Open research questions in Child Welfare and Adoption

What the literature leaves open

• Guided by ecological systems theory and critical social work theory, the review argues that child removal is often framed as an individual family failure, while the wider conditions that produce family vulnerability, including poverty, racism, colonial histories, housing insecurity, disability, substance-use-related need, and inadequate service access, are insufficiently addressed.

  Prevention over separation: A critical perspective on child protection practice and policy · 2026 · DOI

• study materials, processes and • Knowledge exchange and dissemination activities • Guidance on implementation considerations to support real-world relevance and impact to insight, and These meetings will ensure that lived experience, caregiver independent scrutiny perspectives, community its duration. integral remain Additionally, a mobilisation steering group of service leaders will be established to support the development of the Care Responders service within the existing crisis infrastructure and its deployment within existing systems.

  Evaluating the implementation of a mental health joint response with young people and families: protocol for the care responders study, a realist and health economic evaluation · 2026 · DOI

• In this paper, we have reported the personal experiences of Black parents and their children as they navigated the ELCC systems in Kingston and London, Ontario. There are a few limitations to consider regarding this study. First, in terms of participant demographics, even though our sample was diverse, a lot of the participants or their spouses were affiliated with higher educational institutions in the two cities. This may be attributed to the fact that these cities are university cities and/or that the researchers of this study were affiliated with these institutions in varying capacities. Therefore, it is likely that the experiences of this study’s participants might underrepresent the unique challenges encountered by Black parents and caregivers without such privilege. Second, four people (two in each city) were involved in the interviewing process, and each interviewer had a 17 MARCH 2026Vol. 51 No. 1JOURNAL OF CHILDHOOD STUDIESARTICLES FROM RESEARCH different style of asking questions and probing responses. This may have influenced how questions were delivered throughout the interview process and the responses received. Finally, between the two cities, the study sample was mostly female-identifying participants, so there was not an even distribution of gender identity, which created disparities in the experiences that were shared. Despite the limitations, the study’s findings point to important policy options that can be used to build or create actionable plans and goals for a more accessible and inclusive ELCC system. Also, framing these experiences through an intersectional lens, as this study has done, can assist in better informing and supporting policies and practices that acknowledge the multiple axes of inequity that define the lived experiences of Black children and their families (Gerlach & McFadden, 2022; OHRC, 2025). This study also makes an important contribution to exploring the Black experience in Canada and contributes to addressing the need for more race-based data in Canada.

  “I’m Appalled and Astonished”: Experiences of Black Parents and Caregivers Navigating Early Learning and Childcare in Kingston and London, Ontario · 2026 · DOI

• As much as the rights and responsibilities of young unmar- ried fathers are protected and outlined in the Children’s Act 38 of 2005, this study indicates that most young unmarried fathers are not knowledgeable about the Chil- dren’s Act 38 of 2005, as amended in South Africa. Thus, future studies can be conducted on the perspectives of maternal families on their relationship with the unmar- ried fathers and the role they play in the social functioning of the child. Author Contribution The first author was a master’s candidate and supervised by the second and third authors. Mafora OS (first author) was responsible for conceptualising the study, making the draft, col- lecting data, and being involved in the analysis processes. The second author, Matlakala FK, was the main supervisor responsible for moni- toring the research, finalising the data, and providing guidance to the student. The third author, Shophi T, was the co-supervisor who was responsible for editing the first draft and supervising the student. Funding Open access funding provided by North-West University. This study was supported by the National Research Foundation. Data Availability The material used in this study is available upon request.

  “Lobola Gives You Access to the Child”: Human Rights Violations Within Cultural Expectations of Young Unmarried Fathers at Zeerust, South Africa · 2026 · DOI

• Conclusion The study concludes that lobola-related cultural practices are used in rural communities like Zeerust to justify the depriva- tion of young unmarried fathers’ human rights, especially being able to participate in the upbringing of their children, despite having constitutional rights affording them paren- tal responsibilities. This study showed that the cultural and societal expectations attached to having a child out of mar- riage give birth to the emotional challenges of young unmar- ried fathers, conflicting relationships between young unmar- ried fathers and mothers of their children, societal judgment and stigma, and dysfunctional relationships between young unmarried fathers and their children. This study showed that mothers and maternal families continue to use culture to deprive young unmarried fathers of the opportunity to be actively involved in the lives of their children. This calls for social workers to consider developing interventions that are targeted at addressing the challenges of young unmarried fathers and educating young unmarried fathers on the laws that protect their parental rights and responsibilities from being violated. Significance and Implications of the Study The implication of this study accentuated the necessity for policy reform wherein the challenges of unmarried fathers are considered in South Africa. The Children’s Act 38 of 2005, as amended, does provide fathers having children out of wedlock rights, but the cultural practice in rural areas overrides the legal provision and limits unmarried fathers’ parental rights. Thus, the researchers recommend that social workers should actively advocate for the enforcement of parental responsibilities for unmarried fathers and provide right-based education on the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. Moreover, policymakers should consider right-based educa- tion for those who will facilitate culturally sensitive media- tion between paternal and maternal families to assist unmar- ried fathers who cannot pay lobola due to their financial challenges leading to the restriction of father–child contact. There should also be an advocacy for a fatherhood mentor- ship program to assist the young fathers in executing their Every study has its own limitations, and this study was not an exception. The researchers had a small sample size as participants were not recommending other participants, whilst others did not respond to the advertisement. It is due to the two reasons that the researcher ended up with a small sample size, even after advertising the study for 2 months (November 2024–January 2025). Braun and Clarke (2021) indicated that in qualitative studies, data can be collected with a small sample, and in some instances, saturation can be reached with 6 or even 12 participants. Another limitation was that the study was conducted in Zeerust, North West, which might not reflect the young unmarried fathers in other provinces.

  “Lobola Gives You Access to the Child”: Human Rights Violations Within Cultural Expectations of Young Unmarried Fathers at Zeerust, South Africa · 2026 · DOI

• Furthermore, it introduces underexplored dimensions of the quality interaction, such as the role of love in ECP-child relationships, conceptualised in detail later in the paper.

  Reimagining the ‘Quality Interaction’ with Children: Early Childhood Practitioners' Experiences Pre- and Post-Pandemic in Southeast England · 2026 · DOI

• The child welfare system (CWS) aims to create safe environments by meeting parents’ needs, yet few studies have considered parents’ perspectives on their needs and the CWS’s response to them at service delivery start.

  “It seems so simple … the actual execution is difficult”: self-defined needs of parents entering the child welfare system · 2025 · DOI

• Researchers with longstanding professional experience in residential care settings interviewed 81 RCW to ask what supports were lacking in their day-to-day work.

  Claiming the edge as central: what residential childcare workers need to better serve children and families · 2025 · DOI

• The Lost Mothers Project researches the repercussions of mandatory separation between newborns and women in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), aiming to address gaps in evidence and decision-making for pregnant women within the CJS.

  Co-production in the Lost Mothers Project: transforming criminal justice narratives through Lived experience engagement · 2024 · DOI

• This study is important because it yields important information about the subjective experience of an understudied critical population of mothers in SSA.

  In their own words: linguistic analysis of interviews with Sesotho mothers on their child’s first thousand days · 2024 · DOI

• Child Protective Services (CPS) staff attitudes toward kinship foster care placements are an understudied factor that may influence decision-making and vary based on staff characteristics.

  Associations between child protective services workers’ attitudes toward kinship foster care placement, sociodemographic characteristics, and job characteristics · 2024 · DOI

• Originality/value While the findings are limited by the reliance on self-report methods and the size of the study, namely, the small number of young people with experience of SCHs who were able to participate, the findings build on the existing knowledge base around children’s residential accommodation and provide new insights into how best to support these children.

  Secure futures? A mixed methods study on opportunities for helping young people referred to secure children’s homes for welfare reasons · 2024 · DOI

• Based on Maryam’s story about the process leading up to the letter from the CPS, but also on documents connected to her case and other interviews with her, I show how she is constructed as a mother lacking knowledge and needing help, and how she is constructed as a suspicious mother when she declines this help – and the role of generalising, objectifying understandings in this process.

  Becoming a bad mother: exploring ruling relations in the Norwegian welfare state from the standpoint of a Somali single parent · 2023 · DOI

• The implications for social work practice and education were that indigenization should be given more space, especially in multicultural societies; when alternative care is required, Indonesian and African social workers should encourage the kinship form, considering strong community ties as the social capital; future research should focus on indigenization in permanency plan for abused disabled children.

  Child abuse and kinship guardianship: social work and indigenization perspectives in Indonesia · 2023 · DOI

• Abstract Despite the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) more than four decades ago, little is known about how or how well it is being implemented into practice by the state courts or how implementation may be related to improved outcomes for Indian children and families.

  Exploring Indian Child Welfare Act implementation and case outcomes · 2023 · DOI

• This accumulating evidence has informed the evolution of guidance and training on implementing effective CFS interventions, but there remains uncertainty about the key messages emerging from studies.

  The Accumulating Evidence-Base Regarding Child Friendly Spaces: Policy and Practice Implications · 2022 · DOI

• The four main conclusions we draw from the review are: a) surprisingly few studies have specifically examined the effects of face-to-face contact with birth parents in non-kinship foster care; b) the findings to date are neither conclusive nor generalizable, although they are not generally encouraging; c) under the right circumstances (e.

  Is contact with birth parents beneficial to children in non-kinship foster care? A scoping review of the evidence · 2022 · DOI

• An important gap in the literature on two-generation early intervention programs, which provide case-management services to low-income parents and center-based child care to their very young children, is understanding which intervention components (mediators) have the largest impact on parental education and economic self-sufficiency outcomes.

  Case Management or Child Care: Which Has the Greater Impact on Parental Human Capital and Self-Sufficiency in Two-Generation Programs? · 2022 · DOI

• In light of inconsistencies and gaps in research investigating relations between the HME and children's outcomes, the purpose of the conference was to discuss actionable steps and considerations for future work.

  Next directions in measurement of the home mathematics environment: An international and interdisciplinary perspective · 2021 · DOI

• It is also unusual in being drawn from a more socio-economically deprived cohort than many (two-fifths of were living in the most deprived quintile of neighbourhoods according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation), although the sample are predominantly white, meaning that again evidence is lacking on children and young people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background.

  Commentary: ‘Levelling down’ or ‘building back fairer’? A commentary/reflection on Wright et al. (2021) · 2021 · DOI

• A feature of most editorials and commentaries about COVID-19 is an acknowledgement and rehearsal of the conflicting findings of the studies which have been done.

  Commentary: ‘Levelling down’ or ‘building back fairer’? A commentary/reflection on Wright et al. (2021) · 2021 · DOI

• A number of studies to this day have examined the role of maternal childhood trauma in parenting styles, mental health, and child attachment patterns; however, there are limited data on parenting of mothers who were raised in institutional care (IC) and involved in the child welfare system.

  Mothers with a History of Child Welfare Involvement: A Brief Literature Review of Cross Generational Impact of Maternal Trauma · 2020 · DOI

• This special issue affords us the opportunity to reflect on: what’s better or not after 30 years; whether legislation and financing are aligned with child welfare’s goals of safety, permanency and well-being; and what remains to be done to improve the outcomes of children and youth in foster care or otherwise involved with child welfare.

  The Long View: Has Anything Really Improved for Children and Families Involved with Child Welfare over 3 Decades? · 2019 · DOI

• RESULTS: Legislators identified several factors that can influence the passage of legislation on ACEs: awareness of ACEs; gaps in understanding about what can be done about ACEs; the use of data and stories that contextualize the problem of ACEs; capitalizing on the bipartisanship of children's issues; and linking to current ACEs-related issues on the policy agenda, such as school safety and violence prevention and the opioid epidemic.

  Addressing Health and Well-Being Through State Policy: Understanding Barriers and Opportunities for Policy-Making to Prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in South Carolina · 2019 · DOI

• However, it is difficult to determine whether parenting support in Norway is actually unique, since little is known about how it is implemented in practice (Bråten and Sønsterudbråten, 2016; Wesseltoft-Rao et al.

  Universal Parenting Support in Norway – An Unfulfilled Promise · 2018 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Child Welfare and Adoption

• Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. · Developmental Psychology · 1986 · 4,207 citations
• My Brother's Keeper: Child and Sibling Caretaking [and Comments and Reply] · Current Anthropology · 1977 · 409 citations
• Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress: Partnering With Families and Communities to Promote Relational Health · PEDIATRICS · 2021 · 333 citations
• It is not a broken system, it is a system that needs to be broken: the upEND movement to abolish the child welfare system · Journal of Public Child Welfare · 2020 · 197 citations
• Measuring neighborhood context for young children in an urban area · American Journal of Community Psychology · 1996 · 187 citations
• Father Involvement During Early Childhood: A Systematic Review of the Literature · Journal of Family Theory & Review · 2021 · 178 citations
• Family‐centred care: a concept analysis · Journal of Advanced Nursing · 1999 · 170 citations
• Overrepresentation of Black children in the child welfare system: A systematic review to understand and better act · Children and Youth Services Review · 2020 · 164 citations
• Placement into foster care and the interplay of urbanicity, child behavior problems, and poverty. · American Journal of Orthopsychiatry · 2006 · 142 citations
• Adolescent Identity Development in Foster Care · Family Relations · 1997 · 127 citations

Most recent work

• From here to there and the in‐between: Children's transitions between homes after parental separation · Family Court Review · 2026
• Estrangement is a systems issue · Family Court Review · 2026
• Pervasive distrust and affective citizenship among African families with care order history in Norway · Nordic Social Work Research · 2026
• Children’s Perspectives on Their Living Environment: A Systematic Review · Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal · 2026
• Perceived Institutional Neglect and Emotional-Behavioral Problems Among Children in Residential Care: The Mediating Role of Attachment Insecurity · Residential Treatment for Children & Youth · 2026
• “When home is gone”: Challenges faced by families evacuated from war zones—a qualitative study · Family Relations · 2026
• “Lobola Gives You Access to the Child”: Human Rights Violations Within Cultural Expectations of Young Unmarried Fathers at Zeerust, South Africa · Journal of Human Rights and Social Work · 2026
• The Identification of Five Core Domains and Seven Phases as a First Step Towards a New Theory of Socio-Emotional Development · International Journal of Developmental Science · 2026
• <b>ACOLHIMENTO FAMILIAR: UMA ANÁLISE NEUROPSICOSSOCIAL EM CONTRAPONTO AO MITO DO DANO INEVITÁVEL À SAÚDE MENTAL</b> · International Integralize Scientific · 2026
• Community engagement and involvement: Identifying research priorities needed to safely reduce the number of children living in out-of-home care in Kalaallit Nunaat · The British Journal of Social Work · 2026

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