Welcome to Layna Crofts' Study
Exploration Of America’s Foster Care System: A 30 year study
This study aims to enhance understanding of the new laws and repercussions they hold within the foster care system.
About Viequery Study
Layna Crofts
Crofts' Exploration of America's Foster Care System:
A 30-Year Examination
More than three decades ago, my journey into child welfare began with a pilot study in social work, delving into CPS child abuse removal, family reunification, and the enduring challenges within the American foster care system. Having observed its evolution, it's undeniable that the foster care system faces even more significant challenges today than it did 30 years ago.
Foster children today encounter hurdles that lead to even more challenging futures than they did 30 years ago. Governmental financial deficiencies, intensified by confidential settlements and modified laws, appear primarily aimed at managing financial consequences rather than prioritizing the well-being of vulnerable children and families who endure as victims. This reflection is framed against the legislative backdrop of Washington state, specifically Senate Bill 5151 enacted in 2021. This bill, designed to reduce the number of children in foster care by 50%, provides a stark context for concerns: where will the abused children go, and how will this improve their lives? It is anticipated that other states will follow Washington's lead, recognizing the fiscal strain of the foster care system without proportional benefits for foster children, biological families, social workers, and the community.
Presently, studies have proven that when children are abused, they enter a slippery slope toward addiction, lack of educational success, homelessness, and incarceration, and this is compounded when entering the foster care system. The foster care system, intended as a refuge for abused children, has turned into an abuse cycle, producing desperate people without a support system. To the detriment of children, foster families and social workers are resources that often don’t endure, leading to a cascade of issues that harm the already fragile foster children.
In response, Crofts proposes to conduct a study for her Ph.D., based on Dr. Walton's successful study, incorporating bibliotherapeutic books. This private, non-government-funded, unbiased study emerges as a beacon of impartiality, aiming to provide an in-depth examination of the foster care system across America.
This study will follow Dr. Walton's plan, entering homes where foster children are being removed from their homes with a family preservation worker and an investigator. They will work efficiently with a staffing team for 90 days to facilitate the child's long-term return to the family. Families and children will be studied for 90 days, 1 year, 3 years, 7 years, and 20 years to measure trauma, suicide rates, addiction, prison, perpetuating abuse, etc.
The anticipated results of this longitudinal study are to anticipate: families staying together, less trauma in foster care for all, prolonged state workers in their jobs, shorter foster care stays, educational benefits, reduced jail time, fewer foster kids who have children at young ages, fewer foster kids whose children go into foster care, and a significant reduction in filed lawsuits and state payouts for child welfare.
Dr. Walton's Studies:
- U.S. Census Bureau. (2020). Poverty rates for selected detailed race and Hispanic groups by state and place: 2014-2018. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-271.html
- API-GBV. (2018). Pacific Islander and Asian American Women and Families: A Research Agenda for the Next Decade. https://www.api-gbv.org/
- National Center for Education Statistics. (2019). Educational attainment in the United States: 2019. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_caa.asp
What Crofts Needs:
Layna is looking for a university to propel this study, and a county and DCFS to allow the study to be implemented.
Walton, E; Fraser, M.W; Lewis, R.E; Pecora, P.J; Walton, W.K. (1993) “In-Home Family-Focused Reunification: And Experimental Study.” Child welfare 72.5: 473–487. Print.
Walton, E.: In-home family-focused reunification (1998). A six-year follow-up of a successful experiment, Social Work Research, Volume 22, Issue 4, December 1998, Pages 205–214, https://doi-org.du.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/swr/22.4.205
Walton, E. (2001). Combining Abuse and Neglect Investigations With Intensive Family Preservation Services: An Innovative Approach to Protecting Children. Research on Social Work Practice, 11(6), 627-644.
https://doi-org.du.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/104973150101100601
Walton, E. (1994). Intensive in-home family preservation services to enhance child protective investigative and assessment decisions: The evaluation of an experimental model (Final Report, Grant No. 90CW1042/01). Washington, D.C.: Administration on Children, Youth, and Families.