Cost analysis of the strengthening families program in reducing time to family reunification among substance-affected families

Decision makers typically face uncertainty in determining whether the outcomes of promising child welfare interventions justify the investment. Despite repeated calls for cost analysis in child welfare, original studies that evaluate the costs and effects of child welfare programs have been limited. Moreover, no cost analyses have focused on family reunification programs that address the needs of substance-affected families. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the costs and effects of a federally funded implementation of the Strengthening Families Program (SFP), a 14-week family training curriculum, on time to reunification with a substance-involved child welfare population. Based on event history analysis, we find the typical child participating in SFP spends 190 fewer days in out of home care when compared to a propensity score matched comparison group of children in out-of home care receiving treatment as usual. Re-entry rates between the two groups were not significantly different at follow-up. At an average out-of-home care rate of $86 per child per day in this state, SFP saves approximately $16,340 per participating child in out-of-home care costs. From a cost–benefit perspective, every $1 invested in SFP yields an average savings of $9.83 in this Midwestern demonstration.     

The lifetime economic and social costs of child maltreatment in Australia

A cost of illness (COI) study was undertaken to estimate the magnitude and range of lifetime effects associated with child maltreatment in Australia, using an incidence-based approach. Costs were primarily estimated through calculation of population attributable fractions (PAFs) to determine the marginal effects of child maltreatment on a range of outcomes. PAFs were then applied to estimates of expenditure, inflated to 2014–15 Australian dollars, projected over the life course, according to a baseline age of incident cases for child maltreatment in 2012–13, and discounted at 7% per annum. Sensitivity analysis was conducted using a best and lower bound estimate of incidence of child abuse. The best estimate of the total estimated lifetime financial costs for incident cases of child maltreatment in 2012–13 was $9.3 billion (a cost per child maltreated of $176,437), with a lower bound of $5.8 billion. The best estimate of lifetime costs associated with reduced quality of life and premature mortality (non-financial costs) for all incident cases of child maltreatment in 2012–13 was $17.4 billion, or $328,757 per child maltreated. The considerable lifetime costs associated with child maltreatment warrants an expansion of existing investment in primary and secondary prevention and targeted support services for children and families at risk.     

The economic costs of childhood poverty in the United States

This paper attempts to estimate the aggregate annual costs of child poverty to the US economy. It begins with a review of rigorous research studies that estimate the statistical association between children growing up in poverty and their earnings, propensity to commit crime, and quality of health later in life. We also review estimates of the costs that crime and poor health impose on the economy. Then we aggregate all of these average costs per poor child across the total number of children growing up in poverty in the United States to obtain our estimate of the aggregate costs of the conditions associated with childhood poverty to the US economy. Our results suggest that these costs total about $500 billion per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4% of gross domestic product (GDP). More specifically, we estimate that childhood poverty each year: (1) reduces productivity and economic output by an amount equal to 1.3% of GDP, (2) raises the costs of crime by 1.3% of GDP, and (3) raises health expenditures and reduces the value of health by 1.2% of GDP.     

Medical tourism: reverse subsidy for the elite

The medical tourism sector in India has attracted global attention, given its phenomenal growth in the past decade. India is second only to Thailand in the number of medical tourists that it attracts every year. Estimates indicate that the medical tourism market in India could grow from $310 million in 2005 to $2 billion by 2012. These figures are significant when contrasted with India's overall health care expenditure - $10 billion in the public sector and $50 billion in the private sector. Factors that have contributed to this growth include the relative proficiency in English among health care providers and the cost effectiveness of medical procedures in India. Generally, most procedures in Indian hospitals cost a quarter (or less) of what they would cost in developed countries. The expansion of medical tourism has also been fueled by the growth of the private medical sector in India, a consequence of the neglect of public health by the government. India has one of the poorest records in the world regarding public financing and provisioning of health care. A growing driver of medical tourism is the attraction of facilities in India that offer access to assisted reproductive care technologies. Ironically, this is in sharp contrast with the acute neglect of the health care needs of Indian women. The Indian government is vigorously promoting medical tourism by providing tax concessions and by creating an environment enabling it to thrive. However, there is a distinct disjunction between the neglect of the health care needs of ordinary Indians and public policy that today subsidizes the health care of wealthy foreigners.     

Increasing access to quality child care for children from low-income families: Families' experiences

Identifying effective strategies for increasing access to quality care for children from low-income families has important implications for society. This study examined the effectiveness of expanding child care assistance for low-income families (capping expenses at 10% of income and raising eligibility to 200% of the federal poverty line) to purchase quality care. Mixed methods documented families' experiences (N = 181) and capitalized on a natural experiment when families lost assistance. Results pointed to improved access to quality care for children from low-income families by: 1) helping low-income families continue utilizing quality providers when incomes dropped, and 2) enabling others to begin utilizing quality providers. Perceived impacts were greatest for families with higher incomes (within the eligibility range), and for those with children ages five and younger. Additionally, parents were able to pay providers the full rate that they charge for care, which may help quality providers continue serving low-income families.     

Impacts of Long-Range Increases in the Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standard

This work models the impact of higher CAFE standards on producer and consumer welfare, gasoline consumption, externalities from increased driving, and the emissions of traditional pollutants. In particular, a long-run 3.0 MPG increase in the CAFE standard is estimated to impose welfare losses of about $4 billion per year and save about 5.2 billion gallons of gasoline per year, for a hidden tax of $0.78 per gallon conserved. An 11-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax would save the same amount of fuel at a welfare cost of about $290 million per year, or about one-fourteenth the cost. (JEL L51 , Q30 )     

Explaining Black‐White Disparity in Maltreatment: Poverty,Female‐Headed Families,and Urbanization

The purpose of the current study was to assess a structural level explanation of racial disparity in child maltreatment. Using data from Florida counties (1998–2001) and the 2000 census, the effects of poverty, concentrated poverty, and female‐headed families in poverty on Black, White, and the difference between Black‐White rates of child maltreatment were assessed (N= 67). Results suggested that the structural covariates of maltreatment vary by race and that differences in female‐headed families in poverty can explain some, but not all, of the Black‐White racial disparity in child maltreatment. Increasing programs that focus on reducing poverty among female‐headed Black families and the exposure of Black families to concentrated poverty should decrease some of the overrepresentation of Black children in the child welfare system.     

Chinese Communist Party Central Committee calls on Party and Youth League members to take the lead in having only one child (per couple), [open letter,September 25, 1980

This open letter from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party concerns the question of controlling China's population growth. To limit the total population of China to 1.2 billion by the end of this century, the State Council has advocated 1 couple giving birth to only 1 child. China's total population will reach 1.3 billion after 20 years and will exceed 1.5 billion after 40 years. Besides the family needing to increase the cost of upbringing, increasing population also requires the state, in order to solve their education, employment, and otheer problem, to raise education expenditures, investments of equipment, and outlays for social and public utilities. The phenomenon of population "aging" will not occur within this century because at present 1/2 of the total national population is below the age of 21, while elderly people above age 65 consist of less than 5%. After 40 years of the practice of 1 child per couple, some families may experience the problem where the elderly lack people to care for them. In the future when production is developed and the people's lives are improved, social welfare and social security will certainly increase and improve continuously. To control population growth, the Party and government have already adopted a series of concrete policies; considerations and allowances are to be given to single children and their families with respect to admission to childcare centers and primar schools. Young comrades must begin with themselves, while old comrades must educate and supervise their own sons and daughters.     

Child care quality and affordability: Are they compatible?

Mothers have traditionally been the primary caregivers of children under school age in the United States. Increasing numbers of parents are seeking part-time or full-time alternatives for assistance with parenting and child care outside of the home. The variety of types of child care arrangements has greatly increased in the past 50 years. This paper addresses quality child care, child care options and cost. Despite the increase in child care provided outside the home, parents often have difficulty distinguishing quality care from less than quality care. Two prime considerations are quality and affordability. This paper addresses the need for a comprehensive spectrum of policies and child care programs for families in various cultural, economic, and social environments.     

In our best interest: three necessary shifts for child welfare workers and children

In contrast to medicine, technology, and other fields, where great advances have been made in the past century, child welfare has yet to reach its full potential. The author, a former youth in care, proposes three practical shifts in child welfare policy and practice, changes that would cost little but would do much to build a better future for children and families: (1) renaming and reclaiming our children; (2) emphasizing communities, not agencies; and (3) valuing principles more than programs. Suggestions for implementing these shifts are highlighted.     

Troubling Discourses of Poverty in Early Childhood in the UK

Poverty in early childhood is pervasive, affecting every aspect of children’s lives. Under current government policies child poverty in the UK is predicted to rise to 40 per cent by 2022. Dominant discourses of poverty have historically focussed on an over‐arching discourse of moral responsibility, essentially relating to notions of deserving and underserving poor. This paper examines how government policy continues to significantly impact on young children and families on low incomes in early childhood and how stigmatised discourses about welfare, work are pervasive. It is argued that discourses of redistribution and children’s rights deserve greater recognition if poverty is to be addressed.     

The minimum wage and poverty among full-time workers

V. Conclusions The empirical evidence is strong that minimum wages have had little or no effect on poverty in the U.S. Indeed, the evidence is stronger that minimum wages occasionally increase poverty. It also suggests that the minimum wage does not even lower poverty for the one group that, almost by definition, one would expect to be helped: full-time, year-round workers. While the empirical results suggest minimum wages do not achieve what is ostensibly their primary goal — relieving poverty among the working poor — minimum wages do seem to impose a real cost on society in terms of lost income and output. The empirical evidence on work hours suggests that a $1 increase in the minimum wage, far from being almost costless, could conceivably impose income losses to American workers in the $12-15 billion range per year — an amount equal to the “income deficit” of millions of persons counted as poor by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.     

Children's well-being,adult poverty,and jobs-of-last-resort

This article addresses the failure of the 1996 welfare reform act (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act [PRWORA]) as an anti-poverty program demonstrated by the fact that approximately half of all ‘welfare leavers’ have fallen back into poverty within a year or two of their exit. The proximate cause is that, because of “barriers to work” or insufficient demand, leavers end up working too few hours over the course of a year. To address this failure, we propose a program of jobs-of-last-resort, called Promise of a Job (POJ), based on an examination of the design, costs, and results for a large number of transitional-job and welfare-to-work programs. In this article, we estimate POJ's costs per participant and overall costs of implementation, as well as the impact such a program would have on reducing adult and, particularly, child poverty. We find, in examining past data, that had POJ been applied to just those Americans who were on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1996, it would have raised almost 7 million children above the poverty line. We argue that this result (and similar results from any other program) should appeal across the political spectrum, to conservatives and liberals alike, because of the documented general agreement that child poverty is inconsistent with a widely held American value: the provision of equal opportunity for all.     

Effects of federal programs on children: Absolute poverty, relative poverty, and income inequality

Since the 1996 welfare reform, federal spending on means-tested programs targeting the poorest children has decreased, while programs that benefit children in low-income working families have been expanded substantially. With this background, this study examined changes in the antipoverty and anti-inequality effects of children's programs between 1995 and 2007 using data from the Annual Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS). The findings suggest that although the poverty-reduction effects of the federal child programs increased between 1995 and 2007, the programs' effects on the reductions of children's absolute poverty gaps, relative poverty rates, relative poverty gaps, and income inequality all decreased. More importantly, the antipoverty effects of the federal child programs were most weakened for the poorest children (i.e., those in female-headed, immigrant, and nonworking families) between 1995 and 2007.     

A qualitative look at child care selection among rural welfare-to-work participants

The welfare reforms of 1996 changed the administration of public assistance to children and families. One of the key provisions, requiring parents to join the workforce, resulted in an expanded need for child care. Prior research demonstrates that welfare recipients, particularly in rural areas, utilize informal child care arrangements. Further, recipients in rural communities face greater challenges due to a lack of transportation, geographic spread, and less access to services. This qualitative study examined the child care selection experiences of 33 welfare recipients in six rural Northern California counties. More families selected home-based than center-based child care. During their search processes, welfare recipients utilized both formal and informal routes to locate child care providers. Parents took advantage of their connections with the social service system, but also accessed their social networks for recommendations. Rural families also reported that their choices were constrained by the available programs, transportation, and by the quality of the programs they were able to access. Given the high rate of utilization of home-based arrangements among families in welfare-to-work programs, quality of care in such programs should be improved. Recommendations for increasing quality and access, as well as supports for welfare to work participants, are discussed.     

Developing a framework for monitoring child poverty: results from a study in Uganda

In 2002 Save the Children UK carried out a study of child poverty in Uganda, as part of the on‐going Uganda Participatory Poverty Assessment Programme. Using participants from all regions of the country, the researchers asked children about their perceptions of poverty and anti‐poverty strategies, as well as questioning adult key informants about trends in child poverty, vulnerable groups and the effectiveness of government policies in tackling child poverty. This article reports on one aspect of the study, looking at the different indicators that children use to assess poverty, and comparing these with official poverty monitoring indicators. It finds that while some areas—notably, health, education and water and sanitation—are well documented, others, which may be as, or more significant to children's welfare, such as child abuse or quality of parental care, are almost totally neglected. A more holistic framework for assessing child poverty is proposed.     

The social costs of child abuse in Japan

The present study calculates the social costs of child abuse in Japan. The items calculated included the direct costs of dealing with abuse and the indirect costs related to long-term damage from abuse during the fiscal year 2012 (April 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013). Based on previous studies on the social costs of child abuse and peripheral matters conducted in other countries, the present study created items for the estimable direct costs and indirect costs of child abuse, and calculated the cost of each item. Among indirect costs, future losses owing to child abuse were calculated using extra costs with a discount rate of 3%. The social cost of child abuse in Japan in the fiscal year 2012 was at least ¥1.6 trillion ($16 billion). The direct costs totaled ¥99 billion ($1 billion), and the indirect costs totaled ¥1.5 trillion ($15 billion). This sum of ¥1.6 trillion for only the year 2012 is almost equal to the total amount of damages of ¥1.9 trillion caused by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Fukushima Prefecture. Moreover, abuse is a serious problem that occurs every year and has recurring costs, unlike a natural calamity. However, Japan has no system for calculating the long-term effects of abuse. Therefore, owing to the scarcity of data, the calculations in the present study may underestimate the true costs.     

Elusive public support for us child care policy

Most U.S. parents are in the paid labor force (US Department of Labor Statistics. (2014). Women in the labor force: A databook. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/women-in-the-labor-force-a-databook-2014.pdf). Using a purposive non-probability sample (N?=?415) of primarily upper-middle class, married White Democratic women, this study explores support for government regulation, funding, and provision of child care and the factors and context that may shape their beliefs. Although some respondents held reservations about government involvement, over 80% indicated that government should play a role in regulating care for children in all age categories (0–3, 4–5, and 6–12). Eighty-nine percent supported some form of government financial support for child care, and 58% and 61% saw a role for provision of child care for children age 0–5 and 6–12, respectively. Both regression analyses and qualitative responses indicated that support for a government role in child care was influenced by parents’ own difficulties finding affordable and sufficiently comprehensive care, and the number of children they had. We provide recommendations for how best to target these groups of parents to support child care advocacy campaigns, tapping into their own struggles as a source of empathy for others as well as an impetus to shift toward a more universal notion of government support for child care.     

Open Road or Blind Alley? Welfare Reform, Mothers, and Children with Disabilities

Welfare reform was examined for 39 Michigan families whose children have significant health or intellectual and behavioral disabilities. As a group, these families received little specialized assistance or services to address their unique needs. Family-cited barriers to self-sufficiency included poorly trained welfare caseworkers, limited public transportation, and inadequate child care. Having an older child was the only discriminating variable between working and non-working mothers. However, working mothers only had temporary positions with no benefits and low pay. All families, whether employed or not, lived below the poverty line.     

‘It's afforded us a huge flexibility’: the impact of ‘Disabled Children's Access to Childcare Pilots’ on families with a disabled child in England

For many parents of disabled children, finding affordable and suitable childcare that meets their needs is very challenging. Research in the UK has shown that parents with disabled children experience barriers not just with cost, but also accessibility, the attitudes of childcare providers and in getting good information about sources of childcare. The Disabled Children's Access to Childcare (DCATCH) pilots was an initiative designed to improve access to childcare for disabled children in England. As part of an evaluation of DCATCH, qualitative interviews were carried out with 38 members of 22 families who had received support from the initiative. All of the families reported positive outcomes and highlighted: a beneficial impact on the parents' capacity to work; enjoyable experiences for the disabled child; increased confidence and independence for both parents and children; and the creation of time for parents to pursue other activities. The results of the DCATCH initiative support other research which argues that whilst cost is a significant factor around childcare choices for families with a disabled child, having confidence in the childcare provider's ability to meet specific needs (including complex health care needs) and providing positive experiences for the disabled child are also key, determining factors.