The role of race, socioeconomic status, and System of Care services in placement decision-making

• An experimental design was used to examine the influence of non-clinical variables on placement decisions in child welfare.
• Social workers reviewed a vignette manipulating race, socioeconomic status (SES), and system of care (SOC) services.
• No main effects on placement decision in a residential versus community setting were found for race, SES, or SOC services.
• Post-hoc analyses showed that the child’s clinical needs, environment, and social workers’ experience affected decisions.

A 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design was used to examine the potential influence of race (African American vs. Caucasian), socioeconomic status of the foster care environment (Low vs. High), and System of Care (SOC) services (System of Care/Wraparound Services vs. Treatment as Usual) on social workers' placement decisions within the child welfare system. Two hundred thirty-one social workers from Illinois (86.8% female, 85.4% European-American; mean age of 50.6 years) read a vignette of a child in foster care and were asked to recommend whether the child should remain in his current community-based foster care placement or be stepped up to a residential placement. Workers then completed a demographic form and rated the child's clinical and treatment needs. No main effects of race, SES of the foster care environment, or treatment history on placement decisions were found. Subsequent exploratory analyses indicated that clinical factors, environmental factors, participants' experience in child welfare, and vignette condition interacted in nuanced ways to predict placement recommendations. While clinical variables were the primary factors that social workers considered when making placement decisions, the decisions were also be influenced by perceptions of the availability of community and family resources. Future research should consider using more open-ended approaches in order to further assess the processes by which social workers make placement decisions in the child welfare system.