Drivers of inequalities among families involved with child welfare services
Information
Period
2021-2023/2024
Funder
Forte
Amount
€ 447 000
Project members
- Ylva B Almquist | Stockholm University (PI)
- Lars Brännström | Stockholm University
- Hilma Forsman | Stockholm University
- Josephine Jackisch | Stockholm University
- Tanishta Rajesh | Stockholm University
- Can Liu | Stockholm University
- Daniela Schlüter University of Liverpool
- Viviane S Straatmann | Stockholm University
- David Taylor-Robinson | University of Liverpool
- Elizabeth Wall-Wieler | University of Manitoba
Description
Socioeconomically disadvantaged parents, such as those living in poverty, are much more likely to have their child taken into out-of-home care (OHC). It nevertheless remains unclear how socioeconomic conditions actually cause placement in OHC or whether these differences operate through various types of parental health-related problems. Moreover, we have limited knowledge about the effects that OHC might subsequently have on the health and wellbeing of the parents, and how this can potentially influence the chances of family reunification. The proposed project aims to increase understanding of the drivers of inequalities among families involved with child welfare services in Sweden, by disentangling how the socioeconomic conditions of the family and parental health-related problems intersect with the children’s histories of placement in OHC. To this end, we will compile a new, large-scale register-based cohort that consists of children born in the 1990s – The Swedish Children of the 1990s Cohort Study (SCCS) – as well as their siblings and parents. Based on this cohort, we will apply a number of advanced statistical approaches suitable for the analysis of complex longitudinal data. These approaches enable us to construct trajectories of the family’s socioeconomic conditions and parents’ health-related problems as well as to relate them to placement histories among the entire set of offspring; to develop risk prediction models for assessing which parents that have their child taken into care, among them, which experience family reunification; and to assess causal pathways between socioeconomic conditions, health-related problems, and experiences of child welfare services. In sum, the findings from this project will help to identify possible entry points for social policies targeted toward disadvantaged families, in order to reduce inequalities.
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To be updated
Publications
- Almquist, Y. B., & Straatmann, V. S. (2022). Drivers of inequalities among families involved with child welfare services: a general overview. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(13), 7881.
- Melis, G., Bennett, D., Taylor-Robinson, D., Schlueter, D., Maden, M., Straatmann, V., … & Forsman, H. (2021). Relationship between disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances (SECs) and risk of being taken into out-of-home care (OHC) in developed countries. PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews.
- Rajesh, T. (2022). Parental mental health after having a child placed in out-of-home care in Sweden: A register-based longitudinal cohort study.
- Rajesh, T., Jonsson, K. R., Jackisch, J., & Straatmann, V. S. (2023). Changes in parents’ mental health related to child out-of-home care placements: A Swedish national register study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 140, 106149.
- Ross, S. (2023). Socioeconomic and psychosocial conditions of parents with children in out-of-home care: a qualitative systematic review.
- Straatmann, V. S., Jackisch, J., Brännström, L., & Almquist, Y. B. (2021). Intergenerational transmission of out-of-home care and the role of mental health problems: Findings from Stockholm birth cohort multigenerational study. Social Science & Medicine, 284, 114223.
- Straatmann, V. S., Jackisch, J., Brännström, L., & Almquist, Y. B. (2022). Associations between out-of-home care and mental health disorders within and across generations in a Swedish birth cohort. SSM-Population Health, 18, 101115.