Jill D Berrick
Biographic Data
| ID | 4238488 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jill D Berrick |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jill D |
| FAMILY NAME | Berrick |
| SIGNATURE | BERRICK J D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5795-4206 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 63 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 498 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 63 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
A rebuttal to conclusions of a paradox by Wright et al., (2025) and commentary on the limitations of available longitudinal datasets to observe child welfare outcomes
This commentary responds to claims that research shows child welfare services (CWS) involvement harms children’s mental health. We address the misuse of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) and similar longitudinal datasets to estimate CWS effects. Severe measurement limitations, extensive misclassification, and inadequate adjustment for maltreatment exposure preclude causal inference. We caution against interpreting association…
A Call to Reject Using “Abolition” in Discussions of Child Welfare Out of Respect for Its Legacy
This open letter is published with encouragement of the editor-in-chief following its submission during the preparation of the invite-oriented special issue, “Shaping the Future of the Child Welfare System: Reform or Abolish?” ( Vol. 106, No. 2 )
A Global Review of Children’s Visibility in Constitutions
Based on a study of the world’s constitutions, this article argues that while children have some constitutional visibility, they are rarely regarded as persons with agency in a constitutional sense. Their rights, as laid down in the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child ( crc ) of 1989, are poorly reflected in the constitutional texts, which potentially has significant implications for the attention to children’s rights, and for t…
Ask the children: Youth views about parenting, parental freedom, and child safety. A survey study of youth in Finland, Ireland, Norway, and USA
Peer reviewed
Is Child Welfare Oppressive
The stark implications of abolishing child welfare: An alternative path towards support and safety
Scholars and advocates are at odds about how to achieve higher levels of child safety and permanency. Calls for change include the recent upEND focus on eradication of child welfare services to a radical refocusing of the present system towards prevention/early intervention. To clarify the implications of reform over abolition, we seek to portray a future in which the abolition of child welfare has occurred, in juxtaposition to maintaining four c…
Public Rights Orientations and Views on Long‐Term Care Options for Children in the Child Protection System: An Analysis of Representative Samples of Adults in California, USA and Norway
This study examines a representative sample of adults in California (USA) and Norway, and their attitudes toward adoption versus foster care in a child protection case. The results show that a majority of people favour adoption for a child who has been removed due to maltreatment and cannot be reunified with birth parents. The study examines if people's rights orientation, favouring children or adults, or favouring birth parents or adoptive paren…
Public perceptions of child protection, children’s rights, and personal values: An assessment of two states
Although there is an expansive literature on public attitudes towards the welfare state, we know comparatively little about public attitudes toward child protection. Gauging public opinion about the state’s role in protecting children is complicated by the contested ideas that underlie the field. Child protection lies at the nexus between competing values about state obligations to allow unfettered parental freedom or to permit constraints on som…
Parental Freedom in the Context of Risk to the Child: Citizens' Views of Child Protection and the State in the US and Norway
Child protection is considered an appropriate government responsibility, but interventions into the family are also some of the most consequential for states. This study examines the normative basis for limiting parents' freedom by exploring public attitudes about a child's safety in the context of increasing risk. Using a randomized survey, we test the causal relationship between levels of risk and parental restrictions on representative samples…
A longitudinal investigation of infants and out-of-home care
Foster care placements for infants can be consequential. Research suggests that infants’ path through and beyond the care system is different than the experience for children of other age groups. Studying infants is important because of their unique needs for developmentally-sensitive care; because of the underpinnings of attachment theory; and because the long-term impacts of quality care can be pronounced. Prior research examining infants in ca…
Research to Consider while Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services: A Response to Commentaries
Barth et al. (2021) published an article in this journal identifying ten topics in the field of child welfare that are frequently discussed among professionals, advocates, and researchers in an effort to shape discussions of practice and policy reform. Concerned that these discussions are often poorly informed by the research evidence, Barth et al. intended to offer a corrective to these common, erroneous narratives. The Editor-in-Chief, Bruce Th…
Imagining a new future: Elimination of child support obligations for child welfare-involved families
As we imagine the next generation of public child welfare, efforts to identify and eliminate practices that are harmful to families must be pursued. This commentary uses available research evidence to argue against child support enforcement for child welfare-involved families. Although research on this topic is sparse, the evidence from the few available studies suggests that child support enforcement likely harms child welfare-involved families.…
Children’s rights and parents’ rights: Popular attitudes about when we privilege one over the other
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is a widely accepted human rights document and has relevance for child protection policy. This study employs an experimental design with representative samples from Norway and California (USA) to test public perceptions of children's rights in child protection. The countries have welfare states and child protection contexts that differ, and their histories contrast with regard to the UNCRC. Res…
Research to Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services
An intense appetite for reforming and transforming child welfare services in the United States is yielding many new initiatives. Vulnerable children and families who become involved with child welfare clearly deserve higher quality and more effective services. New policies, programs, and practices should be built on sound evidence. Reforms based on misunderstandings about what the current data show may ultimately harm families. This review highli…
Outcomes following child welfare services: What are they and do they differ for black children
Current calls to end structural racism in the US include proposals to abolish or radically transform child welfare services (CWS). While substantial research finds numerous poor outcomes following maltreatment, the efficacy and acceptability of CWS, particularly for children of color, has long sparked debate. This review summarizes the state of quantitative research across seven domains for children overall and by race with varying degrees of CWS…
Are child protection workers and judges in alignment with citizens when considering interventions into a family? A cross-country study of four jurisdictions
External Review Board
International Perspectives on Child-responsive Courts
Child friendly justice and access to justice for children are explicit concerns for the European Union, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe and the Child Rights International Network. This study examines court systems as child-responsive by eliciting the views of judicial decision makers on child protection cases (n = 1,479) in four legal systems (England, Finland, Norway and the USA (represented by California)), based…
Care order templates as institutional scripts in child protection: A cross-system analysis
Social Workers and Independent Experts in Child Protection Decision Making: Messages from an Intercountry Comparative Study
This paper draws on an international comparative study of social work decision making in cases that are on the edge of care order proceedings, involving child protection workers from Finland, Norway, England and the USA (California). It focuses on workers’ responses in an online questionnaire to questions about the use of independent experts to inform their decisions about whether or not to take a case to court. All the countries try to avoid tak…
Parents' involvement in care order decisions: A cross‐country study of front‐line practice
This article examines parents' involvement in care order decision‐making in four countries at one particular point in the care order process, namely, when the child protection worker discusses with the parents his or her considerations regarding child removal. The countries represent different child welfare systems with Norway and Finland categorized as ‘family service systems’ and the USA as a ‘child protection system’, with England somewhere in…
Financial well-being in family-based foster care: Exploring variation in income supports for kin and non-kin caregivers in California
Developing consistent and transparent kinship care policy and practice: State mandated, mediated, and independent care
The formalized framework for decision-making in child protection care orders: A cross-country analysis
Care orders within the child protection system are some of the most invasive interventions a state can make. This article examines the discretionary space governments set out for child protection workers when they prepare care orders. We analyse the formalized framework for these decisions in England, Finland, Norway and the United States. We focus on knowledge, timelines, how children and parents are involved and accountability. We find that Nor…
La protección infantil frente al maltrato en los Estados Unidos
Los EE.UU. pueden reconocerse como un país industrializado occidental con un estado de bienestar residual. En él, se ha desarrollado un sistema para responder a las dificultades familiares extremas, centrado casi exclusivamente en la garantía de la seguridad y la prevención del riesgo de los niños por daños infligidos por parte de los padres u otros cuidadores. A diferencia de muchas naciones europeas, la elegibilidad para optar a la prestación d…
A comparison of kinship foster homes and foster family homes: Implications for kinship foster care as family preservation
When Children Cannot Remain Home: Foster Family Care and Kinship Care
Despite the best efforts of child welfare agencies, community agencies, and individuals, some children are not safe in their homes and must be placed in substitute care settings by child welfare authorities. Increasingly, as this article points out, child welfare agencies are placing children in the homes of their relatives rather than in traditional foster family homes (31% of all children in out-of-home care in the early 1990s were living with …
Research Review: In a rush to permanency: preventing adoption disruption
Since the late 1990s, US, UK and Canadian policy have increasingly focused on improving permanency outcomes for looked‐after children. Although the ideal permanency outcome of reunification is attained for about half of the children entering out‐of‐home care, an increasing number of children are adopted each year. The vast majority of adoptions are stable and secure, but concerns about adoption disruption haunt child welfare workers when making t…
Assessing and Promoting Quality in Kin and Nonkin Foster Care
This article provides a comprehensive look at the elements that indicate quality of care in kinship and nonrelated foster homes, highlighting the philosophical reasons for providing quality care and the theoretical underpinnings of kinship care. The sparse literature on quality of care in foster homes is then augmented with indicators of quality in nonfoster homes, identifying a series of domains of quality. By articulating these domains we inten…
The formalized framework for decision-making in child protection care orders: A cross-country analysis
Care orders within the child protection system are some of the most invasive interventions a state can make. This article examines the discretionary space governments set out for child protection workers when they prepare care orders. We analyse the formalized framework for these decisions in England, Finland, Norway and the United States. We focus on knowledge, timelines, how children and parents are involved and accountability. We find that Nor…
Assessing children's experiences of out-of-home care: Methodological challenges and opportunities
Journal Article Assessing children's experiences of out-of-home care: Methodological challenges and opportunities Get access Jill Duerr Berrick, PhD, Jill Duerr Berrick, PhD Associate Professor School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Karie Frasch, MSW, Karie Frasch, MSW Research Associate School of Social Welfare, Un…
Kinship care: An evolving service delivery option
Building a Comprehensive Agency-University Partnership: A Case Study of the Bay Area Social Services Consortium
University-community partnerships are receiving increased attention in an era of rapid change and fragmented resources. This case study of a multi-county consortium of social service agencies in collaboration with four graduate social work programs and two foundations represents an innovative approach to building a partnership through the use of a consortium as a mediating structure. With a focus on training, research, policy development, and a t…
Dimensions of high quality foster care: Parenting Plus
I am the face of success’: Peer mentors in child welfare
Child welfare systems have struggled to create innovative, culturally sensitive programmes to address the multiple and pervasive barriers that exist in engaging child welfare parent clients in their service plans. Peer mentor programmes—those in which parents who have successfully navigated the child welfare system and reunified with their children, mentor parents newly entering the system—are designed to address some of these barriers, to improv…
Research to Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services
An intense appetite for reforming and transforming child welfare services in the United States is yielding many new initiatives. Vulnerable children and families who become involved with child welfare clearly deserve higher quality and more effective services. New policies, programs, and practices should be built on sound evidence. Reforms based on misunderstandings about what the current data show may ultimately harm families. This review highli…
Research on kinship foster care: What do we know? Where do we go from here
Outcomes following child welfare services: What are they and do they differ for black children
Current calls to end structural racism in the US include proposals to abolish or radically transform child welfare services (CWS). While substantial research finds numerous poor outcomes following maltreatment, the efficacy and acceptability of CWS, particularly for children of color, has long sparked debate. This review summarizes the state of quantitative research across seven domains for children overall and by race with varying degrees of CWS…
Parents' involvement in care order decisions: A cross‐country study of front‐line practice
This article examines parents' involvement in care order decision‐making in four countries at one particular point in the care order process, namely, when the child protection worker discusses with the parents his or her considerations regarding child removal. The countries represent different child welfare systems with Norway and Finland categorized as ‘family service systems’ and the USA as a ‘child protection system’, with England somewhere in…
Experiences of youth who transition to adulthood out of care: Developing a theoretical framework
Specialized foster care and group home care: Similarities and differences in the characteristics of children in care
Developing consistent and transparent kinship care policy and practice: State mandated, mediated, and independent care
Neighborhood‐Based Foster Care: A Critical Examination of Location‐Based Placement Criteria
Faced with large caseloads and poor outcomes for children, child welfare agencies across the country are developing new strategies for serving vulnerable families. Many of the recent approaches move the locus of services from centralized, distant bureaucracies to local neighborhoods, where families at risk are most likely to reside. Current innovations in part suggest that treatment interventions such as foster care should also be located in chil…
Group Care and Young Children
The average age of children residing in foster care has declined considerably in recent years because of the large influx of infants and very young children into care. The large majority of these young children are placed in foster family homes or with kin, but a not insubstantial number are placed in group care settings. We review group care for young children in California against the standards of child welfare philosophy: to protect children a…
The policy implications of welfare reform for older caregivers, kinship care, and family configuration
Are child protection workers and judges in alignment with citizens when considering interventions into a family? A cross-country study of four jurisdictions
Fostering in the welfare states of the US and Norway
This paper aims to explore the differences between Norwegian and US welfare state ideologies, and if or how they are reflected in the respective foster care systems and in the daily practices of foster parents. Our analysis combines a review of policy documents and legal regulations, with interviews in a sample of 141 exemplary foster parents (87 from the US and 54 from Norway). The paper identifies clear differences in how these two states take …
When Policy Meets Practice: The Untested Effects of Permanency Reforms in Child Welfare
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (P.L. 105-89; ASFA) passed into federal law in 1997. ASFA emphasized child protection over family preservation, and introduced reforms intended to increase the likelihood and the speed with which children in the child welfare system attain a permanent home. This article details two provisions of the law, concurrent planning and reunification exception, and explores challenges in their implementation. These provi…
Concurrent planning in public child welfare agencies: Oxymoron or work in progress
International Perspectives on Child-responsive Courts
Child friendly justice and access to justice for children are explicit concerns for the European Union, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe and the Child Rights International Network. This study examines court systems as child-responsive by eliciting the views of judicial decision makers on child protection cases (n = 1,479) in four legal systems (England, Finland, Norway and the USA (represented by California)), based…
Sexual abuse prevention education
Designing child sexual abuse prevention programs: Current approaches and a proposal for the prevention, reduction and identification of sexual misuse
The child care guarantee in welfare reform
Sexual abuse prevention training for preschoolers: Implications for moral development
Welfare and Child Care: The Intricacies of Competing Social Values
Welfare reform has been a subject of heated debate for years. The Family Support Act of 1988 is the latest attempt at overhauling the American welfare system. The act represents a significant departure, both programmatically and philosophically, from the original intent of such welfare programs as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The early approach encouraged women to remain at home and raise their children, but the emphasis is now…
Specialized foster care and group home care: Similarities and differences in the characteristics of children in care
Research on kinship foster care: What do we know? Where do we go from here
A comparison of kinship foster homes and foster family homes: Implications for kinship foster care as family preservation
Lives on the edge: Single mothers and their children in the other America
From Child Abuse to Permanency Planning: Child Welfare Service Pathways and Placements
Group Care and Young Children
The average age of children residing in foster care has declined considerably in recent years because of the large influx of infants and very young children into care. The large majority of these young children are placed in foster family homes or with kin, but a not insubstantial number are placed in group care settings. We review group care for young children in California against the standards of child welfare philosophy: to protect children a…
When Children Cannot Remain Home: Foster Family Care and Kinship Care
Despite the best efforts of child welfare agencies, community agencies, and individuals, some children are not safe in their homes and must be placed in substitute care settings by child welfare authorities. Increasingly, as this article points out, child welfare agencies are placing children in the homes of their relatives rather than in traditional foster family homes (31% of all children in out-of-home care in the early 1990s were living with …
Entitled to what? welfare and child welfare in a shifting policy environment
The policy implications of welfare reform for older caregivers, kinship care, and family configuration
Building a Comprehensive Agency-University Partnership: A Case Study of the Bay Area Social Services Consortium
University-community partnerships are receiving increased attention in an era of rapid change and fragmented resources. This case study of a multi-county consortium of social service agencies in collaboration with four graduate social work programs and two foundations represents an innovative approach to building a partnership through the use of a consortium as a mediating structure. With a focus on training, research, policy development, and a t…
Assessing children's experiences of out-of-home care: Methodological challenges and opportunities
Journal Article Assessing children's experiences of out-of-home care: Methodological challenges and opportunities Get access Jill Duerr Berrick, PhD, Jill Duerr Berrick, PhD Associate Professor School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Karie Frasch, MSW, Karie Frasch, MSW Research Associate School of Social Welfare, Un…
Kinship care policy and practice
Kinship care policy and practice
Assessing and Promoting Quality in Kin and Nonkin Foster Care
This article provides a comprehensive look at the elements that indicate quality of care in kinship and nonrelated foster homes, highlighting the philosophical reasons for providing quality care and the theoretical underpinnings of kinship care. The sparse literature on quality of care in foster homes is then augmented with indicators of quality in nonfoster homes, identifying a series of domains of quality. By articulating these domains we inten…
Kinship Care: Improving Practice through Research
Kinship care: An evolving service delivery option
The Effects of Welfare Reform on Families: Involved with Public Child Welfare Services: Results from a Qualitative Study
Marriage, Motherhood and Welfare Reform
In 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was passed in the US, ushering in a series of reforms to the cash assistance programme previously available to poor families. ‘Welfare reform’ included a number of efforts to encourage work among unemployed single parents. More important, the law extended the government's interest in regulating social behaviours such as marriage and reproduction. This paper revi…
Essential elements of implementing a system of concurrent planning
In efforts to preserve foster children’s biological families and to promote the formation of alternative families in some situations, legislative efforts to promote ‘permanency’ have been gaining pace since the late 1990s. One policy and practice tool, concurrent planning (CP), simultaneously allows for the pursuit of reunification and adoption. This article examines six counties in California (USA) and their efforts towards implementation of the…
When Policy Meets Practice: The Untested Effects of Permanency Reforms in Child Welfare
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (P.L. 105-89; ASFA) passed into federal law in 1997. ASFA emphasized child protection over family preservation, and introduced reforms intended to increase the likelihood and the speed with which children in the child welfare system attain a permanent home. This article details two provisions of the law, concurrent planning and reunification exception, and explores challenges in their implementation. These provi…
Political science (47 works) · Child Welfare and Adoption (41 works) · Psychology (38 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (36 works) · Medicine (33 works) · Welfare (33 works) · Law (31 works) · Law (30 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Nursing (22 works)