Housing services for child welfare families: Impact on stability and well-being.

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究旨在评估儿童福利系统调查的住房不足家庭的住房干预措施的有效性，以及了解该计划最有利于儿童发展的机制和条件。干预措施-家庭团聚方案-是一项住房和城市发展倡议，向住房不足可能面临离家安置风险的家庭提供住房选择咨询（第8节）。该研究建议利用一项自然实验，随机向完整家庭（n = 192）提供FUP服务，并将其与正常儿童福利服务对照组（n = 192）进行比较。在这两种情况下都会发生过抽样，以考虑到代金券吸收失败和流失。该研究将在住房服务之前获得两次基线评估，然后在基线后6个月、12个月和24个月进行重新评估，共5个时间点。照顾者及其子女将接受小组调查。从多个服务系统在个人和家庭层面的管理数据将被整合，以便比较人口的儿童福利参与家庭在芝加哥（n = 700）。行政数据来源包括儿童福利，公共住房，医疗补助，公立学校和现金援助。 这项研究将检验一些假设：1）假设接受住房服务的家庭将报告更大的家庭稳定性-如住宅稳定性，住房质量，日常生活，噪音和混乱，照顾者心理健康，照顾者分离和学校变化-与儿童福利服务相比-照常;（2）相对于常规服务，住房干预对儿童的身心健康、学习成绩和发展适应行为有显著的积极影响; 3）我们假设，与住房服务相关的儿童发展的积极影响将通过减少家庭不稳定来发挥作用; 4）我们假设，来自凝聚力较低和暴力较强的社区的家庭将从干预中获得较少; 5）我们假设住房干预将对基线时最不稳定的家庭产生最大的影响; 6）理论上住房干预将对年幼的儿童产生更大的积极影响。严格的设计使得能够对FUP如何发挥作用以及干预是否在多个层次的背景下类似地发挥作用进行强有力的科学调查。该项目旨在提高对FUP干预机制的理解，为建立循证服务模式和公共政策提供更坚实的基础。 公共卫生相关性：本研究利用自然实验的优势，以测试干预措施的有效性，为虐待儿童的调查中住房不足的家庭。拟议的研究同时旨在告知社会政策和儿童福利系统中的服务提供，同时调查的过程中所涉及的家庭不稳定和不良儿童发展之间的关系处于危险之中的家庭。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a housing intervention for inadequately housed families under investigation by the child welfare system, as well as to understand the mechanisms and conditions through which the program most benefits child development. The intervention - the Family Unification Program (FUP) - is a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) initiative that provides Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8) to families whose inadequate housing risks out-of-home placement. The study proposes to take advantage of a natural experiment that will randomly provide FUP services to intact families (n = 192) who will be compared to a child welfare services-as-usual control group (n = 192). Oversampling will occur in both conditions to account for voucher uptake failure and attrition. The study will obtain two baseline assessments before housing services and then re-assess at 6-, 12-, and 24-months post-baseline for a total of five time points. Caregivers and their children will be administered a panel survey. Administrative data from multiple services systems linked at the individual- and family-level will be integrated to allow comparisons to the population of child welfare-involved families in Chicago (n = 700). Administrative data sources include child welfare, public housing, Medicaid, public schools, and cash assistance. The study will test a number of hypotheses: 1) it is hypothesized that families receiving housing services will report greater family stability - as indicated by residential stability, housing quality, daily routines, noise and confusion, caregiver mental health, caregiver separations, and school changes - compared to child welfare services-as-usual; 2) it is predicated that the housing intervention will have a significant positive impact on child physical and mental health, academic achievement, and developmentally adaptive behavior, relative to services-as-usual; 3) we hypothesize that positive effects on child development associated with housing services will function through reductions in family instability; 4) we hypothesize that families from less cohesive and more violent neighborhoods will gain less from the intervention; 5) we hypothesize that the housing intervention will have its greatest impact on families who are most unstable at baseline; 6) it is theorized that the housing intervention will have greater positive effects for younger children. The rigorous design enables strong scientific investigation of how FUP functions and whether intervention operates similarly across multiple levels of context. This project intends to improve understanding of the mechanisms of the FUP intervention to provide a stronger basis to build evidence-based service models and public policy. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This study takes advantage of a natural experiment to test the effectiveness of an intervention for inadequately housed families under investigation for child maltreatment. The proposed study simultaneously aims to inform social policy and service provision in the child welfare system, while investigating the processes involved in the relationship between family instability and adverse child development among at-risk families.