"دلیل فقر: چالش دادگاه برای روش های رفاه کودکان و برنامه های اجباری

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of poverty in the placement of children in out-of-home care and in family reunification. We examined court cases that successfully challenged policies of child welfare agencies resulting in children's placement into substitute care or in failure to reunite children with their families for ‘reasons of poverty.’ We briefly describe court mandated programs and evaluate the effectiveness of one of these programs in preventing substitute care placement, facilitating more timely reunification, and reducing agency costs. We conclude that child welfare agencies have removed children from their homes and have failed to reunite children with their families for ‘reasons of poverty.’ Our analysis also indicates that providing families with economic or material resources can prevent unnecessary substitute care placement, facilitate reunification, and be cost effective. Other child welfare practice, policy, and research implications are discussed.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the intention of federal child welfare policy has been to preserve families and not to remove children from their homes for ‘reasons of poverty’ except for unusual circumstances (Pelton, 1989). Despite this policy intent, the majority of children placed into substitute care historically have been poor (Pelton, 1994). The government also has allocated a disproportionate amount of funding for child protection services to poor children and to poor children's out-of-home care (U.S. House of Representatives, 1998, Faver, Crawford and Combs-Orme, 1999 and Bess, Leos-Urbel and Geen, 2001).