The Effects of Welfare Reform on Families Involved with Public Child Welfare Services: Results from a Qualitative Study

Laura Frame
Center for Social Services Research
16 Haviland Hall
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720
510-642-2418
FAX: (510) 642-1895
claydog@uclink4.berkeley.edu
In the early years of welfare reform, child advocates and observers have expressed concern over the unknown, but most likely negative, impact of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) on the child welfare population (Courtney, 1997; Frame, 1999; Knitzer & Bernard, 1997; Shook, 1999). This paper discusses a number of anticipated outcomes (negative and positive) for families involved with both systems, identifies possible mechanisms through which welfare reform will affect such families, and describes the actual experiences of a sample of dually-involved families living in an urban setting.

This year-long qualitative study of 10 families involved with the welfare and child welfare systems utilized ethnographic methods to understand the links between parenting quality and urban economic conditions, and the experiences of dual-system involvement in the era of welfare reform.  Through multiple meetings with families, the researcher taking an observer-participant stance, the changes in families' lives were tracked over time.

Aspects of welfare reform had a complex relationship to short-term (one year) child welfare outcomes in this sample, depending upon particular social and economic characteristics of family life, current stressors and supports.  Case studies suggest that for some parents, the use of welfare-related services may act as crucial aids in their parenting. For others, the family's utilization of child welfare services may provide important buffers against the negative repercussions they might have otherwise experienced under welfare reform's conditions. Still another set of families may fulfill - at least to some extent - more dire predictions such as intensified poverty and a decreased likelihood of success in the child welfare system.

Implications will be discussed concerning effective interventions with poor families at risk of neglecting their children, and the development of effective case management strategies given the changing relationship between welfare and child welfare, in the period of reform.