ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0674-4233
Date of Award
Fall 2026
Language
English Language
Embargo Period
10-31-2028
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College/School/Department
School of Social Welfare
Program
Social Welfare
First Advisor
Cheng Ren
Second Advisor
Katharine Briar-Lawson
Third Advisor
Sarah Mountz
Committee Members
Cheng Ren, Katharine Briar-Lawson, Cudore Snell
Keywords
Child welfare, concrete resources, frontline caseworkers, social welfare, poverty
Subject Categories
Social Policy | Social Welfare | Social Work
Abstract
Paper 1: Material hardship is a proximal driver of family separation and foster care re-entry in the United States, yet the caseworker practices that translate federal and state resources into household level relief remain under-researched. This study mapped evidence on how child welfare caseworkers screen for material hardship and mobilize concrete resources, and the relationship of these practices to re-entry. The study included 26 peer reviewed studies and three patterns emerged. First, resource mobilization and screening practices were documented but none evaluated a caseworker administered material hardship screening tool. Second, few studies measured directly and reported reduction in re-entry odds. Third, interventions which combined screening, direct provision, and relational engagement produced the most consistent effects, whereas single component interventions yielded marginal results. The findings support an analytic distinction between active and passive casework responses to material hardship. The study established three important research gaps: unconditional cash transfers, benefits uptake, and rural child welfare systems, that are not well captured within the four service categories currently eligible for review under the Title IV-E prevention services clearinghouse created by the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA). This gap exposes a broader structural mismatch between FFPSA’s prevention mandate and the concrete-support practices most directly connected to reducing foster care re-entry.
Paper 2: Re-entry into foster care after a positive exit signals a failure of durable permanency and renews instability for children. Whether concrete economic supports reduce re-entry risk, and whether there is any protective association depends on exit type and remains unclear at the national level. Using seven consecutive fiscal-year discharge cohorts from federal foster care administrative data (2018 through 2025), we examined children who exited to reunification, kinship care, guardianship, or adoption, and modeled re-entry within 12 months. Logistic regression identified child, family, and placement predictors of re-entry; indicators for four economic supports tested whether support was associated with re-entry and whether associations varied by exit type; and models estimated separately by year assessed temporal consistency, with attention to reunifying families. In the anchor 2018-2019 fiscal year cohort (8,553 reentries), prior removal was the strongest adjusted predictor (odds ratio = 3.46, 95% confidence interval [3.13, 3.82]) of re-entry. After full adjustment, no economic support was protective; the apparent protective pattern for adoption assistance was explained by exit type, and disability income was associated with modestly higher re-entry (odds ratio = 1.35 [1.19, 1.53]). The support by exit type interaction was not significant in the anchor fiscal year and was inconsistent across years. A 2020 redesign of the reporting system rendered two supports unusable from the FY2023-2024 cohort onward. Findings indicate that concrete supports, as currently captured, do not buffer re-entry risk following positive exits, and that national data cannot yet evaluate the family level supports that recent federal law now funds. Improved measurements of post exit support receipt are needed.
Paper 3: Economic hardship underlies much child welfare system involvement for families in the U.S., and leaves much to be known about how frontline foster care caseworkers facilitate access to concrete and economic resources, or how they perceive such support in preventing system re-entry. This qualitative bounded case study draws on semi structured interviews with foster care caseworkers in a northeastern state in the United States, analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis and in vivo coding. Two overarching findings emerged. First, caseworkers used their discretionary capacity and acted as buffers in a system whose own design for housing, system fragmentation, and benefits cliffs worked against the stability it required of families, facilitating access largely by compensating for structural barriers and impeding it where the system routed its constraints through them. Second, caseworkers reported a near universal conviction that concrete support prevents foster care system re-entry. The findings also revealed a cross-cutting tension between structural and behavioral explanations of material hardship. Study implications support reforms that re-integrate economic and concrete supports into child welfare practice and policy in the U.S.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Adaranijo, Emmanuel T., "Family Reunification, System Re-entry, and Casework Practices with Concrete Resources in Child Welfare" (2026). Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present). 559.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/etd/559