Effectiveness of Family Centered Treatment on reunification and days in care: Propensity score matched sample from Indiana child welfare data

Barbara J. Pierce, Finneran K. Muzzey, Kori R. Bloomquist and Teresa M. Imburgia

Children and Youth Services Review, 2022, vol. 136, issue C

Abstract: Family Centered Treatment (FCT) is a home-based, family trauma and family preservation treatment used in the juvenile justice, mental health, and child welfare systems to address trauma and family disruption. The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of FCT on time to reunification for children in a child welfare system not also involved with the juvenile justice system. The sample of 187 children who received FCT was matched with the large data set of administrative data of children in the child welfare system at the same time. Using the analytic tool of propensity score matching on key demographic variables of age, gender, race, and number of children in the family, researchers created a statistically equivalent proxy group of 187 children who did not receive FCT during the same timeframe. Children receiving FCT who were removed from their homes had significantly fewer number of days to reunification than children not receiving FCT (341 vs. 417, p < .05) and the children receiving FCT spent significantly less time, over two months, in child welfare services reaching permanency more quickly than children who did not receive FCT. Key conclusions drawn include: (1) propensity score matching provided a rigorous and appropriate analytic tool for post-hoc creation of an equivalent “control” group leading to the second conclusion (2) that our analysis of FCT demonstrated it as a robust intervention that decreased days in out-of-home care by over two months for the children receiving FCT versus those who did not receive the intervention. Implications for future use of PSM and intervention research given the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 are included.

Keywords: Family centered treatment; Program evaluation; Child welfare; Propensity score matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:136:y:2022:i:c:s0190740922000317

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106395

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