“We Are Not Disorderly Kids”: Young Adult, Family, and Social Work Perspectives on Disrupting System Failures that Funnel Child Welfare Involved Youth into the Juvenile Legal System

Abstract

Foster care, youth detention, and youth incarceration are all associated with long-term harms including lifelong trauma, physical health and mental health concerns, and significant challenges transitioning into adulthood. Youth involved in child welfare face disproportionately high risk of juvenile legal system contact compared to their non-involved peers due to a structurally inequitable process that funnels youth from child welfare into the legal and carceral systems. To promote health and wellbeing in historically and persistently marginalized youth and families, there is a need to understand this process and develop tangible alternatives. This three-paper mixed-methods dissertation intends to interrogate this systems failure by examining the links between child welfare and juvenile legal systems in Washington State and offer potential alternatives from the perspectives of caregivers and young adults who have experienced child welfare involvement and social workers who work within these systems. Guided by ecological systems theory and informed by community based participatory research (CBPR) principles, this community-engaged investigation utilized focus group and survey methodology to examine the ways in which child welfare and juvenile legal systems intersect to create inequities for youth, shed light on the specific mechanisms by which youth may become incarcerated through their involvement with child welfare, and develop supportive alternatives to system involvement in Washington State. Informed by priorities set by community partners, paper one is a systematic literature review that examines the extent and potential consequences of police involvement in child welfare cases. Paper two is a qualitative methods paper that applies Walsh’s (2003) typology of reflexive practice to provide a framework and comprehensive illustration of reflexive practice within child welfare research designed to support collaborative research partnerships. Paper three presents the methods and main outcomes of this community-engaged dissertation investigation. Collectively, these studies highlight the need for urgent transformative change. This includes developing and supporting academic-community partnerships that center lived expertise and challenge hierarchical research structures to advance evidence-informed policy change, implementing immediate trauma-informed training for all individuals responding to child welfare calls as a harm reduction strategy, and establishing long-term formal initiatives to create a new emergency response system that reduces law enforcement presence and prioritizes community-led, culturally responsive support.