Placement Patterns in Foster Care.

The article presents a study which examines placement movement in a way that more effectively captures the variety of placement patterns children experience in foster care. The results have both substantive and methodological significance. They are substantively significant because they are based on a longitudinal follow-up of a cohort of children entering foster care for the first time. The nature of the sample makes it repre- sentative of all children entering out-of-home care in the study commu- nity and avoids the limitations of length-biased cross-sectional samples. Thus, it is possible to compare the experiences of all children, including both those who remain in care for long periods and those whose stays are shorter. The approach described here also provides a means of operationalizing the notion of "pathways" experienced by children while in out-of-home care. The methodological significance of this analysis is that it demonstrates a technique for describing the movement of children that captures both qualitative and quantitative dimensions.