Child Welfare Agency Practices for Nonresident Fathers in Four U.S. States

A study of nearly 2,000 foster children in four U.S. states, examining child welfare agency efforts to identify, locate, and involve nonresident fathers. The research was conducted by Kerstin Malm, who interviewed local agency caseworkers by phone. The study found that nonresident fathers are not often involved in case planning and nearly half were never contacted by the child welfare agency.

Use Cases

• Analyze child welfare agency engagement practices based on caseworker interview data.
• Model factors influencing father involvement in case planning based on study findings.
• Assess the use of child support resources in foster care cases as mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Study covers nearly 2,000 foster children.
• Data was collected via structured phone interviews with agency caseworkers.
• Focus on a specific, understudied population (nonresident fathers of foster children).

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the four study states.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Kerstin Malm

Collection Method

Phone interviews with local child welfare agency caseworkers.

Geography

Four unspecified U.S. states.