Article 13 Kids in troubled homes still better off than in foster care

Children whose families are investigated for abuse or neglect are likely to do better in life if they stay with their families that if they go into foster care, according to a pioneering study. The findings intensify a vigorous debate in child welfare: whether children are better served with their families or away from them.
Kids who stayed with their families were less likely to become juvenile delinquents or teen mothers and more likely to hold jobs as young adults, says the study by Joseph Doyle, an economics professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management who studies social policy. The size of the effects me, because all the children come from tough families," Doyle says. Foster care are more likely than other kids to drop out of school, commit crimes, abuse drugs and become teen parents. His research has shown that this holds true even when foster kids are compared with other disadvantaged youth. Doyle admits that some kids, for their own safety needs to be removed from their families, but in marginal cases of abuse more should be done to keep them together. Foster care remains a needed safety net for some kids but he agrees that it merits further study.