RE: race matching and child welfare

["Diane Sparks" <dsparks@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would be interested in knowing what covariates you considered in your
study. I work closely with Department of Human Services and the children
they have in custody through a therapeutic group home. In the south race
is a huge determinant factor in child caseworker relationships. This is
especially true when the child's family is racist, which is still a raging
factor in the south. I have worked with numerous social workers of all
races with children of all races. The biggest factor I see is dedication
to their job on the part of the caseworker in the form of continued
contact with the child, letting the child know they CARE!


 Did you compare to see whether Lengths of Stay for Hispanic or White
> children vary with the race/ethnicity of the caseworker?  If so, what did
> you find?
>
>              Arnie Pritchard
>              Quality Assurance Division
>              Connecticut Department of Children and Families
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joe Ryan [mailto:jpryan@uiuc.edu]
> Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 11:25 AM
> To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
> Subject: RE: race matching and child welfare
>
>
> I'm currently working on a study of worker characteristics and briefly
> explored the issue of same race - that is the match between the child and
> caseworker.  There are some difficulties worth noting regarding the
> analysis
> of worker characteristics.  Perhaps most problematic is the issue of
> worker
> turnover.  Which worker should be considered?  But just looking at
> children
> with one worker, it appears when African American children have African
> American workers the length of stay in out-of-home placement is on average
> 100 days longer than when African American children have Hispanic or white
> caseworkers.  This relationship holds even when controlling for a variety
> of
> covariates.  We still have work to do on the analysis, but interesting
> nonetheless - and probably inconsistent with what one might expect.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
>
> Joseph P. Ryan, Ph.D.
> School of Social Work
> Children & Family Research Center
> University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
> 1203 West Oregon Street
> Urbana, IL 61801
> (217) 244-5235
>
>
>
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