THE UNITED STATES IS not the only country that is faced with the complex problem of racial disproportionality in the child welfare system. Readers will learn that this problem is also pervasive in other places around the world. This chapter will explore the disproportionate number of racial minority children in the child welfare systems in Australia, England, New Zealand, and Canada. These countries were selected for a discourse about disproportionality as a result of communication about this problem with colleagues from the aforementioned areas and availability of data for these geographical locations.
DISPROPORTIONALITY IN AUSTRALIA
In Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, also referred to as Indigenous children, are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system. Aboriginal children and youth are over nine times more likely to be in out-of-home care (Yeo 2003), and Indigenous children as a group continue to be disproportionately represented in out-of-home care placements (Valentine & Gray 2006; Tilbury 2008; Zhou & Chilvers 2010).
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are also disproportionately represented in all areas of the Australian child protection system and are more likely to have substantiated reports of child maltreatment than other children. “Across Australia, Indigenous children were 7.7 times as likely as other children to be the subject of substantiation in 2009–10. This is a slight increase in the level of over-representation from 2008–09 when Indigenous children were 7.5 times more likely than other children to be the subject of a substantiation” (Lamont 2011, 5).
Reports of alleged child abuse and neglect are called notifications in Australia. However, there is no standardized definition of child abuse and neglect, so there are variations in definition across states and territories. More than one notification may be received for a child. Notifications are most often received from police officers, hospital/health center staff, and school personnel (Lamont 2011). According to Lamont (2011), there were 286,437 reported cases of child abuse and neglect across Australia in 2009–2010; this total represented a 16 percent decrease from the 339,454 reported cases in 2008–2009. In 2009–2010 child protective services (CPS) investigated 131,689 reports of child abuse and neglect and substantiated 46,187 cases (Lamont 2011). The number of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect declined from 2007–2008 through 2009–2010 (see table 2.1).
The main types of child maltreatment substantiated in Australia are neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, with the first two being the most common (see table 2.2). Although in the United States it is difficult to substantiate cases of emotional abuse, there is a high rate of substantiated cases in Australia. Australia includes a wide range of behaviors in its definition of emotionally abusive maltreatment (terrorizing, verbally abusing, isolating, rejecting, ignoring, and causing the witnessing of domestic violence), and Holzer and Bromfield (2008) attribute the country’s high rates of substantiated cases of emotional abuse to the inclusion of children who witness domestic violence. “When children are exposed to domestic violence, their safety and well-being are at risk; however, there is much controversy among policy makers, child welfare professionals, domestic violence advocates, and service providers regarding whether exposure to domestic violence is considered child abuse or neglect” (Harris 2007, 45–46). Approximately 275 million children worldwide are exposed to domestic violence (Carvel 2006), and evidence does indicate that it is deleterious to any child to witness such violence:
• Children who live with domestic violence not only endure the distress of being surrounded by violence but also are more likely to become victims of abuse themselves. An estimated 40 percent of child abuse victims also have reported domestic violence in the home.
• Even when children are not physically abused themselves, their exposure to domestic violence can have severe and lasting effects. The impact begins early: studies show that younger children are more likely to be exposed to domestic violence than older children, and this can impair their mental and emotional growth in a critical stage of development.
• As they grow, children exposed to domestic violence continue to face a range of possible effects, including trouble with schoolwork, limited social skills, depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems. They are at great risk for substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, and delinquent behavior.
• The single best predictor of children continuing the cycle of domestic violence—either as perpetrators or as victims—is whether they grow up in homes with domestic violence. Research shows that rates of abuse are higher among women whose husbands either were abused as children or saw their mothers being abused. Many studies also have found that children from violent homes show signs of more aggressive behavior, such as bullying, and are up to three times more likely to be involved in fighting. (UNICEF 2006)
TABLE 2.1 Total Number of Notifications, Investigations and Substantiations Across Australia, 2000–2001 to 2009–2010, and Total Number of Children on Orders and in Out-of-Home Care, June 2000 to 2010
Notes: (a) Due to the implementation of a new information management system, New South Wales could not provide data for investigation, substantiations or children on orders in 2003–04. (b) Due to the implementation of a new information management system, Queensland was unable to provide investigation data in 2006–07. (c) The data from Victoria for previous years were updated in 2009.
Source: AIHW 2011. Permission to reprint from the Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Level 20, 485 La Trobe Street, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia.
TABLE 2.2 Primary Types of Substantiated Maltreatment in Australian States and Territories, 2009–2010
Source: AIHW 2011. Permission to reprint from the Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Level 20, 485 La Trobe, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia.
In Australia there appears to a pattern of intergenerational removal of Indigenous children from their birth families and placement in out-of-home care compared to other children. The Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (completed in 2002) collected data on 5,289 caregivers and their children, who ranged in age from newborn to seventeen years. Its findings revealed that 20.3 percent of the mothers of the primary caregivers (grandmothers of the children in the survey) and 12.6 percent of the fathers of the primary caregivers (grandfathers of the children in the survey) had been in out-of-home placements and that approximately 12.3 percent of the primary caregivers and 12.3 percent of the secondary caregivers reported being separated from their birth families (Australian Human Rights Commission 2008). Another finding was that 35.3 percent of all Aboriginal children and youth living in Western Australia were living in homes where a caregiver or a caregiver’s birth parent had been “forcibly separated” from his or her birth family (Australian Human Rights Commission 2008). Similar intergenerational patterns of removal of children of color from their birth parents and placement in out-of-home care is found in the United States’ treatment of its African American and Native American children.
Most (94 percent) of the children in Australia who are removed from their birth families are placed in home-based care. There are three types of home-based care: foster care, relative/kinship care, and other home-based care (private home care that is not foster care and/or relative/kinship care). According to Lamont (2011), there were 11,468 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in home-based care as of June 30, 2010. Indigenous children were ten times more likely to be placed in such care than other children.
DISPROPORTIONALITY IN ENGLAND
Disproportionality in the child welfare system is also problematic in the United Kingdom. Black and minority ethnic (BME) children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system in England. According to a Department for Children, Schools and Families report (2009), in England 27 percent of the children in care had BME backgrounds. Owen and Statham (2009) analyzed three datasets of BME children and found as follows: “The patterns of over- and under-representation that have long been reported in national level statistics are also reflected at local authority level. Children from black and minority ethnic groups are represented in these statistics at rates different to their presence in the local population (disproportionality) and at rates different to those for White children locally (disparity) which broadly match the pattern at the national level” (44). BME families are also disproportionately represented when family group conferencing is offered to families in the child welfare system (Barn, Das, & Sawyerr 2010).
Other findings on children in the child welfare system are as follows:
• All “mixed” (dual/mixed parentage/heritage) ethnic groups are overrepresented (and especially the “other mixed” category).
• Asian children and young people are underrepresented (particularly the Indian group).
• All black groups are overrepresented.
• BME children are more likely than white children to have long-term foster care, rather than adoption, specified in their care plans.
• Children of mixed parentage experienced severe placement disruption compared to their minority ethnic counterparts.
• Over 20 percent of Asian children are considered to be in need due to disability compared with 14 percent of white children, 9 percent of Caribbean children, and 7 percent of mixed parentage children. Asian families, however, are less likely to receive support services, and they have limited knowledge of direct payment assistance.
• BME families report fewer than average support networks compared to white families.
• Social workers may be more likely to think of temporary foster care as the first stage in compulsory care when they provide it for BME children.
• Placement breakdown rates for BME children are no different than those for white children, although the breakdown rates for children of mixed parentage are higher than those for white children.
• There are no significant differences in placement breakdown between BME children placed with carers from a background similar to their own and those placed with white families. When black boys were placed with white families, the relationship was less likely to break down, but the opposite seems true for girls.
• Because ethnicity is very important to black and Asian children, white carers face extra challenges in providing them with necessary support.
• Because many BME foster carers empathize with parents from their own culture who have struggles with adversity, they want to help both parents and child. They often prefer to offer a permanent foster home rather than to adopt. (National Children’s Bureau 2009, 1–2)
Race has also been a major factor in services to children and families of color in the child welfare system in the United States. According to Harris and Skyles (2005), “African American children are at a disadvantage regarding the range and quality of services provided, the type of agency to which they are referred, the efficiency with which their cases are handled, the support their families receive, and their eventual outcomes” (95).
There appear to be some discriminatory practices in the care provided to BME children and families.
Whether we have evidence of “systematic” discrimination or not, we do have plenty of anecdotal and research evidence from service users that discriminative practices are present in children’s social care and given that this is incongruent with social work and social care values we have an individual and collective responsibility to work to redress the balance. Uncertainty among children’s social care professionals about how to respond appropriately to the needs of BME families compounds other forms of discrimination experienced by BME children and young people in care.
(National Children’s Bureau 2009, 2)
There have also been reports that ethnic minority children receive less support and fewer services to help them remain at home and therefore enter the child welfare system earlier (Barn, Sinclair, & Ferdinand 1997; Hunt, Macleod, & Thomas 1999).
DISPROPORTIONALITY IN NEW ZEALAND
The disproportionate number of Maori children in the New Zealand child welfare system has been a major problem for many years. New Zealand law does not require reporting of allegations of child abuse and/or neglect. However, annual notifications to CPS in New Zealand dramatically increased from 6,000 in the 1980s to 71,927 in 2007; these rates surpassed rates in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (Ministry of Social Development 2008). The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act of 1989 is the government’s major legislation to address this problem. “The driving force behind this legislation—and the implementation of FGDM [family group decision making]—was to address issues of institutional racism experienced by Maori, the country’s indigenous people” (Connolly 2004, 1). This legislation focused on the significance of child well-being in the context of family, including the role of the whanau (Maori extended family), hapu (clan, descent group, or subtribe), and iwi (tribe).
Prior to passage of this legislation the Maori extended family and other kinship networks were not recognized or supported by the New Zealand child welfare system. A common practice during the nineteenth century was to place Maori children in residential institutions or in industrial schools if they were destitute, homeless, neglected, or maltreated; if they lived in undesirable surroundings or with “unsavory” companions; or if they were unable to be controlled or committed offenses (Dalley 1998). The industrial schools had the authority to keep children until they were twenty-one years of age. This practice seems parallel to the practice of placing Native American children in boarding schools, “often far from their homes, where they were taught Christianity and vocational skills to assimilate and to ‘civilize’ them” (Weaver 2005, 87). Even during the 1980s it was common practice to remove Maori children from their families and place them outside their kinship network.
There were approximately 6,000 substantiated cases of child abuse in New Zealand from January through April 2006 (Newman 2006). In 2009 the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services received over 125,000 allegations of child abuse and/or neglect and substantiated over 21,000 of these (Bennett 2010).
A major concern continues to be the disproportionate number of Maori children and children of Pacific Island background who are in the child welfare system. Although Maori children are 24 percent of the child population, they are 35 percent of the children in out-of-home care. In 2005, approximately 76 percent of the children in out-of-home care were in some type of family care placement: specifically, 35 percent in kinship care placements (46 percent of these were Maori children and 48 percent were Pacific Islander children) and 41 percent in nonkinship foster family placements. In that same year over 46 percent of the children in out-of-home care had been in placement for two years or longer. Asian and European children and white (Pakeha) children are not disproportionately represented in the child welfare system in New Zealand, but once white children are in care, they tend to remain there longer than Maori children (Department of Child, Youth and Family Services 2005). There has been a concerted effort in New Zealand to move to a “differential response” system in CPS; the goal of this system is to assist families in getting the services and supports they need when a notification/allegation is reported without having an investigation by a social worker (Waldegrave 2005). An integral part of the child welfare system in New Zealand continues to be the family group conference. It is mandated in the 1989 Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act that family members be actively involved in caring for and protecting their children; according to Section 13(b):
The primary role in caring for and protecting a child or young person lies with the child’s or young person’s family, whanau, hapu, iwi, and family group, and that accordingly (i) … that family should be supported, assisted and protected as much as possible and (ii) intervention into family life should be the minimum to ensure a child’s or young person’s safety and protection.
It is clear that this law recognizes the significance of the birth family and extended family, as well as the cultural values inherent in the Maori children and families who continue to be disproportionately represented in the New Zealand child welfare system.
DISPROPORTIONALITY IN CANADA
In Canada First Nations children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system. Disproportionate numbers of these children entered the child welfare system by being victims of the “rescue” movements that were prevalent in Canada. According to Sinclair (2007), during the “Sixties Scoop” many First Nations children were taken into the care and custody of the Canadian child welfare system and adopted by non–First Nations families. First Nations children were also sent to boarding schools as part of the “rescue” movement. MacDonald and MacDonald (2007) state that the children were sent to boarding schools in an effort to provide them with a “better” life than they had in the past. “There can be no doubt of the racist and assimilation underpinnings of the placement of Aboriginal youth in the residential schools.” “Even in a racist society most ‘helpers’ are not openly racist. They can usually justify their actions as contributing to what they consider the common good” (Sullivan & Charles 2010, 3). Although Aboriginal children are only 8 percent of the children in British Columbia, they represent 51 percent of the children in that province’s child welfare system (MacDonald 2008).
Research has also shown that as far back as the 1880s and even in the 1930s thousands of “Children of the Empire” were transported from England to Canada via “orphan boats” because they were labeled as poor children (Kohli 2003; Charles & Gabor 2006). Supposedly these children were rescued from their poverty-stricken environments to be placed in the homes of “good” families; however, the “good” families used them as farm workers and as servants.
It is crystal clear that racial disproportionality in child welfare is not a problem unique to the United States. Children of color are also represented at disproportionately high numbers in child welfare systems in other countries. This problem will not be abated until these countries stop blaming children of color and their families for being poor, with the myriad of issues associated with being poor, and get them the resources and services required to preserve their families.
REFERENCES
Barn, R., Das, C., & Sawyerr, A. (2010). Family group conference and black and minority ethnic families: A study of two community-based organizations in London. London, England: The Royal Holloway, University of London.
Barn, R., Sinclair, R., & Ferdinand, D. (1997). Acting on principle: An examination of race and ethnicity in social services provision for children and families. London, England: BAAF.
Bennett, P. (2010, August 23). Why you should care about child abuse. New Zealand Herald, p. 1.
Charles, G., & Gabor, P. (2006). An historical perspective on residential services for troubled and troubling youth in Canada revisited. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 19(4), 17–26.
Connolly, M. (2004). Family group decision making: A solution to racial disproportionality and disparities in child welfare. Englewood, CO: American Humane.
Courtney, M. E., Barth, R. P., Berrick, J. D., Brooks, D., & Parks, L. (1996). Race and child welfare services: Past research and future directions. Child Welfare, 75(2), 99–137.
Dalley, B. (1998). Family matters: Child welfare in 20th century New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: University Press.
Department for Children, Schools and Families. (2009). Children looked after in England (including adoption and care leavers) year ending 31 March 2009. London, England: Author.
Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. (2005). 2005 Annual report for the year ending 30 June 2004. Wellington, New Zealand: Author.
Fanshel, D. (1981). Decision-making under uncertainty: Foster care for abused and neglected children? American Journal of Public Health, 71(7), 685–686.
Harris, M. S. (2007). Silent victims: Issues and interventions for children exposed to violence. Protecting Children, 22(3/4), 45–53.
Harris, M. S., & Skyles, A. (2005). Working with African American children and families in the child welfare system. In K. L. Barrett & W. H. George (Eds.), Race, culture, psychology, and law (pp. 91–103). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Holzer, P. J., & Bromfield, L. M. (2008). NCPASS comparability of child protection data: Project report. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Institute of Family Studies, National Child Protection Clearinghouse.
Hunt, J., Macleod, A., & Thomas, C. (1999). The last resort: Child protection, the courts and the Children Act. London, England: The Stationery Office.
Jeter, H. (1963). Children, problems and services in child welfare programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Katz, M. R., Hampton, R., Newberger, E. H., & Bowles, R. T. (1986). Returning children home: Clinical decision making in child abuse and neglect. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 56(2), 253–262.
Kohli, M. (2003). The golden bridge: Young immigrants to Canada, 1839–1939. Toronto, Canada: National Heritage.
Lamont, A. (2011). NCPC resource sheet: Child abuse and neglect statistics. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Institute of Family Studies, National Child Protection Clearinghouse.
MacDonald, K. A. (2008). The road to Aboriginal authority in child and family services. Vancouver, Canada: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
MacDonald, N., & MacDonald, J. (2007). Reflections of a Mi’Kmag social worker on a quarter century work on First Nations child welfare. First Peoples Child and Family Review, 3(1), 34–45.
Maluccio, A., & Fein, E. (1989). An examination of long-term foster care for children and youth. In J. Hudson & B. Galaway (Eds.), The state as parent (pp. 387–400). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
National Children’s Bureau. (2009). Black and minority ethnic looked after children. London, England: Author.
Newman, M. (2006, July 2). Maori child abuse crisis. Newman Weekly, p. 1.
Olsen, L. (1982). Services for minority children in out-of-home care. Social Services Review, 56, 572–585.
Owen, C., & Statham, J. (2009). Disproportionality in child welfare: The prevalence of black and minority ethnic children within the “looked after” and “children in need” populations and on child protection registers in England. London, England: Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London.
Sinclair, R. (2007). Identity lost and found: Lessons for the Sixties Scoop. First Peoples Child and Family Review, 3(1), 65–82.
Sullivan, R., & Charles, G. (2010). Disproportionate representation and First Nations child welfare in Canada. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia, School of Social Work.
Tilbury, C. (2008). The over-representation of Indigenous children in the Australian child welfare system. International Journal of Social Welfare, 18(1), 57–64.
Valentine, B., & Gray, M. (2006). Keeping them home: Aboriginal out-of-home care in Australia. Families in Society, 87(4), 537–545.
Waldegrave, S. C. F. (2005). A differential response model for child protection in New Zealand: Supporting more timely and effective response to notifications. Social Policy Journal New Zealand, 25, 32–48.
Weaver, H. N. (2005). Explorations in cultural competence: Journeys to the four directions. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.
Yeo, S. S. (2003). Bonding and attachment of Australian Aboriginal children. Child Abuse Review, 12, 292–304.
Zhou, A. Z., & Chilvers, M. (2010). Infants in Australian out-of-home care. British Journal of Social Work, 40(1), 26–43.
