The Center on Immigration and Child Welfare pursues and supports research that advances our mission to improve policy and practice with immigrant children and families at risk of involvement with the child welfare system.

U.S. public child-serving institutions are designed to create opportunities for all children to thrive in environments where they experience positive and healthy development, setting them up for a productive adulthood. The U.S. child welfare system is charged with the protection of children. When children experience threats to safety, the child welfare system intervenes on their behalf to provide targeted services that are aimed at preserving and strengthening families.  When this is not possible, children are placed in other caregiving arrangements.  The Center on Immigration and Child Welfare supports research aimed at improving programs and policies related to the well-being of immigrant children and families involved in the public child welfare system. Our priorities for research align with our vision to see children of immigrants thrive in their communities and families in the U.S.

Immigrant families in the U.S. are as heterogeneous as the demographic makeup of our country. The members of a single family often have different immigration statuses, different migration journeys, different reasons for migration, and different needs in the U.S.

Immigration policy in the U.S. often creates substantial stress and burden for children and families.  Pre-migration, migration, and settlement experiences are discrete events, but all impact child and family well-being:

  • Pre-migration circumstances. Decisions to migrate are driven by economic, political, environmental, and social factors. Despite fluctuations in migratory flows, a complex set of factors has driven migration from areas such as Central America in particular since 2014. Violence carried out by gangs continue to overwhelm the Northern Triangle countries, which have some of the highest murder rates in the world. Poverty and lack of economic opportunity are also key reasons for emigration to the U.S. Another major reason for migration to the U.S. is family reunification. The specific reasons why immigrant families and children leave their country of origin—or are forced to leave—have implications for their safety and well-being upon arrival.
  • Migration experience. The migratory experience itself can be extremely traumatic, particularly in transit countries. Robbery, assault, rape, and kidnapping are common experiences along the migratory journey. The human rights abuses experienced by children are particularly concerning; many arrive to the U.S. severely traumatized.  Many children also migrate multiple times, increasing risk of threats to safety and mental health.
  • Settlement. The social, economic, and political conditions of the places where immigrant families settle also have implications for child safety and well-being. Federal laws govern who has legal status to work and access to public benefits. Local and state laws can affect access to benefits such as health insurance, safety net programs, and child care for children, as well as the ability to drive and afford college, which affect the opportunities that families have to promote the healthy development of their children.

The policies driving the immigration and child welfare systems are evidence of our country’s complex and sometimes contradictory values in how deserving immigrant groups are defined and the best interests of children are determined. U.S. immigration policies are rapidly changing, creating circumstances for children and families newly arrived to the U.S. that are overwhelming and impose long-term challenges to their well-being. Recent increases in the detention and deportation of immigrants, and the accompanying anti-immigrant rhetoric, have destabilized many immigrant communities and families. Following the 2016 presidential election, the threats towards immigrants intensified a culture of fear and trauma among immigrant children and families, decreasing enrollment in supportive social programs, which may prolong stress and result in negative health and mental health outcomes.

Most children of immigrants served by the U.S. child welfare system are reported for child abuse or neglect, preventable problems with traumatic consequences that persist into adolescence and adulthood. However, with the recent rise of immigration enforcement activities, a growing number of immigrant children in contact with the child welfare system may potentially be unaccompanied minors and children separated from deported parents. While the circumstances that bring unaccompanied minors to the attention of the child welfare system are different from traditional reasons for child welfare involvement, many of them are also traumatized by experiences that are often preventable.

The principles of prevention inform our framework for research, with the goal to improve the health, safety, and well-being of all immigrant children and children of immigrants in contact with the child welfare system. Research to inform the primary prevention of child welfare system involvement seeks to expose a broad segment of immigrant children and their families to prevention measures that reduce and prevent involvement before it ever occurs. Secondary prevention research aims to reduce negative impacts of child welfare system involvement after contact has occurred to mitigate further trauma and redress the circumstances that lead to involvement. Research on tertiary prevention strategies seeks to buffer the impact of child welfare system involvement in ongoing or unresolved circumstances by helping children of immigrants and their families to find long-term solutions to stabilize and improve their functioning and quality of life.

Research Priorities

Primary Prevention

  • Research that examines the impact and costs of anti-immigrant policies, heightened immigration enforcement actions, and resulting immigrant experiences (such as discrimination and fear, and parental detention/deportation) on child well-being and access to public services and supports for children.
  • Research evaluating community and local responses to the needs of immigrant families in the context of heightened immigration enforcement, to identify, for example, how health outreach workers, community-based organizations, and other trusted outreach strategies can be effective in preventing child welfare system involvement.
  • Research that delineates the process and effectiveness of family safety plans (i.e. deportation planning) in preventing risks to child safety and involvement with the child welfare system.
  • Research examining the uses of safety net policies and programs for child maltreatment prevention in the immigrant population, including the effects of proposed changes to public charge definition on the use of the social safety net among legal immigrants.
  • Research that evaluates strategies to prevent child maltreatment and reduce stress due to immigration-related experiences.

Secondary Prevention

  • Research that delineates etiologies and typologies of child abuse and neglect among children of immigrants in the U.S.
  • Research that examines pathways of children of immigrants into the child welfare system as a result of parental deportation
  • Research that examines pathways of unaccompanied minors into the child welfare system
  • Research on interventions to prevention entry into foster care that are culturally adapted or designed for children of immigrants and their families

Tertiary Prevention

  • Research that examines the impact of child and parent immigration status on child welfare system decision-making and child trajectories through the child protective services and foster care system
  • Researching evaluating the impact of state child welfare policies related to immigration issues on permanency outcomes for children of immigrants.
  • Research that examines relationships between child welfare system capacity in language, culture, and immigration expertise and outcomes for children of immigrants
  • Research that evaluates promising approaches, best practice models, and policy implementation designed to better serve children of immigrants in the custody of the child welfare system.

Affiliated Researchers

Thomas M. Crea, PhD, MSW

Professor, Chair of Global Practice, Assistant Dean of Global Programs, School of Social Work, Boston College

Dr. Crea’s research interests focus on the intersections of forced migration, mental health, child welfare, and strengthening humanitarian aid and international development programs.

Kerri Evans, PhD, LCSW

Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Dr. Evans’ research focuses on unaccompanied children and other forced migrants. She covers a wide range of topics due to her focus on applied research and agency partnerships. Dr. Evans uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to identify best practices and opportunities for improvements in social service practice, and to promote policy change.

Monica Faulkner, PhD, LMSW

Research Associate Professor, Steve Hicks School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin
Director, Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing

Dr. Faulkner completes program evaluation for child maltreatment prevention programs, mixed methods research on undocumented Latino families and deportation impacts, needs assessments of child welfare systems, and research on the overlap between child welfare system involvement and immigration.

Megan Finno-Velasquez, PhD, LMSW

Associate Professor, School of Social Work, New Mexico State University
Director, Center on Immigration and Child Welfare

Dr. Finno-Velasquez’s research focuses on the impact of immigration policy on child welfare system experiences of immigrant families, and maltreatment prevention in immigrant communities. She uses quantitative methods for large survey and administrative data analyses, as well as qualitative methods.

Mary Lehman Held, PhD., LCSW

Associate Professor, Assistant Dean and MSSW Program Director, Nashville campus, School of Social Work, University of Tennessee Knoxville

Dr. Held’s scholarship centers on strengthening knowledge related to risk and protective factors among immigrant and non-immigrant Latinx communities to inform service provision and policymaking in new destination states. Her work is situated in the current sociopolitical climate of both immigrant-sending nations and the United States. Informed by practice experience in Texas and Central America, Dr. Held designs quantitative and qualitative studies to gain more in-depth insight from Latinxs and service providers to assess needs, the capacity to address these needs, and gaps in training for the current and future workforce.

Kristina Lovato, PhD., MSW

Assistant Professor of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Lovato’s research focuses on enhancing child and family well-being among immigrant families, particularly those at risk of immigration enforcement and child welfare involvement. Dr. Lovato’s current work uses qualitative approaches to examine how Latino youth cope with family disruption following the deportation of a parent, and how schools and social service systems respond to the needs of these youths and their families.

Robert G. Hasson III, PhD, LICSW

Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Providence College

Robert’s research focuses on the intersection of child welfare and immigration, with a goal of informing the development of clinical interventions and polices to serve children and adolescents exposed to trauma as a result of separation from caregivers or forced migration

Robin Hernandez-Mekonnen, PhD, MSW

Associate Professor of Social Work Faculty, Child Welfare Education Institute, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Stockton University

Dr. Hernandez-Mekonnen’s work focuses on understanding how the child welfare workforce interprets their mission of safety, permanency, and well-being with work with immigrant families, and emphasizes the importance of identifying and advocating for vital resources and policies to support immigrant children and families. Her research expertise includes quantitative and qualitative methods, with a preference for mixed methods designs.

Michelle Johnson-Motoyama, PhD, MSW

Associate Professor, The Ohio State University, College of Social Work

Dr. Johnson-Motoyama’s scholarship focuses on the use of policy to prevent child maltreatment and reduce social disparities in child welfare, with an emphasis on Latinx populations. She currently leads a national, longitudinal study that examines the effects of changes in economic and social safety net policies on child maltreatment during the Great Recession, and beyond. She also serves as Associate Editor for Children and Youth Services Review, one of the field’s premier child welfare journals.

Heather Koball, PhD

Co-Director, National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education

Dr. Koball’s research focuses on the impact of state immigration enforcement policies and state expansions of public benefits for immigrants on the well-being of children of immigrants. Using rigorous statistical methods, her work has shown that children are more likely to receive preventive health care if their undocumented immigrant parents have access to driver’s licenses. Similarly, her previous research demonstrates that states’ participation in federal immigration enforcement leads to greater material hardship among immigrant families, with no benefit for U.S. born families.

Tatiana Londono, MSSW, PhD Candidate

Tatiana Londoño is a doctoral candidate at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at UT Austin. Her research focuses on how migration and resettlement contexts affect the mental health and wellbeing of Latinx immigrant children and their families. Her long-term goal is to incorporate this research into brief preventative interventions accessible to Latinx immigrant communities and into trauma-informed training for providers working with these communities. In addition to this work, she conducts needs assessments and evaluations with programs working with immigrant populations.

Benjamin J. Roth, PhD

Associate Professor, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina

Dr. Roth’s research is on immigrant children/youth and the various axes of stratification that shape their well-being and development. His recent work on legal status focuses on youth with DACA and unaccompanied children, with a particular focus on how the physical, social, and political geography of where immigrant youth grow up influences their life chances.

Susan Schmidt, DSW, LGSW

Associate Professor & Field Director, Luther College

Dr. Schmidt’s research explores the intersection of immigration and child welfare issues, with a particular focus on unaccompanied minors, root causes of migration, and the impact of US policies and procedures on immigrant children, youth and families.