Graduation Semester and Year

Fall 2024

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Social Work

Department

Social Work

First Advisor

Catherine LaBrenz

Second Advisor

Hui Huang

Third Advisor

Lashaunn Bold

Abstract

Although there has been recent focus on child welfare to prevent removals, little literature has examined reasons children are removed among diverse developmental stages. The present study explores the multifaceted demographics of children in the foster care system in order to recognize who is being affected by what removal causes. The purpose of this study is to better understand the foster care system to target interventions and screenings for children under eighteen years of age in the United States. Quantitative measures were used to analyze statistics that were made available through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. The study identified discrepancies in demographics based on age and gender compared to the types of removal causes. While there were no practical discrepancies found in the total number of removals causes in demographics, there were discoveries made in what is the most prevalent causes of removal for each age group.

Keywords

Foster Care, FosterCare, Removal Causes, AFCARS, Discrepancies in foster care, foster care demographics, maltreatment, abuse, psychosocial development theory, child development

Disciplines

American Politics | Developmental Psychology | Development Studies | Early Childhood Education | Nonprofit Studies | Organization Development | Other Legal Studies | Other Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Justice | Social Policy | Social Statistics | Social Welfare | Social Work

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Comments

Thank you to my thesis committee, who has helped me write this paper with integrity and accuracy.

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