Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: The Intersection of Education, Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice

(Family and Child Policy)

There is an increasing understanding of the ways in which a student’s home life influences their experiences and performance in school. A major focus of this research has been on the gaps between high and low income students in educational opportunity and achievement. While important, one reason that researchers have concentrated on the poverty gap is because measures of free and reduced price lunch are readily available in administrative education data. More recently, though, partnerships between education and human services systems have permitted researchers to study the experiences of students outside of school at a more detailed level than ever before.

 

Schools and school districts could serve their students more effectively with a better understanding of the issues their students deal with at home. For example, knowing the prevalence of child abuse or neglect among students in their school can inform them about the importance of using trauma-informed approaches in the classroom. Similarly, knowing the extent to which their student body suffers from anxiety or depression might influence district funding decisions surrounding counselors or social workers in their schools. Implementing programs and designing interventions early on to address issues which students bring into school could help to reduce the likelihood of youths becoming involved in the juvenile justice system down the road.

This panel includes four papers which use newly linked education and human services administrative data to explore the intersection between education, child welfare and juvenile justice, as well as the role of public policy in shaping the relationship between these three systems.