Children in families on welfare or in families transitioning off welfare
since the implementation of welfare reform are at high risk for poor cognitive
development and problem behavior. This was the major finding of a policy
brief released in February that was authored by a team of researchers
headed by IPR faculty fellow P.
Lindsay Chase-Lansdale. Preschoolers in sanctioned families — families who have had their
benefits reduced or eliminated for failure to follow stricter welfare
program rules —are among the most vulnerable for emotional and behavioral
difficulties. That finding and others contained in the brief “Welfare
Reform: What About the Children?” suggest an urgent need for services
and intervention. It is one of several policy briefs released in recent
months by the $20-million Welfare, Children and Families: A Three-City
Study. “Preschoolers whose families were sanctioned and left welfare were
three times as likely to show rates of serious emotional and behavioral
problems as children in national samples,” said Chase-Lansdale, professor
of human development and social policy. “We are not saying that sanctions
caused these problems, but rather that sanction policies have identified
vulnerable families with vulnerable children.” Chase-Lansdale’s findings suggest that leaving welfare, particularly
after experiencing sanctions, may be extremely stressful for families
with young children. “Because new federal welfare rules limit the
time families can remain on welfare to five years, we surmise that children
in families who will soon hit their time limits may show difficulties
similar to those experienced by families leaving welfare after being sanctioned,”
she said. The study also found that two out of every five young adolescents in
families on welfare had emotional and behavior problems serious enough
to require intervention and treatment. These conclusions were based upon
a widely used, highly reliable Child Behavior Checklist. “Without immediate mental health and educational interventions and
services, these vulnerable children and youth will face a future with
the odds stacked heavily against them,” said Chase-Lansdale. While considerable research focuses on adults in welfare and sanctioned
families, the Three-City Study focuses on children and young adolescents,
using in-depth measures and multiples sources of information to track
children’s healthy development and school achievement. “What
About the Children?” is the first to use in-depth measures to see
how children in sanctioned families are faring. To disentangle the effects of poverty from the effects of welfare, the researchers divided their sample of 1,885 low-income preschoolers and young adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago and San Antonio into four groups. Those groups consisted of: 1) children in families on welfare after the
implementation of welfare reform in 1997; 2) children in families who
transitioned off welfare since the stricter welfare restrictions imposed
by welfare reform were put into place; 3) children in families who transitioned
off welfare prior to welfare reform; and 4) children in families with
low incomes who never accessed the welfare system. In comparing the young adolescents in these groups, the researchers discovered
that those in families on welfare fared worst of all. “Forty-two
percent of young adolescents in families on welfare have very serious
and troubling emotional and behavior problems that require intervention
from mental health providers,” Chase-Lansdale said. Adolescents in
welfare families also show lower levels of cognitive achievement than
other low-income teens in the sample. With only one wave of data, the researchers cannot definitively conclude
whether or not welfare reform has caused the problems they have identified.
However, the study has allowed them to identify seriously vulnerable groups
of children who are in trouble now and require immediate attention. The brief outlines policy options that are immediately available for
those vulnerable children in sanctioned families. They include assistance
to families on welfare to bring them into compliance with the welfare
rules before they are sanctioned; closer monitoring of sanctioned families;
and the provision of additional supports, such as mental health services,
academic enrichment, and after-school programs. The policy brief was co-authored by Boston College professor Rebekah
Levine Coley, IPR postdoctoral fellow Brenda J. Lohman, and IPR research
associate Laura D. Pittman. The policy brief is posted on the World Wide Web at www.jhu.edu/~welfare. A related brief, which focuses on sanctioned families, can be accessed on the IPR Web site at www. northwestern.edu/ipr/publications/ policybriefs/lansdalebrief.pdf. |
