*Data Available*: Study of Fathers' Involvement in Permanency Placement Planning and Child Welfare Casework (2004-2005)

[Andres Arroyo <aa17@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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The National Data Archive on Child Abuse and 
Neglect (NDACAN) at Cornell University is pleased 
to announce the availability of the data for the study entitled:

"Study of Fathers' Involvement in Permanency 
Placement Planning and Child Welfare Casework (2004-2005) "
Investigators: The Urban Institute- Malm, K., Geen, R., & Triplett, T.
[NDACAN Dataset #122]

The User's Guide PDF for these data contains the 
codebook and is available for free download at this page:
http://www.ndacan.cornell.edu/NDACAN/Datasets/Abstracts/DatasetAbstract_122.html
There you will also find a link to ordering instructions.

  Abstract: Most foster children are not living 
with their fathers at the time they are removed 
from their homes. While in foster care these 
children may experience even less contact with 
their nonresident fathers. This study examined 
child welfare practices with respect to 
identifying, locating, and involving fathers of 
children in foster care including whether child 
support resources were used. Local agency 
caseworkers were interviewed by phone about 
nearly 2,000 foster children in four study 
states. The study found that nonresident fathers 
are not often involved in case planning and 
nearly half were never contacted by the child welfare agency.

The study was conducted in four states, Arizona, 
Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Tennessee, using 
three methods of data collection-interviews with 
child welfare administrators, case-level data 
collection through interviews with caseworkers, 
and data linkage between child welfare and child 
support systems. Of the three components, only 
the case-level data collected through interviews 
with caseworkers was contributed to the Archive. 
Investigators interviewed local agency 
caseworkers about particular cases between 
October 2004 and February 2005 to examine 
front-line practices related to nonresident 
fathers. Cases were selected from among children 
who had been in foster care for at least 3 months 
but no more than 36 months. Children in the 
sample were all in foster care for the first time 
(first placement episode), and the child welfare 
agency's records indicated that each of the 
children's biological fathers were alive but not 
living in the home from which the child was 
removed. Additionally, only one child per mother was eligible for the study.

Data on 1,958 eligible cases (83% response rate) 
were collected through telephone interviews with 
1,222 caseworkers. The nonresident fathers of the 
children sampled represent a varied group. While 
most caseworkers, at the time of the interview, 
knew the identity of the fathers of children in 
the study's sample (88%), paternity had not yet 
been established for over one-third of the total 
sample's children (37%). A comparison with 
mothers found that demographic characteristics of 
identified nonresident fathers are similar to 
those of the resident mothers though fathers are 
slightly older (36 vs. 32 years old, on average) 
and more likely to have been married at some 
point. As expected, caseworkers appear to know 
less about nonresident fathers. The percent of 
"don't know" responses is much higher for 
nonresident fathers than for similar questions about resident mothers.

Download the User's Guide (Data Codebook) from this page:
http://www.ndacan.cornell.edu/NDACAN/Datasets/Abstracts/DatasetAbstract_122.html

Sincerely,
   Andrés Arroyo
   Archiving Assistant
   National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN)
   Beebe Hall - FLDC
   College of Human Ecology
   Cornell University
   Ithaca NY 14853
Phone: 607-255-7799 * Fax: 607-255-8562
E-mail: NDACAN@cornell.edu
Web site: www.ndacan.cornell.edu















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