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STUDY REVEALS IRONY FACED BY FORMER WELFARE MOTHERS
The findings raise serious concerns about how such families will fare under welfare reform, as welfare mothers with kids in foster care lose their benefits because they've hit Ohio's 36-month time limit. The clock ran out this month for the first Ohio families to exhaust their three years of eligibility. The study focused on 378 children, aged 16.5 years or younger and from female-headed households, who entered foster care during a six-month period before welfare reform took effect. It followed each child for 18 months or until the child left foster care, whichever came first. Mothers who worked after incurring a significant reduction in welfare benefits regained custody of their children at dramatically slower rates than did mothers who received welfare consistently and didn't work, the study found. A reduction of $75 or more per month was considered significant. "Eighteen months after placement, 75 percent of the children whose mothers lost benefits and worked were still in foster care," reports researcher Kathleen Wells, an associate professor of social work at MSASS. "This compared to only 4 percent of the children whose mothers did not lose benefits." Many mothers involved with both the welfare system and the child welfare system have severe problems, such as substance abuse or poor mental health, that make it difficult to hold down a job, observes Wells, who is also a CWRU associate professor of psychology. Moreover, the low-wage jobs for which they may be qualified are often unstable, provide inadequate benefits, require evening or early-morning work, or offer limited flexibility. "These conditions make it difficult for mothers to manage the conflicts inherent in working and supervising, educating, and nurturing children largely on their own," she notes in an interim research report. The report covers the first phase of a five-year study Wells and co-researcher Shenyang Guo are conducting in collaboration with the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services to assess the impact of welfare reform on child welfare. Guo is a former MSASS faculty member now at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work. Of the 378 children in the study sample, half were under age four at placement and two-thirds were African American. Their families were overwhelmingly poor; 22 percent had no income and 53 percent had average incomes below $362, the maximum monthly benefit at the time for a family of three. Only 6 percent had monthly incomes above the poverty threshold of $1,049. In addition to studying family reunification rates, the researchers are also tracking changes in the child welfare caseload and comparing them to changes in the welfare rolls over the same period. Between 1995 and 1998, the county's public assistance caseload declined from more than 120,000 recipients to just over 70,000. During the same period, the researchers found a consistent pattern of increases in child maltreatment reports, reports of the highest priority, children reported per 10,000 children, and children referred to foster care. "Of course, we don't know if the decline in public assistance caseloads caused the increase in child welfare caseloads," Wells observes. "But, along with our other findings, these data raise concerns." Wells' findings on reunification rates are based on children who entered foster care from October 1995 through March 1996, a pre-welfare reform period when needy families received Aid for Dependent Children. Analysis is now under way for a second cohort comprised of children placed during the six-month period that began October 1, 1997, when Temporary Assistance for Needy Families replaced AFDC. The third cohort will cover children placed during the six months that began October 1, when the first recipients exhausted their three years of eligibility for cash assistance under TANF. "Our findings raise the possibility that children from families involved in both child welfare and the welfare system will fare poorly under this new welfare policy," Wells said. "We simply don't know, however, because the TANF program differs significantly from the AFDC program it replaced." In addition to research on caseloads and reunification rates, the study also will feature in-depth interviews with mothers of children in foster care to explore why mothers who lost welfare and went to work had slow rates of reunification with their children. The study's funding comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, and George Gund Foundation. Wells has submitted her interim report to county child welfare officials.
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