Sinko Wang, Jun-Hong Chen (Saint Louis University), & Melissa Jonson-Reid (Washington University in St. Louis), recently posted to SSRN their paper, Termination of Parental Rights and Foster Care Permanency: A Propensity Score-Weighted Longitudinal Analysis. Here is the abstract:
Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) is a legal process that frees children for adoption. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was enacted to expedite permanency through mandated TPR. However, limited research has examined whether TPR shortens time to permanency while accounting for selection bias. This study investigated the impact of TPR on the time to foster care permanency using a propensity score-weighted longitudinal analysis. It also explored the influence of time to TPR on permanency and identified factors contributing to delays before TPR. Using national data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, this study followed 164,538 children who entered foster care in 2013 for up to seven years. This study used Cox proportional hazards models to assess differences in time to permanency and multinomial logistic regression to explore factors associated with TPR timing. Results indicated that children with TPR experienced significantly longer stays in foster care than those without (M = 31.88 months vs. 13.52 months, p < .001). Delays in permanency were primarily driven by delays prior to TPR rather than post-TPR processes. Factors such as placement instability, cumulative risks, and the absence of early case plan goals for adoption were associated with longer pre-TPR stays. Despite ASFA’s intent to expedite permanency through TPR, TPR appeared to prolong foster care stays. Future research is needed to better understand the services and case characteristics that predict pre-TPR delays, which could inform targeted interventions or policy recommendations to reduce delays in permanency.