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What do "disproportionality" and "disparate outcomes" mean?
Disproportionality refers to the differences in the percentage of children of a certain racial or ethnic group in the country as compared to the percentage of the children of the same group in the child welfare system. For example, in 2000 black children made up 15.1 percent of the children in this country but 36.6 percent of the children in the child welfare system.

Disparity [or disparate outcomes] means unequal treatment when comparing a racial or ethnic minority to a non-minority. This can be observed in many forms including decision points (e.g., reporting, investigation, substantiation, foster care placement, exit), treatment, services, or resources. Research shows that children of color in foster care and their families are treated differently from-and often not as well as-white children and their families in the system. For example, fewer African American children receive mental health services even though the identified need for this type of service may be as great (or greater) for African American as for other racial or ethnic groups.

Source: Hill, R.B. (2006, May). Synthesis of research on disproportionality in child welfare: An update. Report prepared for the Casey Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance for Racial Equity. p. 3. Available online from http://www.racemattersconsortium.org/docs/BobHillPaper_FINAL.pdf

What do we mean by "the child welfare system"?
The Jefferson Service Region of Kentucky DCBS (Department for Community Based Services) has worked strategically since September 2005 to begin redefining the definition of "child welfare". To most of the public, the "child welfare system" simply means the public child welfare agency or "CPS".

This mythical definition of who "child welfare" is cannot be further from the truth. What the public at large must remember is that members of the community (not the CPS agency) refer all families to the public child welfare agency for investigation of abuse, neglect or dependency. Families of color are referred by the community at a disproportionate rate compared to their proportion in the population as measured in the general census.

Once a family is involved with Kentucky DCBS, community partners that compose the "child welfare system" help DCBS make most of the key case decisions during the life of a public child welfare case. The key decisions include the results of the investigation of abuse or neglect; the decision to leave the family intact or remove the child from the home; the decision to move a child from one placement to another placement; and finally, any permanency decision about a child (for example, the decision to change the child's permanency goal to adoption).

Community Partners are at the table when Kentucky DCBS makes these key decisions through two types of meetings that are conducted with families. All families who receive ongoing services from Kentucky DCBS will eventually be part of a "Family Team Meeting" or a "Facilitated Staffing" (sometimes called "Team Decision Making"). It is during these two types of meetings that community partners who make up the "child welfare system" help Kentucky DCBS make the key decisions in a public child welfare case.

These community partners are listed below and are committed to helping redefine who the "child welfare system" is in Louisville Kentucky.

Brooklawn Children's Services
CASA Jefferson County
Family and Children First
Jefferson County Attorney's Office
Jefferson County Foster Parent Association
Jefferson County Public Schools
Jefferson County Teachers Association
Jefferson Family Court Judges
KY Department for Juvenile Justice
Legal Aid Society
Louisville Chapter of the NAACP
Louisville Metro Department for Human Services
Louisville Metro Health Department
Louisville Metro Police Department
Louisville Urban League
Louisville Women in Transition
Metro United Way
Neighborhood Place of Louisville
Norton Healthcare
Seven Counties Services
Spalding University School of Social Work
The Home of the Innocents
University of Louisville School of Social Work
YMCA Shelter House

Source: www.jointheconversation.net [the website launched during the Jefferson pilot, Casey Family Programs Breakthrough Series Collaborative: Reducing Disproportionality and Disparate Outcomes for Children and Families of Color in the Child Welfare System, 2006-2007

How do you define "race"?
[The discussion below comes from a variety of sources, which are cited. Race: The Power of an Illusion (2003, California Newsreel) is an extremely informative video series that explores this topic in detail and is available through the Louisville Free Public Library System. You will have the opportunity to discuss this fully by participating in an Undoing Racism Workshop. Dates for future workshops are posted on this website here.]

Race is a "specious" classification of human beings, meaning classification by race is "deceptive or seemingly true or genuine but not so."

There are no biological or genetic markers that distinguish one ""racial" group or color of people from another. Genetically or biologically we are absolutely indistinguishable from each other, regardless of the physical differences among us.

We find the historic roots of our classifying human beings by race in the Western period of the Enlightenment. During that period, the view shifted from seeing people as children of God to visioning them as elements of a puzzle to be scientifically ordered. Miller and Garran (2008) point out that this period led to a sense of biological determinism, and the privileging of whiteness as the norm from which all else was seen as deviation.

Hence, the idea of three distinct races (or anything like it)-Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid-is rooted in the Europe of the Middle Ages.

Current thinking among geneticists and other biological scientists, although not necessarily unanimous, is that all human persons descend from common ancestors, with differences in appearance being related to our geographic heritage and adaptation in relation to the equator.

Yet the concept of race, both scientific and cultural, has been used ever since the inception of the United States to justify severe exploitation and terrible economic and social inequalities. Dehumanization and racial denigration served to rationalize the murder and slaughter of American Indians, enslavement of African Americans, dispossession and loss of rights of Mexican Americans, exclusion of Chinese and Japanese immigrants, and pogroms against many of the above-mentioned groups….The wedding of racial essentialism, racism, and social Darwinism led to further justifications for social and economic exclusion, as well as to pathologizing the cultures and mental health of groups considered to be "inferior"…. (Miller & Garran, p. 17).

Source: Miller, J., & Garran, A.M. (2008). Racism in the United States: Implication for the helping professions. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Brooks/Cole.

What do you mean by "racism"?
When we talk about racism, we are talking about the combination of preconceived ideas and biases that systematically disadvantage people of color while at the same time advantaging persons who are white.

Racism occurs at multiple levels-the personal, institutional, and structural are common levels of thinking about racism. Structural and institutional racism are especially important to disproportionality and disparate outcomes.

We define institutional racism as "the extent to which an agency's values, norms, policies and practices disadvantage specific populations in systemic ways." One example might be well-known to workers involved in day-to-day child welfare practice: the way the time limits written into the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 may work against families of color who need to engage in long-term substance abuse treatment to regain custody of their children.

We define structural racism in a broader way as "the complex ways in which historical oppression, culture, ideology, political economy, public policy and institutional practices interact to produce forms of racial sorting that reproduce and reinforce a hierarchy of color that privileges whiteness and marginalizes blackness." An example might be the ways in which community members tend, quite unconsciously, to file child maltreatment complains against families of color for behaviors which do not cause a complaint to be filed against a white family in like circumstances (Derezotes, Poertner, & Testa, 2006; Roberts, 2002).

Individual racism refers to "biases, prejudices, beliefs, or actions that participate in or collude with [structural or institutional] racism" (Miller & Garran, pp. 28-29). This might be something as seemingly harmless as not commenting when someone else makes a racist joke or as subtle as neglecting to identify the whole array of potential caregivers who might be available in the broadly defined family of a poor child of color. From the other side of the coin, are there times when we casually assume that a white family is more capable, less prone to the mysteries of maltreatment, when the research findings tell us that we should be more vigilant?

Sources: Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2006). Race Matters Toolkit. Available online from http://www.aecf.org/SearchResults.aspx?keywords=race%20matters%20toolkit&source=topsearch

Derezotes, D.M., Poertner, J., & Testa, M.F. (Eds.). (2005). Race matters in child welfare. New York: Child Welfare League of America.

Roberts, D. (2002). Shattered bonds: The color of child welfare. New York: Basic Civitas Books.

Miller, J., & Garran, A.M. (2008). Racism in the United States: Implication for the helping professions. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Brooks/Cole.

Do disproportionality/disparate outcomes happen because families of color maltreat their children more often than white families?
No. The National Incidence Studies (NIS-1, 2, and 3) (1980, 1986, and 1993) consistently demonstrate that families of color are no more likely to maltreat their children than white families in like circumstances. NIS-4 is underway right now and will be based on 2005 data.

The NIS studies are designed specifically to answer this question. Hotline reports have been found to be an unreliable report of maltreatment because low-income families are overrepresented and middle- and high-income families are underrepresented. These NIS studies obtain

nationally representative child maltreatment data from two sources: (a) from cases that were referred to CPS for investigation and (b) from specially trained community professionals or 'sentinels' (in hospitals, clinics, schools, childcare facilities, etc.) who reported to NIS those maltreatment cases that may or may not have been reported to CPS (Hill, 2006, op. cit., p. 12).

NIS data actually suggest that black communities may have lower rates of maltreatment. After controlling for variables related to type of maltreatment, economic conditions, and family structure, scholars found the black communities had appreciably lower incidence of abuse and neglect, a finding they connected with the power of the extended family to meet children's needs. The sources listed below provide additional information and original references so interested persons can pursue this topic further.

Sources: Hill, R.B. (2006, May). Synthesis of research on disproportionality in child welfare: An update. Report prepared for the Casey Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance for Racial Equity. Available online from http://www.racemattersconsortium.org/docs/BobHillPaper_FINAL.pdf

Derezotes, D.M., Poertner, J., & Testa, M.F. (Eds.). (2005). Race matters in child welfare. New York: Child Welfare League of America.

What do the experts think are the causes of disproportionality/disparate outcomes for children of color in the child welfare system?
Disproportionality and disparate outcomes for children of color are likely the result of (1) multiple disadvantages experienced by families and children of color including poverty and poverty-associated risks such as depression, isolation, unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse, poor health including mental illness, and domestic violence; (2) related attitudinal factors such as racism and classism; and (3) the way these factors play out in organizational cultures and practices that influence decision-making and limit positive outcomes.

For example, inequities in the health care and criminal justice system make children of color far more likely to be raised in homes by single parents, heightening their economic vulnerability and increasing their risk for poverty-related neglect, the single greatest cause for entry into the child welfare system.

However, research findings indicate for more complex interrelationships among social systems contributing to disproportionality and disparate outcomes. For example:

Black children are twice as likely to be placed in foster care when they live in counties where they comprise only 5-10 percent of the population as opposed to 30-50 percent of the population. This does not hold true for other children of color. (Hill, 2006, p. 27-28)
Numerous studies found that (after controlling for factors such as age, gender, type of maltreatment, and severity of mental health problem). Black and Latina/o youth are significantly less likely than white youth in similar circumstances of receive mental health services. This absence of services likely contributes to longer stays in care, as well as lower rates of reunification and adoption for children of color. (Hill, 2006, pp. 31-32).

Sources: Casey Family Programs Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Reducing Disproportionality and Disparate Outcomes for Children and Families of Color in the child Welfare System, The framework for change. Background and overview. What causes disproportionality? 1.

Hill, R.B. (2006, May). Synthesis of research on disproportionality in child welfare: An update. Report prepared for the Casey Center for the Study of Social Policy Alliance for Racial Equity. pp. 17-27. Available online from http://www.racemattersconsortium.org/docs/BobHillPaper_FINAL.pdf

Are disproportionality and disparate outcomes in child welfare problems only in Kentucky?
No. Research shows that disproportionality and disparate outcomes are definitely national problems, with regional variations. In all 50 states, white youth are represented either proportionately or underrepresented in care. Black youth are overrepresented in care in all 50 states. Representation varies by state for Latino/a, Native American, and Asian/Pacific Islander children and youth.

It is important to note that Latino families in the U.S. are just as likely to be poor as black families. There are many hypotheses about why they are not as overrepresented as black families in the child welfare system. These hypotheses include the possibility that Anglo workers hold unspoken positive stereotypes about the traditional nature of Latino families or simple avoidance of Latino families because of lack of language competence.

Delgado, M. (2006). Social work with Latinos: A cultural assets paradigm. New York: Oxford University Press.

Have children of color always been overrepresented in the child welfare system?
No. In fact, children of color were totally excluded from the child welfare system during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Many charitable organizations, mutual aid societies, settlement houses, and orphanages were established to serve only white clients. Black mutual aid and civil group established their own child caring institutions and a few white religious groups opened their facilities to black children. It was not until the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s, emigration of large numbers of blacks from the rural south to the urban north, and white flight from central cities to suburbs that child of color entered and ultimately became disproportionately represented in the child welfare system.

Sources: Smith, op. cit, p. 7 and Smith, C., & DeVore, W. (2004). African American children in the child welfare and kinship system: From exclusion to over-inclusion. Children and Youth Services Review, 26(5), 427-446,

Are disproportionality/disparate outcomes problems only in the child welfare system?
No. Researchers find similar inequities are found in all major social institutions in the United States, and the inequities reinforce each other across social systems. Consider how inequities in health care and the justice system make it more likely that children of color will be raised in single parent homes. To learn more about what are called "embedded racial inequities" in 13 different social systems, visit the Fact Sheets in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Race Matters Toolkit which is referenced below.

Sources: Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2006). Race Matters Toolkit. Available online from
http://www.aecf.org/SearchResults.aspx?keywords=race%20matters%20toolkit&source=topsearch

Everett, J.E., Chipunga, S.P., & Leashore, B. (2004). Child welfare revisited: An Africentric perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers

What can we do to challenge disproportionality and disparate outcomes?
Your being part of this conference is a great start! Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Department of Community Based Services, began this public conversation almost two years ago-facing these data and committing ourselves as communities to changing the way we work together is a "courageous conversation."

Research from a number of communities, including Louisville, doing this work, identify the following trends-
Doing the work begins with facing the hard data that demonstrate the reality of what is occurring to children of color in our broadly defined child welfare system. Once we have really faced those numbers, we can hold ourselves accountable to change them.
It takes changes in both policies and practices in partner agencies to challenge disproportionality and disparate outcomes.
The changes that improve outcomes for children of color improve services for white children and youth also. All children benefit from this effort.
Focus needs to be placed in prevention, front-loading services when a family at risk is identified, emphasizing substance abuse treatment, and focusing on obtaining those services that clearly are directly related to permanency outcomes. Family team conferencing through our Neighborhood Places is a great example.
This is all about strategic community partnerships-it really does take a community to ensure the safety and well-being of its children. The community is the child welfare system.

This is what we know from the research to date. Kentucky is currently conducting research (PDSAs-small cycles of change) to contribute to knowledge about best practices, and will spread those strategies that prove effective.

Source: The Center for Community Partnerships in Child Welfare of the Center for the Study of Social Policy. (2006, December). Places to watch: Promising practice to address racial disproportionality in child welfare. Report prepared for The Casey-CSSP Alliance for Racial Equity. Available online from http://www.csssp.org

What is the most recent evidence regarding racial disproportionality and disparate outcomes for children in Kentucky?
D ata from the 2000 census show African American children representing 7% of the overall population in Kentucky. When looking at figures from the Child Welfare System, African American children make up 21% of the total amount of children in out-of-home-care (OOHC) (datasource: TWS 058 - January, 2007). African American children are over-represented in out-of-home care at a rate 2.9 times what is expected based on their representation on the census population. This over-representation is coupled with disparate treatment of racial/ethnic children in the Child Welfare System.

The bar graph below depicts a child's experience by race in the Child Welfare System including the Department of Community Based Services (DCBS). The bars display the percent of the whole population for each racial group. For example, 90% of children in KY are White, but only 83% of referrals are for White children and only 72% of children in OOHC are White.

INSERT GRAPH HERE

As of January 2007 (point in time data), we have observed among children in OOHC that:
African American children that have been in out-of-home care for at least 15 months spend on average 5.3 more months in care than White children

African American children tend to have (0.48) more placement moves than White children

An additional amount of $5.47 is spent daily on African American children in care because they are placed in more restrictive and costly OOHC placements

At the time of removal, Social Service workers identify at least one condition that is present in the child's home. The three conditions more likely to be reported for African American children than White children are:

That is, African American children are more likely to be relinquished or abandoned by their parents or have parent drug-abuse as a condition for OOHC entry.

The following graph shows the number of entries into and exits from OOHC each year for White and African American children. For example, in 2002, we see more White (n = 3376) and African American (n = 699) children entering than exiting OOHC (White = 2907, African American = 652). From 2002 - 2006, the number of African American children that entered OOHC exceeded the number of African American children that exited OOHC. This may be one explanation for the over-representation of African American children in the Child Welfare System.

"RACE, COMMUNITY, AND CHILD WELFARE"

Identified Counties in Most Need
(* = Phase II)

Detailed information about this series is available at http://www,pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm
The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond training materials
Miller, J., & Garran, A.M. (2008). Racism in the United States: Implication for the helping professions. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Brooks/Cole. 16
The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond
Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System

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