Children at risk: outcome and cost measures needed.
Sporadic reports in the media focus on the difficulty of America's social welfare leadership to protect children at risk and to allocate scarce resources. These criticisms suggest the need for valid conclusions in both socio-psychological and economic terms for evaluating the efficacy of three key strategies used for children at risk: reunification, foster and kinship care, and adoption. This article calls for creating a comprehensive data base that supplies the most critical variables leading to reasonable successes and the average cost per case when comparing children reunified with a biological parent to those who are placed into out-of-home settings and to those who are adopted. This analysis to include public and private expenditures for services provided by human services--welfare, special education, judicial, correctional, mental health, medical, and other related organizations.
Weil
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Bedford Health Associates, Inc., Management Consultants for Health and Hospital Services, Asheville, N.C. 28804, USA. Tpweil@aol.com
D000300:Adoption; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000191:economics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005581:Foster Home Care; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors; D012947:Social Work / Q000191:economics*