Child mental health and other factors of children's time in state custody : an evaluation of the protectionist/satisficing model using event-history analysis

This study examines the role that children's mental health status and other factors play in determining the time that children spend in state custody. By combining the protectionist judicial model and Simon's (1956) satisficing view of decision making, a theoretical explanation is offered of the mechanisms that link these factors to time in custody. The study uses prospective data on 700 children in Tennessee state custody to test the effect of certain child, family and service variables on the hazard rate for exiting state custody. To test the study hypotheses an event-history model was constructed using Cox regression analysis with hierarchical entry of variable sets. The objective was to determine each variable's unique contribution to changes in the hazard rate for exiting custody while controlling for the effects of all other variables in the model.

Empirical results provide support for the research hypotheses and indicate a number of factors were significant predictors of the rate at which children exit care including a child's psychosocial behavior problem levels, a history of sexual abuse victimization, total placements experienced by a child, and the principle type of employment in a child's home county. Study results also revealed a number of complex interaction effects. For example, the effects of sexual abuse allegations were different depending on children's age and gender. Further, the effects of parental substance use were different depending on the reason a child entered state custody. Finally, the effect of a child's race on his or her rate of exiting custody was different depending on certain socio-economic characteristics of the child's home county.

The study findings are important because they emphasize the complexity of the state custody phenomenon and the importance of juvenile court judges in the custody process. Findings regarding the roles of child psychosocial behavior problem levels as factors of time in state custody are particularly salient because they suggest child mental health is a significant predictor of outcomes of the custody process and because they have been omitted from previous studies of the state custody phenomenon. Implications of these and other study findings for future research and social work practice are also discussed.