Essays in Child Welfare

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Date

2018-09-06

Authors

Rashid, Amani

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University of Oregon

Abstract

We empirically explore the effect of attorney representation for foster care youth in abuse and neglect hearings on adoption outcomes. By exploiting temporal variation in the passage of state-level statutes that mandate all foster children have the right to representation, we find that child attorneys not only expedite the adoption process, but also improve upon the stability of these adoption matches. When exploring the determinants of child maltreatment, we exploit variation in the timing of state-level medical marijuana legalization to identify the effect of caretaker marijuana use on reported and substantiated rates of child maltreatment. As medical marijuana laws increase general population marijuana use, we find that treatment leads to significant reductions in the rates of reported and actual perpetration of child physical abuse, with no simultaneous increases in the rates of alternative forms of maltreatment perpetration. We next examine a policy related to alternative child well-being measures. Within a difference-in-differences framework, we consider the effect of antibullying laws (ABLs) on adolescent mental health outcomes. We find that overall, laws with an implementation deadline result in modest reductions in adolescent suicidality and licit drug use. However, when considering the effect of heterogeneity across ABL attributes, we find that more costly procedural components lead to increases in reported suicidalilty and drug use, suggesting the implementation of such components may displace existing mental health resources.

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