A Person-Centered Analysis of Change in Supports for Child Welfare-Involved Families and Caregiver and Child Outcomes

Families involved with the U.S. child welfare system are overwhelmingly lower-resourced and often experience multiple hardships, which can adversely affect mental health. Research indicates that public, private, and child welfare system supports may individually shape caregiver and child well-being. Conversely, loss or insufficiency of support is linked to more family hardship and worse parent and child mental health. With data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being II, we used a person-centered approach to examine longitudinal configurations of public, private, and child welfare system supports over three years and caregiver and child outcomes. Results revealed distinct patterns of family supports over time, and that public and private supports tended to be stable, but child welfare system supports were likely to change over time. Mean difference comparisons across classes generally revealed that parents with strong private safety nets reported better mental health outcomes for themselves and lower behavioral problems for their children compared to those with high public and low private supports. Findings from this study have practical implications for supporting families involved with the child welfare system.