Essential case management services for young children in foster care

A growing number of children in the United States are being placed into foster care. Past studies indicate that effective case manager interventions have helped foster families with a variety of different problems. This study enrolled a randomly selected sample of 130 children under age four who had been newly placed into foster care. The purpose of this study was to identify the services needed by foster care families and determine which services require the most case manager effort. Consistent with other research, many foster care children in this study exhibited developmental, medical and psychosocial concerns. Nevertheless, we found that it was services aimed at the foster care parents, rather than the foster care children, that required the most labor-intensive case management services.