung.

Family mediation has been established as a method of resolving family conflicts within the counselling system. Unfortunately there existed only rare information about the real presence and efficacy of family mediation services within this system. 726 counselling centres from all over the country participated at the present study, which was outlined to evaluate their supply of family mediation and the use of it. The results show that nearly one third of the centres are offering family mediation as a regular service to their clients, and that mediative skills are quite frequently used by the counselling professionals. Centres, which offer a regular service of mediation, have an obviously higher percentage of honorary staff, indicating that this service might have a more fragile status. Each centre, which conducted mediation, had an average mediation caseload of 32 in 2003, which means a percentage of 7 percent of all counselling cases treated in this year. These mediations needed an average treatment of 7 hours. Most frequent cases in mediation are separated married or separated non-married parents with 2 children. In most cases, family mediation was used to regulate conflicts in separation, divorce or post divorce, mainly concerned with issues of child custody. In contrast to the researchers' expectations, children were introduced at the mediation process only rarely. The need for mediation in the local population was rated much higher than the factual demand for and the factual supply of mediation. Based on the outcomes of the study, some recommendations are made: for the improvement of the supply of family mediation, for the expansion of the issues to which mediation is offered, and for strengthening the approaches to include children into the mediation process.

The foster care crisis: what caused caseloads to grow?

Foster care caseloads more than doubled from 1985 to 2000. This article provides the first comprehensive study of this growth by relating state-level foster care caseloads to state-specific characteristics and policies. We present evidence that increases in female incarcerations and reductions in cash welfare benefits played dominant roles in explaining the growth in foster care caseloads over this period. Our results highlight the need for child welfare policies designed specifically for the children of incarcerated parents and parents who are facing less generous welfare programs.

Involvement in the child welfare system among mothers with serious mental illness.

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to determine the association between maternal schizophrenia and major affective disorders (serious mental illness) and child custody arrangements in a sample of Medicaid-eligible mothers. METHODS: Medicaid eligibility and claims data were merged with data from the child welfare system in Philadelphia for 1995 to 2000. The sample comprised 4,827 female residents of Philadelphia between the ages of 15 and 45 as of 1996, who were initially eligible for Medicaid through Aid to Families With Dependent Children between 1995 and 1996 and who had at least one family member younger than 18 years at the beginning of the study period. Logistic regression was used to determine association between maternal mental illness and involvement in the child welfare system. RESULTS: Among the 4,827 mothers, 7.2 percent had a serious mental illness and 4.4 percent had other psychiatric diagnoses. More than 14 percent of mothers with serious mental illness received child welfare services, compared with 10.8 percent of those with other psychiatric diagnoses, and 4.2 percent of those without a diagnosis. After the analyses adjusted for a past inpatient episode, race or ethnicity, and age, mothers with serious mental illness were almost three times as likely to have had involvement in the child welfare system or to have children who had an out-of-home placement. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest the urgent need for increased planning and coordination between the child welfare and mental health systems, including provision of parenting support as part of mental health treatment for mothers.

The child welfare response to serious nonaccidental head trauma.

Serious nonaccidental head trauma (NHT) can leave permanent neurological damage in children who survive abuse. This study reports on child welfare's handling of NHT cases compared with cases of physical abuse and head trauma due to neglect with regard to placement in foster care, reunification with family, and safety issues. The results show that workers placed children with NHT in foster care immediately after the abuse but treated them no differently than other physically abused children regarding reunification.

Substance use and separation of homeless mothers from their children.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined whether homeless mothers with substance use problems were more likely to experience separations from their children and whether recent substance use had an impact on the family's ability to receive public entitlement income consistently over the 15-month study period. METHODS: This study used an existing longitudinal data set consisting of a county-wide probability sample of 104 homeless women who had children under 18 years old. RESULTS: Only 29.1% of women had all their children with them throughout the 15-month study period. Mothers who had been separated from their children were more likely to have a current substance use disorder and to have been homeless for at least a year compared to other homeless mothers. CONCLUSIONS: Because many women with recent substance use had already had lost custody of their children, substance use contributed to loss of child custody among mothers who did not have substance use disorders.

Mother-child separations among homeless and housed families receiving public assistance in New York City.

We examined the incidence, characteristics, and predictors of separations of children from mothers in 543 poor families receiving public assistance, 251 of whom had experienced homelessness during the previous 5 years. Forty-four percent of the homeless mothers and 8% of housed mothers were separated from one or more children. A total of 249 children were separated from 110 homeless families and 34 children from 23 housed families. Children were placed with relatives and in foster care but were rarely returned to their mothers. Maternal drug dependence, domestic violence, and institutionalization predicted separations, but homelessness was the most important predictor, equivalent in size to 1.9 other risk factors. We infer that policies regarding child welfare and substance abuse treatment should be changed to reduce unnecessary placements. Studies of homeless children who remain with families may be biased if separated children are excluded.

Beyond termination: length of stay and predictors of permanency for legally free children.

Despite growing awareness of the complex needs of legally free children in child welfare care, relatively little empirical investigation has been done of these children and their experiences. This article reports the results of a study of length of stay and predictors of permanency in a sample of 1,366 legally free children in state custody in Washington state. A Cox proportional-hazards event history model was developed to explore the effects of gender, race, and ethnicity, and age at initial placement, on the likelihood of achieving legalized adoption or guardianship. Results indicate that older children, boys, and African American children were all significantly less likely to achieve a permanent outcome than were Caucasian children. Hispanic children, in the other hand, were significantly more likely to achieve a permanent outcome. The implications of these findings for permanency planning practice and policy development are discussed.

Measuring contract agency performance with administrative data.

This article uses administrative data to analyze the relative performance of contract agencies-those organizations under contract with a city child welfare agency to provide out-of-home care services to children placed in the custody of the public agency-by examining how long it took children placed in out-of-home care to return home to their families. The objective was to determine whether credible empirical evidence could show a relationship between length of stay and the agency providing care. Agency level reunification rates are widely distributed around the mean, indicating that contract agency performance differs and that "agency effects" leave an independent imprint on a child's out-of-home care experience.

The health of grandparents raising grandchildren: results of a national study.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to compare the functional and self-rated health of grandparents raising grandchildren with that of noncaregiving grandparents. METHODS: A secondary analysis of data from the 1992 to 1994 National Survey of Families and Households was conducted. Bivariate and logistic analyses compared 173 custodial and 3304 noncustodial grandparents in terms of functional health limitations, self-rated health, and satisfaction with health. RESULTS: Custodial grandparents were significantly more likely to have limitations in 4 of the 5 activities of daily living (ADLs) examined, with more than half reporting some limitation in 1 of the 5 ADLs. A logistic regression analysis indicated that caregiving grandparents had 50% higher odds of having an ADL limitation. Caregivers were significantly more likely to report lower satisfaction with health, and a statistical trend indicated that the caregivers had lower self-rated health. CONCLUSIONS: Further research is needed to determine whether the differences observed reflect artifacts or actual differences in functional abilities and other health measures. The need for policies that support rather than penalize grandparents raising grandchildren is stressed.

Raising grandchildren: the experiences of black and white grandmothers.

This article contrasts the experiences of 398 White and 319 Black grandmothers raising their grandchildren in the absence of the middle generation. Similarities include age, education, familial relationship to the grandchild, age of the grandchild being raised, reasons that grandmothers are raising their grandchildren, behaviors characteristic of the grandchildren, and impacts on the grandmother's work life. Differences include marital status, work status, and income. Black grandmothers are more likely than White grandmothers to have peers who also live with their grandchildren. Black grandmothers are also more likely to come from families in which multiple generations lived together and to be receiving support from formal sources. White grandmothers experienced more burden from their caregiving role than did Black grandmothers.

Court-ordered assessment: impact of maternal noncompliance in child maltreatment cases.

Parental noncompliance to court orders is associated with several factors that jeopardize safe and stable child care. We advanced three hypotheses: (1) maternal noncompliance to court-ordered assessment is associated with loss of child custody; (2) noncompliance is related to court clinic custody recommendations; and (3) noncompliance is stable across child protection and court clinic settings. Based on a sample of 56 court-referred child maltreatment cases, all hypotheses were confirmed. Results are discussed in terms of: (a) maternal noncompliance as a marker for high-risk child care; (b) our limited understanding of the phenomenal meaning of noncompliance; and (c) the dearth of empirically derived intervention methods.

Differences between fathers with joint custody and noncustodial fathers.

Self-reported data from 212 divorced fathers was used to investigate differences between those with joint custody and those without custody of their children. Results indicated that those with joint custody saw their children more frequently, showed greater satisfaction with their custody arrangement, and had more education than did fathers without custody. Implications for paternal involvement and child support payments are discussed.