A full understanding of the child welfare system requires a description of social patterns and developmental outcomes, e.g., placement stability and child health and educational attainment, as well as the meaning of these patterns to the participants. Over the past 10 years, the Center has supported a number of qualitative research projects including studies of birth and foster parents' perceptions of the strengths and limitations of parent visits, foster children's beliefs about their parents' methamphetamine abuse, and the perspective of battered women involved with the child welfare system, along with that of their caseworkers, regarding appropriate strategies for supporting the development of children exposed to intimate partner violence. These data have led to the development, implementation and evaluation of a number of small-scale interventions, for example, model programs for better supporting the visits of parents and their young children and the mental health of children exposed to parent methamphetamine use. Several of these small scale programs, including FYSH and the methamphetamine intervention project, will be transported to additional sites across Illinois. Transporting these model programs will require ethnographic research within the receiving communities to develop culturally sensitive adaptations that retain the fidelity of the original programs. Programs will then be assessed using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.

Qualitative Research Projects:
Foster Youth Seen and Heard
Recognizing that strictly quantitative research cannot capture the subjective experience of life in the child welfare system, Project FYSH explores foster care through the personal narratives of older foster youth and former foster youth (participants aged between 16 and 24). The project provides a structured and supportive opportunity for self-expression about life in care, and makes the perspectives of foster youth more available to researchers, policy makers, professionals who serve these youth, and the concerned public.

In each of the Conditions of Children in or at Risk of Foster Care in Illinois [2006], writings of these former foster youth are interwoven into the narrative providing an informative, insiders view of life in foster care.

Trauma-Based Intervention for Children of Parents Who Abuse Methamphetamine
Following an initial study focusing on the experiences and perspectives of rural, Midwestern children age 7–14 years involved with the public child welfare system because of their parents' methamphetamine abuse, Center Faculty Fellow Wendy Haight is serving as principal investigator for another project with children from homes where parent methamphetamine abuse exists. The goal is to develop and test the effectiveness of a comprehensive, six-month demonstration/intervention program for traumatized children aged 3-16 years who are involved with DCFS due to parent methamphetamine abuse.