As the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates around the world, young children have a greater risk of being influenced by the disruption in their lives (Murray, Farrington, & Sekol, 2012). According to the cumulative risk model, as children begin to feel the impact of stressful events, they are at risk for multiple maladaptive problems within their lives. Therefore, the parental incarceration singlehandedly may not affect the child. However, other variables related to incarceration, such as length of sentence and time point in children’s lives, could contribute to the child’s states of well-being and risk of delinquency. We hypothesize that individually child’s well-being and parental incarceration in both years 3 and 5 will directly influence delinquent behaviors at age 9. Secondly, parental incarceration will significantly moderate the relationship between child wellbeing and delinquency at both time points, where longer incarceration time worsens the relationship. Data from Fragile families and Wellbeing Longitudinal Data set were used to examine both hypotheses. Results indicate that child wellbeing at year 3, not year 5, and parental incarceration at both years 3 and 5 uniquely predicted delinquent behaviors at year 9. The second main hypothesis was not supported in that; parental incarceration was not a significant moderator of the relationship between child wellbeing and delinquency at both time points. Result and future directions will be discussed.
Abstract We study the relationship between opioid use and child well‐being. We combine data on legal opioid prescriptions, opioid‐related emergency department visits, and opioid‐involved mortality with foster care entrance records and child maltreatment reports. We find that increases in opioid‐related mortality and emergency department visits are associated with increased foster care entry, particularly among young children. We find no significant relationship between legal opioid distribution quantities and home removals. Finally, we examine the relationship between opioid‐related public policies and child welfare outcomes, finding mixed relationships between various policies and removal from the home.
The Children’s Hearing system was established in Scotland over 50 years ago to respond to child welfare and juvenile justice concerns. Found throughout all regions of Scotland, the child welfare system is a community-based approach where volunteers play an essential role by serving on Children’s Panels. This research focuses on the Children’s Panel volunteers and explores their role within the Children’s Hearing system, reasons for volunteering, types of cases reviewed, their training, and volunteers’ broader influence as catalysts for improving child well-being. It then explores the possibility of replicating the evidenced based model in other cultural settings struggling to find holistic, community-based approaches to child well-being.
= 35) and their school-aged children (ages 4-11, 50% female) alongside daily measures of parent-reported food insecurity and parent and child mood and behavior, we examine how daily changes in food insecurity predict daily changes in parent and child well-being, and the extent to which food insecurity operates through parents to affect children. This method not only explores families' daily, lived experiences of food insecurity, but improves upon the methodological issues undermining past research. Findings indicate that food insecurity influences parent and child well-being on a daily basis, but that associations are stronger and sustain longer for parents than children. Further, parent mood and behavior partially explain the association between daily food insecurity and child mood and behavior, but food insecurity is also independently associated with child well-being. This study is the first to examine daily associations between food insecurity and parent and child well-being. Its implications for food assistance programs, policies, and the future of food insecurity research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
Caitlin T. Hines, Samantha Steimle, Rebecca M. Ryan
Given the greater attention to student well-being as a concern for school education in Canada and beyond, this article is concerned with the questions of whether, and in what way, the well-being of children should be differently conceptualized than that of adults. This theoretical article responds to these questions and argues that the conceptual distinction needs to be grounded in an understanding of childhood (i.e., the socially constructed understanding of the life of children). First, the article extracts core understandings of childhood from four scholarly disciplines that are each concerned with children. Then the article develops an integrative view of childhood by drawing on these four disciplinary understandings. Finally, the article identifies implications of this integrative view of childhood for any conceptualization of child well-being.
Keywords: child well-being, student well-being, childhood
A majority of men incarcerated are fathers, but little research has been conducted on the children’s well-being after their father’s release from incarceration. We measured changes in internalizing and externalizing problems (based on father’s and female partner’s report) across a 34-month period among children ages 6–17 (n = 431). Results suggested increased internalizing and externalizing problems in older children, increased internalizing problems when fathers had problem alcohol use, and a moderating role of father–child coresidence and father–child relationship. Programs to promote paternal well-being and father–child relationships before and after reentry may benefit children of incarcerated fathers.
This dissertation consists of three essays examining the role of two particular social safety net programs, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), on the well-being of children from disadvantaged households. While the impact of these programs on the adults and parents of the household have been studied extensively, less is known about their effect on children. This is true for both their immediate impact on child well-being and any long-run impacts on children who grow up under these programs. Given the demonstrated importance of child well-being on later life adult outcomes, understanding the lasting effects of the programs is of great policy importance. In Essay 1, I examine the effect of welfare reform on long-run educational attainment and family structure outcomes on children who grew up under the reformed welfare system. In the early 1990’s, the United States reformed its welfare system through state waivers and the TANF program. These changes altered family resources and potential investments for childhood human capital, which in turn could affect later adult outcomes. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Child Development Supplement (CDS) and the Transition to Adulthood Supplement (TAS), I examine the short-run effects of welfare reform on cognitive and noncognitive outcomes and the long-run impact of welfare reform on adult education and family structure through age 28. I find that as children, these individuals have higher reading test scores by an average of 6 percent of a standard deviation. As adults, I find robust evidence that these treated individuals are on average 9 percent more likely to graduate college. I also find some evidence that they are more likely to be married and less likely to have a child out of wedlock. The impacts of welfare reform are larger for women than men for childhood test scores and college completion, marriage rates, and out of wedlock births as adults. In Essay 2, I continue to study the effects of welfare reform on child well-being, here focusing on the effect of welfare reform on the health insurance coverage, healthcare utilization, and the health status of children. In addition to changing the overall resources available to the family to invest in child health, welfare reform also has specific implications for health insurance coverage. As mothers were moved to work they could gain private coverage and welfare reform eliminated automatic eligibility for Medicaid. In this essay, I use data from the PSID CDS. I find a 3-5 percent decrease in the likelihood that a child has had their annual checkup but no change to the insurance coverage of children. For health status, I find lower rates of asthma by 17 percent among African American children and an increase of 3-5 healthy days a year for all children. I present suggestive evidence that the improvements in child health are driving the reduction in healthcare utilization. Given the evidence in the literature on the importance of childhood health, these improvements have potentially large ramifications for future adult health. Finally, in Essay 3 I explore the effect of the real purchasing power of SNAP benefits for households with children on dietary quality of food acquisitions and food insecurity. SNAP, formerly food stamps, is one of the most important components of the social safety net. However, there is concern that benefits are inadequate given high food insecurity rates among participating households. Currently SNAP does not account for variation in local food prices and does not sufficiently consider the dietary needs of adolescent children. Using data from the Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), I exploit variation in county level food prices and family composition to estimate the purchasing power of food expenditures for SNAP and SNAP–eligible households to test for the effect of additional benefits on dietary quality and food security. I find that a ten percent increase in purchasing power is associated with increased per person weekly acquisition of grains, proteins, dairy, and vegetables by 1.5-2.5 percent. However the quantity of added sugars also increases by approximately two percent, suggesting an ambiguous impact on health. In line with these modest changes in quantity, I do not find a statistically significant impact of purchasing power on food insecurity rates.
“Protecting children is a top priority” was a headline in an American newspaper recently. The headline and accompanying commentary—written by a member of the Minnesota state legislature—expressed a sentiment that is widely supported in the United States of America and in most nations around the world. Similarly, the director of a British child services agency recently declared: “We need to think about the child’s physical safety, social safety, emotional safety—their whole wellbeing both at home and in the school environment. Again, the sentiment is nearly universal. In principle, nearly everyone agrees that the well-being of children should be given top priority not only in our personal and family lives, but even more so in matters of public policy such as government services and programs. However, in reality, do we (as societies, families, and individuals) actually give top priority to providing for and protecting children?” This article reviews evidence of changing (mostly deteriorating) marital families in the United States in Part II. Next, in Part III, the contemporary “marriage crisis” is examined, and why it matters. Part IV discusses the risks that non-marital cohabitation poses to the institution of marriage. Children’s need and hunger to live in marital families with their mothers and fathers are reviewed in Part V. The conclusion, in Part VI, emphasizes the urgent need to revitalize marriage in the United States for the sake of children and future generations.
Lenna Nepomnyaschy a, Allison Dwyer Emory b, Kasey J. Eickmeyer c, Maureen R. Waller d, Daniel P. Miller e, Parental Debt and Child Well-Being: What Type of Debt Matters for Child Outcomes?, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 3, Wealth Inequality and Child Development: Implications for Policy and Practice (August 2021), pp. 122-151
Lenna Nepomnyaschy, Allison Dwyer Emory, Kasey J. Eickmeyer et al.
The child's right to participate is a fundamental right outlined in the UN convention on the rights of the child. Canada signed and ratified this convention in 1991. Through secondary literature and the author's personal experience this paper explores the child's right to participate in the context of canadian pediatric medicine. In particular, this paper examines if and how a child is encouraged to participate in their health care, and which members of the health care team facilitate this participation. The paper also outlines a number of factors that limit or enhance child participation. Recommendations and next steps are included in the paper with the purpose of enhancing the quality and amount of participation that is offered to pediatric patients within hospital settings. One recommendation that is developed and discussed is the increased role of the child life profession as a tool for enabling child participation.
