cover image: Research Reinforces: Providing Cash to Families in Poverty Reduces Family Involvement in Child Welfare

20.500.12592/dpt6m6

Research Reinforces: Providing Cash to Families in Poverty Reduces Family Involvement in Child Welfare

28 Apr 2023

A new body of research from Chapin Hall, a research and policy center that focuses on child welfare and family well-being at the University of Chicago, finds that material hardship increases the risk for child welfare involvement due to neglect and abuse, and when families are given cash assistance, child welfare involvement is reduced.2 The message from Chapin Hall’s research is clear: income sup. [...] But given the strong link between cash assistance and child well-being, TANF can and should be structured to ensure that its funds are used to provide more cash assistance to more families struggling to meet their basic needs.5 The Benefits of Cash to Child Well-Being Parents with low incomes are often caught at the crossroads of deciding between spending time with their children or working long h. [...] One study found that mothers who participate in TANF and are eligible to receive full child support (rather than having their child support withheld by the state) are 10 percent less likely to have their child be the subject of a maltreatment report that finds cause for further investigation (known as a “screened-in” report), compared to mothers who are eligible to receive only partial child suppo. [...] One of the barriers that families face are policies that take cash assistance away for not meeting a work requirement.17 One study that estimated the impact of policy changes between 2004 and 2015 found that substantiated child neglect reports increased by 23.3 percent in states that implemented the most severe sanction of taking all of a family’s benefits away for the parent not meeting a work re. [...] Slide 57: Swann and Sylvester (2006) found that from 1985 to 2000, reductions in Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)/TANF cash benefit levels were a main predictor of the dramatic growth in state-level foster care caseloads during this period, and a 10 percent reduction in the average monthly AFDC/TANF cash benefit amount for a family of three was associated with a 2.3 percent increase.

Authors

Urvi Patel

Pages
7
Published in
United States of America