The use of illicit drugs among American youth is approaching epidemic proportions. The 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) prepared by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that 8.9% of adolescents and adults age 12 years or older use illicit drugs. The most disturbing trend, however, is the number of children in foster care who abuse alcohol or d...

Foster care caseloads have nearly doubled over the last three decades. Parental methamphetamine (meth) use grew significantly during the same period. While child welfare workers and law enforcement claim that parental meth use contributes to foster care growth, the evidence for a causal effect has not been determined. This paper presents the first evidence of a causal effect of meth on foster c...

Kin caregivers can provide continuity and connectedness for children who cannot remain with their parents. This is one reason kinship care has become the preferred placement option for foster children. However, despite the growing reliance on kin caregivers, kinship care policies have evolved with little coherent guidance. This article examines kinship care and finds: Kinship foster parents ten...

OBJECTIVE To examine differences in waking to bedtime cortisol production between children who remained with birth parents vs children placed in foster care following involvement of Child Protective Services (CPS). DESIGN Between-subject comparison of cortisol patterns among 2 groups of children. SETTING Children referred from the child welfare system. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred thirty-ni...

BACKGROUND Preventive quality measures for the foster care population are largely untested. The objective of the study is to identify healthcare quality measures for young children and adolescents in foster care and to test whether the data required to calculate these measures can be feasibly extracted and interpreted within an electronic health records or within the Statewide Automated Child W...

Results: At entry into foster care, children ranged in age from 11 to 76 months, were evenly divided by sex, and had a mean VABS score of 79.5 signifying functioning below the average range. At 6 months children gained an average of 7.87 points on their VABS score. By 12 months children showed an average change of 9.65 points, for a mean VABS score of 94.5, well within the nationally normed ave...