New Study Challenges Assumption that the Decline was Caused by the Pandemic

A new study shows that fewer children had encounters with the U.S. child welfare system in the years before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this decline continued over the following years.

The study, which was coauthored by Frank Edwards, associate professor at Rutgers University- Newark School of Criminal Justice (SCJ), Sara Wakefield, professor of criminal justice at SCJ, Christopher Wildeman, professor of sociology at Duke University, and led by Youngmin Yi, assistant professor of sociology at Wellesley College, examined trends in children’s involvement in the child welfare system from 2016 to 2023, before, during, and at the end of the pandemic.

Published in Pediatrics, the study found that U.S. children’s cumulative likelihood of being the subject of a child welfare investigation, confirmed maltreatment, placement in foster care, and termination of parental rights decreased during the period studied. Declines were largest between 2019 and 2020, with differences in the size and scale of risks varying by race and ethnicity. As of 2023, the highest risks of child welfare system contact were among American Indian/Alaska Native and Black children, and the lowest risks were among Asian children.

“Child maltreatment and involvement in the child welfare system are both strongly associated with adverse experiences and outcomes across many stages of life,” the authors write. “Our study is the first to provide systematic estimates of child protective services at the start of and after the pandemic, a time when estimates of children’s involvement with child welfare systems suggest profound changes.”

The findings suggest that children’s risks of being involved with the child welfare system began to decline before the start of the pandemic, and that these decreases were unequally distributed across racial and ethnic groups.

“This period included unprecedented state and federal policy responses to the impacts of the pandemic—including emergency rental assistance, expansion of the child tax credit, extended unemployment insurance assistance and tax waivers, and economic impact payments for families,” the authors continue. “Any of these may have reduced the hardship and disadvantage that places children at greater risk of entering the child welfare system.”

The authors also point out that the study “updates earlier estimates of child welfare system contact for U.S. children using the most recent data available, extending our understanding of child welfare system involvement and inequality to 2023.”