TCU’s Department of Social Work received a $125,000 grant from the Amon Carter Foundation to develop and evaluate an intervention system to reduce the amount of racial disproportionality in the child welfare system. The grant, which partners TCU with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, runs from May 2006 until April 2007.

African-American children in Texas are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system. According to Census Data for 2000, 12.8 percent of children in Texas are African-American. However, as of August 2004, 29.0 percent of children in foster care were African-American.

“This is a nationwide problem within child welfare, and in Tarrant County, African-American children are placed in foster care at a rate more than double their percentage in the population,” said Dr. Alan Dettlaff, assistant professor of social work and author of the grant. “This project is very timely and hopefully will result in some positive outcomes.”

The goal of the study is to reduce the level of racial disproportionality in the foster care system in Tarrant County, and to sustain this reduction through preventive, community-based services. Objectives to achieve this goal include reducing the current and future numbers of African-American children in foster care in Tarrant County through the establishment of kinship and relative placements; and providing services that will strengthen the community in order to maintain relative and kinship placements of African-American children to prevent re-entry into the foster care system. These services will focus on the establishment of supportive networks within the community that will be sustained upon completion of grant period.

“This project hopes to address the disproportionality problem by providing resources and support to kinship caregivers,” said Dr. Dettlaff. “Kinship caregivers would be family or friends who are willing to care for a child rather than placing the child into the foster care system. When relatives are available to take children it is often very difficult, both financially and emotionally, to add several children to the existing household. The agency has very few resources to support these placements, so they often break down and the child winds up in foster care.”

“This project hopes to help facilitate and maintain these placements by providing services to the caregivers to provide support, case management, and help them find and access resources.”

For more information on the grant, please contact Dr. Alan Dettlaff at 817-257-7177 or via email at a.dettlaff@tcu.edu.

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