Impact of residential versus outpatient substance abuse treatment on child welfare outcomes: A secondary analysis of NSCAW II data
Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Between 40–80% of substantiated child maltreatment cases in the United States contain somedegree of parental substance abuse. After child welfare becomes involved, outcomes forchildren of parents with substance abuse issues are substantially worse than for children of nonsubstance-abusing parents. While some studies have demonstrated that substance abusetreatment can improve child welfare outcomes, results are largely inconclusive as to whetherresidential substance abuse treatment is more effective than outpatient options. Using data fromthe National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II, this study evaluates the effects ofresidential versus outpatient substance abuse treatment on family progress for families involvedin the child welfare system.Using propensity score weighting to control for substance abuse severity and other variables thatmay select parents into treatment, results indicate that child welfare workers were more likely(RRR = 4.40, p = 0.026) to indicate that families had deteriorated or made no progress in caseswhere parents attended residential treatment. Placement of children in out-of-home care alsoincreased the likelihood that workers would indicate that a family had deteriorated or made noprogress.At the same time, results from this study indicate that child welfare workers were also morelikely (RRR = 3.77, p = 0.022) to believe that a family had made substantial progress when aparent attended residential treatment. This finding was especially true for parents when thecaseworker assessed domestic violence as a pre-existing condition (RRR = 7.89, p = 0.044),suggesting a moderating relationship between treatment setting and caseworker assessment.Considering the importance of worker assessments to child welfare outcomes such asreunification and case closure, this study’s findings have implications for treatment assignmentfor child welfare involved parents. Findings from this study also provide support for theprovision of ancillary services, such as domestic violence counseling in residential programs.
Author: Wendy Wiegmann
Language: English
Topic: Child Welfare and Adoption
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2605077079