Modelling the initial placement decision for children received into care

Modelling the Initial Placement Decision for Children Received into Care

Martin Knapp Barry Babes Dave Bryson University of Kent at Canterbury

John Lewis Social Services Department Suffolk County Council

Initial placements of a cohort of 93 children received into the care of an English local authority over a S-month period are examined. Sixty-five of the children were immediately placed in a foster home , 20 were pIaced in a residential home, 4 were received into care in hospital, and 4 remained home on trial. The research reported here focusses OR the 83 children initially placed in either a substitute family home (a foster placement) or a residential home. Logit analysis is used to examine the pattern of initial placements. A clearly consistent pattern of placement emerges and a small number of factors explain or predict the initial placement decision. These factors include Requests for reprints should be sent to Martin Knapp, Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent at Canterbury. Canterbury, Kent CT2 ‘iNF, England. The research described in this paper s
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Knapp, Bakes, Bryson, and Lewis

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such child characteristics as age and health, accommodation, and previous care experience his or her siblings.

family size and of a child and

Introduction Placement decisions cannot be as neat and cut and dried as might be desirable. Kot only are placement decisions often hurried or interim; they are all too often taken as a choice between two imperfect alternatives, if indeed there is a choice at all. It is a fortunate social worker, and probably a fortunate child, who is confronted rcith the choice between an ideal residential placement and a perfect foster placement. (House of Commons Social Services Committee, 1984, paras. 151l- 152) From my experience in child care the initial dom, if ever, thought out in terms of longer the nature of the initial placement accorded tence.” (Social Services hlanager) The decision individualized

placement decision was selterm objectives. More often to the “path of least resis-

to place a child in residential matter based on a complex

treatment is presently a highly set of idiosyncratic factors defying categorisation. (Maluccio & Marlow, 1972, p. 239)

A child’s first placement clearly has a crucial bearing on a great many issues, not the least of which are subsequent care career and well-being. An initial placement might not, in prospect or in retrospect, be the ideal one, but it might prove both difficult and undesirable to move a child once a better placement becomes available. The process of placement change often generates or compounds problems for child and family. Even when an initial placement is ideal, important issues arise as to the resource consequences of care. Residential care is relatively expensive when compared with the traditional variant of family placement, even though that cost difference tends to be exaggerated, and local authority officers and elected members obviously need to keep one eye on placement trends in order to secure a satisfactory match between contracting resources and growing community needs (Knapp, 1985). The aim of this paper is to examine the set of factors associated with the different initial placements of a cohort of children admitted into care. Although the examination and the statistical analyses are essentially descriptive of a number of separate (but not independent) placement decisions that were made in the autumn of 1982 in one English local authority, we argue that they could also have predictive value, for they indicate quite a marked degree of consistency in the type of placement chosen by (or forced upon)

Initial Placement

Decision

3

social v\.orkers in different circumstances. The examination and prediction of initial placements in this vvay could then usefully feed into the management systems of local authorities and other agencies. This paper is not concerned v\ith u~hogets admitted into care (Packman, Randall, & Jacques, 1986) or v\ith the decision-making process per se (llillham, Bullock, Hosie, 8- Haak, 1985; Vernon LLY Fruin, 1985). The Suffolk Cohort Study

Detailed information was collected on children admitted into the care of Suffolk County Council during October, November, and December of 1982. Social vvorkers v\.ere asked to complete a questionnaire for each child as soon as possible after admission. FVe requested that a questionnaire be completed for all voluntary. admissions and all care orders including matrimonial orders, intertm-care orders, remands to care, and place-of-safety orders. About a third of the children had experienced care at least once before. Fully completed questionnaires were received for 93 of the 96 children entering care during the study period. Subsequent checking revealed that this cohort of new entrants to care vvas fully representative of all children received into the care of Suffolk County Council during the year that ended March 3 1, 1983. The cohort of 93 children was followed through care for a period of up to 12 months, the study period being shorter than this for those children discharged from care within the year. Further information vL.ascollected on children readmitted to care within a year of the “study admission.” Interviews were conducted with social workers for children still in care after 3, 6, and 12 months and soon after discharge from care when relevant. However, the research reported in this paper employs only the first (admission) data collection. Further details of the cohort study are available from the authors. The children were all initially placed in one of four types of placement. Sixty-five of the 93 children (70%) vvere placed in a foster family home (including emergency, short-term, long-term, and prospective adoptive placements and those boarded out with relatives); 20 children (22%) were initially placed in residential accommodation (5 in a familv centre; 5 in Suffolk County Council’s own community homes; 8 ‘in a community home with education; and 2 out of the county, one in a community home and one in secure accommodation); 4 children were accommodated in hospitals; and 4 were placed at home on trial. Differences

between Foster Family and Residential

Home Groups

We sought to identify child and family characteristics, factors related to previous social services or other agency contact, and

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Knapp, Bakes, Bryson, and Lewis

circumstances at or around the admission to care that correlated with the choice of initial placement type. Because only a small number of children were initially placed at home on trial or in hospital, we were not confident about predicting the factors associated with these placements, and they have been excluded from some of the analyses reported later. In concentrating attention on foster family care and residential homes, we did not assume that these two placement types are the most important of placement options. However, at the point of admission into care, they do happen to be the most commonly chosen set of placements, and, of course, a great deal of current practice and policy debate focusses on these two. In many circumstances, the apparently polar distinction between them has seriously aggravated attempts to establish a continuum of care provision for children who, for one reason or another, have been separated from their natural families. Inter ah residential provision can clearly play a crucial role in preparing children for family placements, supporting those placements, and, in some cases, reconstructing the lives of those children who experience a placement breakdown. We make the distinction between the two placement types (and also, by default, abstract from the differences ~~~~~~these two placement types) because they can have markedly different short-term implications for children, their families, and local authorities. They can also have different long-term implications, although the research evidence is not very clear on this. Foster care is not universally worse or better than residential placement, but it does have advantages and disadvantages for certain children and families, and it does have different resource implications. We are examining some of these issues in our current research (see, for example, Knapp, 1985, and Knapp & Baines, 1986, for some results). It is therefore important to understand what differences there are between children admitted to one type of initial placement and those admitted to the other. A preliminary indication of these differences is provided in this section. In the next section we examine these differences more rigorously, using an appropriate analytical tool that provides a much clearer picture of the systematic and consistent differences associated with initial placement decisions. From Table 1 it can be seen that children received into foster care were much younger than either those received into residential care or those placed home on trial. The children with the lowest mean age were clearly those placed initially in hospital care. None of those placed in hospital had been in care before, nor were any of them technically in care when entering the study. They were all initialfy on place-of-safety orders. Two of these four children were subsequently put on interim care orders and placed in foster

Initial Placement

Decision

6

Knapp, Babes,

Bryson, and Lewis

homes before discharge from care and leaving the study. All of the hospital children had noted health problems at admission, three of these connected t\rith nonaccidentai injuries. None of the children placed at home on trial had been in care before. Xli subsequently entered residential care. There is a slight difference in the ses composition of those entering foster and residential care, with a higher percentage of females initially placed in the former. hIost of the children in foster placements were in voluntary care (Section 2 of the Child Cure Act, 1980), and, correspondingly, a higher percentage of those in residential care (35%) than those in foster care were admitted on a Care Order. There are also marked differences among the different groups of children with respect to the incidence of emotional problems and truanting (as noted by social workers at the point of admission), but there is no difference between the foster and residential groups in relation to previous care experience. The figures given in Tables 2 and 3 are for the 85 children initially placed in either foster or residential care. They enable descriptive comparisons to be made between the two groups of children and suggest factors that could be predictors of initial placement type. For example, from Table 2 it can be seen that the foster-placement children were more likely to have been received into care from a single-parent family, and it was more hkely that one or both of their natural parents had themselves experienced long-term care during childhood. Groups of siblings received into care together were more likely to be placed in foster care, whereas children with siblings who had previous care experience were more likely to be placed in residential care. A higher percentage of children in the residential-care group came from families living in council-owned accommodations. From Table 3 we can see that the children initially placed in residential care, or their families, were more likely than those in foster care to ha1.e had previous contact with social-work agencies other than the Suffolk Social Services Department, but they were less likely to have been on the caseload of a Suffolk social worker just prior to entering the study. A smaller percentage of the admissions to foster care were seen by the social workers to be preventable by the provision of services or resources in the 12 months prior to reception. Once in care, the average expected length of time in care was longer for those initially placed in a residential home. In summary, a simple comparison of relevant percentages of the kind presented in Tables I, 2, and 3 suggests that a number of child and family characteristics, care needs, and admission circumstances differ quite markedly betltveen the foster and residential-

Initial Placement

7

Decision TABLE

Family and Housing

Circumstances

2 for Children

Foster and’Residential

Characteristic

(percentage

in each case)

(Sample size) Children with mother known to be alive Children with father known to be alive Home family headed by: both natural parents one natural parent[2] single adult/parent One or both natural parents had been

in long term care Child entered care: without sibling(s) with one sibling with two siblings with three siblings Child’s siblings have previously care experience[3] Child’s home family living in: local authority housing owner-occupied housing Notes:

in 1. “All” refers to all children initially placed in hospital or 2. The natural parent was not 3. In some cases a child’s sibling

Initially Placed in

Homes

Foster

Residential

All[ l]

(63)

(20)

(85)

98.4

90.0

96.5

90.8

85.0

89.4

9.3 81.5 67.i

20.0 75.0 40.0

11.8 80.0 61.2

26.2

10.0

22.3

49.2 36.9 4.6 12.3

80.0 20.0 0.0 0.0

56.5 32.9 3.5 9.4

24.6

30.0

25.9

72.3 20.0

85.0 15.0

75.2 18.8

had

either a foster home or residential home. Children “home on trial” are excluded. necessarily a single parent (see next line in table). was still in care at the time of admission.

home groups. These factors are thus associated, correlated, with the choice of initial placement,

and perhaps even but they need not necessarily be cawaZly related, for a tabulation such as this is simply not enough to tease out causal relations. Many of the factors that appear to be associated with the initial placement type are highly intercorrelated, and it is not immediately clear that a difference between two percentages translates into a statistically significant influence. We thus need to take the investigation further by conducting a more rigorous statistical investigation that allows the simultaneous examination of a number of potentially important child, family, and other factors and that rests on reasoned assumptions about causal direction. The aim, therefore, is to determine the extent to which the information gathered on our cohort of children provides a set of reliable predicators of the initial place-

Knapp, Babes,

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Bryson,

and Lewis

TABLE 3 Social Work Involvement,

Preventable

Admissions

and Expected

Time

in Care Circumstance (Sample

(percentage

in each case)

size)

Child or family on Suffolk caseload prior to RIC One or more other SW agencies have been involved Admission could have been prevented Admission was planned Admission took place out of office hours Expected time in care[2]: six months unsure Sates:

Foster

Residential

Al& I]

(63)

(20)

(%3)

80.0

73.0

78.8

27.7 2 1.5 56.9

65.0 35.0 55.0

36.5 25.9 56.5

22.8

25.0

24.7

60.0 i.7 6.2 16.9 12.3

0.0 15.0 0.0 55.0 30.0

45.9 9.4 4.7 25.6 16.5

I. See Table 2. 2. Expected rime in care in the opinion (at the time worker holding the case. * More than one month and up to three months ** More than three months and up to six months

of admission)

of the social

when such factors are considered simultaneously. All of the previous research on placement decisions or choices has failed to move beyond the simple (uni~ariate) comparisons of the kind undertaken here (see, for example, hfelotte, 1979), the only exception being the discriminant function analysis of Pierce (1983). ment

Multivariate

Modelling

of the Placement

Decision

To simultaneously examine the influence of factors such as those listed in the tables on the initial placement decision, we need to employ a multivariate statistical technique. Because the variable to be explained (the initial placement) is dichotomous, we employ logit analysis, defining the dependent variable as equal to 1 if a child’s initial placement was a foster home and 0 if a child’s initial placement was a residential home. The numbers 0 and 1 are actually arbitrary; it is only necessary to distinguish between the t\vo possible placements. The factors listed in the tables, among others, can then be used as independent, or exp~~~ut~~, variables in the prediction or explanation of the

Initial Placement

Decision

9

initial placement decision. The logit analysis, in fact, generates a probability of a foster placement for a child with given personal characteristics, family background, needs, and so on. We will not detail the statistical theor); of logit analysis here, nor dwell on its numerous advantages when used in preference to the more familiar multiple regression technique (see, for example, Knapp, Harissis, 85 Missiakoulis, 198 1, for a previous social-work application of the technique and an account of its advantages and limitations). Here we simply detail the “best” of the estimated logit equations from our research, with “best” defined on the conventional grounds of parsimony and statistical significance, and explain the interpretation of the equation in examining the probability of an initial foster placement for a child admitted to care. (It should be noted that if we had split the foster and residential placements into their different “types”, or if we had included the hospital and home-on-trial initial placements in the analysis, the statistical estimation of predictive equations would have been much more complicated, although certainly not insurmountable. A polychotomous logit or probit technique could be employed in these circumstances. The small numbers of children in some of the groups would have made it difficult to fit a robust specification.) The range of information available for examination to “explain” the initial placement decision covers the Child and his or her characteristics and background before reception into care Child’s parents and the home family Siblings and their previous care experience Accommodation of the home family Previous child or family contact with social care agencies Specific circumstances at admission (emergency or planned, etc.) Initial placement (type, location, and those involved in the choice) Major factors in the decision to admit the child ChiId’s legal status A complication in the estimation of predictors is that these blocks of variables are inter-linked in complex ways, with few of the component factors being truly independent of each other. The situation is compounded in that some of the information refers to events well before admission and some at or around admission. Further, some of the information is going to be more reliabIe and consistent than the remainder; for example, the age or sex of the

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Knapp,

Baines, Bryson, and Lewis

child is unlikely to have been wrongly recorded, whereas the major factors in the decision to admit the child into care might have been differently interpreted by different social workers. The results are presented in Table 4. To calculate the probability of a child’s being initially placed in a foster home we need to employ the logit formula probability

=

1 1 f exp (-Z&X)

where l3 is the set of estimated coefficients, X is the set of variables, and exp is the exponential function. Of more immediate interest than this less-than-straightfor~~ard logic expression is the more intuitive rule of thumb that positive coefficients raise the probability of a foster home’s being the initial placement, and negative coefficients lower that probability. For example, the first variable in Table 4 (ignoring the constant term) is a dummy variable for the child’s age that has a negative coefficient, indicating that older children (over age 10) are more likely to be initially placed in a residential home. This is hardly a surprising result, for it accords with previous research and commentary (for example, see Hazel, 1981; Melotte, 1979; Millham et al., 1983; Vernon & Fruin, 1983) and with the remarks often made to us in our interviews with social workers that in Suffolk, at the time of our study, a foster placement was automatically assumed to be the appropriate placement for a child below secondary school age, except in very difficult circumstances. For children of secondary school age, the same assumption about most desirable placement was not automatically made. Since our study, the Suffolk social services department has adopted a policy of permanence planning that has a constituent aim of getting field social workers to question their assumptive bases. It should be noted that age is correlated with a number of other child and family characteristics and thus could also be acting as a summary or proxy measure for them. (We also examined a continuous age variable, rather than this dummy, which also has a significant negative coefficient. However, the dummy variable specification produces a superior result.) Statistical significance is indicated by the t-statistics and the likelihood ratio test statistic. The other statistically significant predictors of initial placement, all reported in Table 4, include child characteristics, descriptions of the child’s home family, and previous involvement of the child and family with the social services department. Some of the influences accord with prior expectations and confirm previous research (as did child age), while others are less easy to explain.

Initial

Placement

11

Decision TABLE

4

The “Best”

Estimated Logit Equation for Calculating the Probability a Child’s Initial Placement being: a Foster Home

Dependent

variable

Explanatory

= 1 if initial placement is foster home = 0 if residential home Coefficient (p) t-stat Variable (xl

Constant term DV[ 11: Child is aged over 10 DV: Child has truanting problem DV: Child in remedial class at school DV: Child has been in care before Ko. of months child or family has been on SW caseload DV: Child received into care with sibling(s) DV: Child has sibling(s) already in care DV: Child’s home family live in local authority housing No. of children in home family aged 6-9 years[2] Likelihood ratio test statistic Percentage of correct predictions Sample size Significance Notes:

of

levels * 0.10

-4:3 64

-&g***

-4.47 -2.50 -2.25

-2.91*** - 1.73” - l.txF

0.01 3.26 -2.91

1.89” 2.10** -2.09**

-2.38

- 1.98*

- 1.46

- 1.65*

j()

2 68***

57.75 93.97 83

2 p > 0.05;

1. DV denotes dummy variable which tic listed and the value 0 otherwise. 2. Excluding the study child.

** 0.05

2 p > 0.01;

takes the value

*** 0.01

1: p

1 if a child has the characteris-

We can see from Table 1 that children in the foster care group were much less likely than those in the residential group to have had truanting problems prior to reception into care (16% of those in school, as compared with 60%). This is one of the differences that carries over from the descriptive tables into the causal relationship, even though correlated with age. That is, the presence of a truanting problem is liable to lead to a residential rather than a family placement, even after the influence of age has been taken into account. Both the social services and education departments will be keen to see an improvement in school attendance after admission to care, and there will often be a push from the latter for a child to be placed in a home with education provided on the premises. Eight of the cohort were first accommodated in a CHE (community home with education on the premises). It is also likely that, although truanting is unlikely to be sufficient reason on

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Knapp,

Babes,

Bryson,

and Lewis

its own for a child to come into care, it is correlated with other long-standing and sometimes less easily observed problems (including suspected delinquency) that themselves suggest a need for the control provided by certain kinds of placement. Eight children in the cohort were in remedial classes prior to admission into care, and it can be seen from Table 4 that there was a greater chance, too, that these children woufd go into residential than into foster placements. At admission each social worker was asked if the child displayed any of 13 listed emotional and behavioural problems (inhyperactivity, extreme nervousness, cluding aggressive behaviour, low self-esteem, enuresis, and suicidal or self-mutilation tendencies). To our surprise, none of these was correfated with the initial placement decision, although we have subsequently found some of these factors to be important in explaining the proportion of careperiod time spent in different types of placement (Knapp 8c Baines, 1986). The absence of an association between emotional and behavioural problems and initial placement either reflects an inadequacy in our data collection or suggests that the previously noted association (by, for example, Millham et al., 1985) does not survive the rigours of multivariate analysis. If the latter is the case, and a look at Table 1 suggests it might be, then the question arises as to which of two or more correlated factors is the true determinant of or influence on placement type. The equation in Table 4 partly reflects our view of this; for example, age and truanting are correlated with some emotional and behavioural problems, but our interviews with social workers and their supervisors led us to conclude that it was the former rather than the latter variables that dominated the placement decision. But it also reflects the fact that a sample of 83 children is probably insLlf~ciently large to tease out the often marginal, but relevant, influences of the less common emotional and behavioural problems. It has often been argued that family placements are more likely with planned admissions to care, but we found no such influence. However, the other question of preparation proved to be a significant consideration in other ways. The longer a child or her or his family had been on a Suffolk social worker’s caseload, the greater the probability that the initial placement would be a foster home. Because social worker turnover is relatively low in Suffolk, most of the children had been known to the case-holding social worker for some time. On the other hand, a child who had been in care before was more likely to have an initial residential placement. The influence of repeated admissions to care upon initial placement choice can be explained in at least two ways. First, repeated admissions themselves reAect underlying child or family problems

Initial Placement

Decision

13

that, by dint of their persistence, make it more difficult for the social worker to find a foster placement. Second, the social worker might feel that a residential environment is a more suitable one for assessing a child’s needs. Llillham et al. found that A major constraint on social workers’ freedom of action regarding placements was the laudable wish to keep siblings together. Indeed, nea;ly half of the children that entered care found that their placement posslbllities were restricted by an accompanying sibling and, of course, this is even more pressing with younger children. (1985, p. 129) Our own results also clearly indicate that a child’s siblings also had some bearing on initial placement. If a child already had siblings in care or more generally had siblings or other children in the home family aged between 6 and 9, the likelihood of a family placement was reduced, whereas the simultaneous reception into care of two or more siblings raised this likelihood. This last result supports the conclusion reached by Melotte (1979) in his study of admissions in Kirklees: “The possibility of finding a number of community home places free all at one time (for a sibling group) was very unlikely.” Equally, however, social workers were often unable to find family placements that could take a complete sibling group. For example, four siblings, two girls aged 5 and 8 and two boys aged 3 and 10 were admitted into care when their single-parent mother was injured in a car accident. The two girls were kept together, but in four different placements, and the two boys were kept together in two different placements, all in the space of 34 days. Each child was twice discharged from care during this period. The field social worker had been unable to find a placement “which could accept four siblings and cope with strong loyalties and parental visiting for the full period.” In this particular case, a single placement for all four children was considered the ideal, but in other cases, although there was no strong social-work arguments for keeping siblings apart, there were also no overriding reasons for placing them together. For example, two sisters were admitted into care in mid November. They had been living with their mother. On the previous day, their much younger sister had been admitted to care when her maternal grandparents, ivith whom she had lived for many months, were no longer able to cope. The three girls were not placed together; the social worker would have found it very difficult to find one family for all three, and, in the circumstances, two separate families were considered preferable to residential accommodation.

14

Knapp, ISaines, Bryson, and Lewis

The other variable that appears in the logit analysis is the home family’s accommodation. Eighty of the 85 children initially placed in residentia1 accommodation or a foster home were previously living with their home families in either local authority or owner-occupied housing. Private rented accommodation was rare. The local authority housing dummy is therefore essentially picking up a difference between this type of accommodation and owner occupation. The conclusion to be drawn from our analysis is that children from local authority housing are less likely to be placed Could it be that there is a bias against such with foster parents. children among potential foster parents; or that parents living in their own homes are, for one reason or another, more vociferous and more in~uential in their opposition to residential placements; or that there are (hidden) need-generating characteristics correlated with local authority accommodation that we have failed to identify in our analyses? This association between housing type and probability of family placement has also been found in work in progress in one London borough, and it deserves more focussed consideration. The Predictive

Value of the Logit Analyses

The overall explanatory power of the logit equation reported in Table 4 is high, as indicated by the goodness-of_Jit statistics. In other words, the small number of variables listed in the table go quite a long way toward explaining initial placement decisions for the Suffolk cohort of children received into care in the autumn of 1982. Tit’ithin this encouragingly accurate predictive analysis, the influences of the individual variables are largely in accordance with our expectations and with the results of the Limited amount of previous research we have been able to identify. This suggests that the characteristics of children received into care and the circumstances surrounding admission make it possible to predict initial placements with some accuracy. This accuracy must not be misinterpreted. It does not imply that placement decisions are simple or mechanistic; rather, it implies that, at the time of our study, they followed a consistent pattern within a single authority. Further analyses of the initial placement decisions revealed two important results. First, differences in the pattern of initial placements among the social services divisions within Suffolk County Council were almost entirely explained by differences in the characteristics of the children received into care, their family circumstances, their placement and previous care experiences, and so on. That is, the pattern of initial placements is consistent across the county. Second,

social iv.orkers’ views about whether or not the “best” initial placement had been achieved (when “best” took account of short-term and long-term supply. constraints \vithin the authoritv) were not associated with the inmal placement type. ,411 of these conclusions raise the important question of the portability of the research findings, The study is based in the Suffolk context and was thus clearly influenced by the available supplies of family placements and residential home vacancies, by the policy and practice emphases of middle and senior management, by the admission criteria of social-work teams, and so on. Although field social workers in Suffolk, as elsewhere, have considerable autonomy: in making placement decisions, the choices facing them are constramed by broad departmental policies and, of course, b> available resources. It would be interesting, therefore, to attempt a replication of this analysis in other local authority areas, particularly those areas with markedly different supply characteristics, to examine the predictive qualities of the conclusions. References Hazel, S. (198 I). Community placements for adolescents in the United Kingdom: Changes in policy and practice. Children and Youth Ser,Jices Rezriew, 3, 85-97. House of Commons, Social Services Committee. (1984). Children in Care (House of Commons Paper 360-I). London: HMSO. Knapp, Sl. R. J. (1985). Children in care: Planning a’ithout costs (Portfolio So. 7). London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust. Knapp. 11. R. J., & Baines, B. (1986). Explaining variations in cost per day and cost per care period for children received into the care of a local authority. Unpublished discussion paper 412. Canterbury: University of Kent at Canterbury. Personal Social Services Research Unit. Knapp, \I. R. J., Harissis, K., S- Missiakoulis. S. (1981). it’ho leaves social work? British Journal

of Social Work, II,

42 l-444.

hlaluccio, A., & Marlow, W. (1972). Residential treatment of emotionally disturbed children: .4 review of the literature. Social Service ReGezLf, 46, 230-250. Jlelotte, C. J. (1979). The placement decision. Adoption and Fostering, 95, 56-62. Millham, S., Bullock, R., Hosie, K., S- Haak, Xl. (1985). Children lost in care: The farnil) contact of children in care. Aldershot: Cower. Packman, J., Randall, J., &Jacques, N. (1986). LVho need.s care? Social work dectiiom about children. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pierce, L. H. (1985). Selecting children for residential treatment. Children and Youth Services Review,

Vernon, don:

7, 299-308.

J., & Fruin, D. (1985). In care: A study of social u!ork deciion making. LonSational Children’s Bureau.