Reflective Decision-Making and Foster Care Placements

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 19(2)

Juvenile dependency courts have a crucial role in overseeing the foster care system. Dependency court cases require a series of complex judicial decisions, and juvenile dependency judges must make decisions each day with limited information and in a relatively short time—a context inclined to allow implicit bias to influence decision-making. Within this context, two court interventions were implemented by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges: a training on implicit and institutional bias that included a focus on reflection and deliberation in decision-making and a judicial “benchcard” for use during preliminary protective hearings. Using randomized control trial and quasi-experimental designs, this study finds that the training intervention was associated with more parent placements and fewer stranger foster care placements. However, this change appeared to diminish over time when it was not coupled with use of the benchcard. The training and benchcard together were associated with a greater change in placement outcomes, and this effect did not appear to diminish over time.