When we began our project, we sought to identify trends in DCF placement. Over the course of our research, we found the following:
These findings can be used by DCF officials to anticipate the needs of incoming children in the Connecticut foster care system.
We noted at the outset that our data was not generalizable to the entire US foster population because our sample size is small and the population of Connecticut is unrepresentative of the entire US population. For example, in our choropleth visualization we identified that we could not make conclusions regarding the rural/urban influence on placement because the data was labeled by regional office instead of county and the DCF website does not specify which counties each office serves. We further want to note that because the data only represents the years 2005-2018, we are unable to provide an analysis of the ways that the Covid-19 pandemic influenced foster placement in Connecticut. For this reason we argue that datasets with foster data through at least 2020 be made publicly accessible so that researchers can confirm that previous trends hold strong or identify changes wrought by Covid-19. In the absence of this data, it is much more difficult to be confident that any conclusions drawn over the course of this research have held true for the last year, or will hold true in the future.
Our project took data from the Connecticut Department of Children and Families and used it to identify trends in foster placement from 2005 through 2018. From this research we identified trends that are likely to help DCF officials predict the needs of incoming foster children based on their demographics. We believe that there is a clear and pressing need for this research because our examination of the family reunification numbers from 2005 to 2016 indicates that the DCF has been failing to provide children and families with the resources necessary to be reunited for years. Were we to continue this research, we would ask the same questions on a larger scale, ideally using datasets that are representative of the entire US foster population such as The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS).