Change the World

Institutional Analysis: A Process of Uncovering Systemic Bias and Racism

Institutional Analysis is a diagnostic process of collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data in a system and community to understand how families experience child welfare systems. It aims to reveal and address the disconnect between what children/youth and their families need to be safe, and how institutions are organized to act. 

Institutional Analysis was developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy  and Ellen Pence. To learn more, visit the Center for Study of Social Policy website.

The Guiding Questions

The Wyandotte County Institutional Analysis was guided by two research questions:

1. How does it come about that Black families with young children (ages 0-5 years) experience low and slow reunification rates?

2. How does the child welfare system, prevention services, and other partners support the bonding and well-being of Black families and young children?

The Approach

• To answer these questions, the workgroup conducted interviews and focus groups with 58 participants including:
• Black parents with lived experience of the foster care system
• Non-relative and relative foster parents who had cared for Black children in foster care
• Frontline caseworkers and supervisors
• Administrators in public and private child welfare agencies
• Administrators and professionals in other community-based child and family serving agencies (e.g., hospitals, early childhood)
• Court and legal personnel.

Engaging the Community

Black community leaders in Wyandotte County served as advisors to the Change the WORLD project. Community leaders contributed by providing broad community context on history and perceptions of child welfare in the Black community, reviewed initial themes for clarity and credibility, and will participate in generating action plans to implement recommendations.

Ensuring Accountability

To ensure accountability for action and change, the workgroup developed a covenant as a compass guiding our purpose and intentions. The covenant is a living document binding members to the community, ensuring a commitment to laboring for an equitable and just child welfare system. The covenant states our guiding belief in the equitable treatment and worth of every person, that change is possible and everyone contributing is vital, and that transforming our organizations to be more just and equitable is imperative. Finally, the covenant describes the ways in which members can challenge racism to realize these beliefs in action.

Key Themes from the Institutional Analysis*

1. The system’s response to Black parents’ trauma and loss was frequently indifferent, lacking in compassion and empathy, and hyper-judgmental.
2. Within placements, anti-Blackness, power, and privilege were used in favor of White foster parents and to the detriment of Black birth parents.
3. The system was widely and deeply structured to prioritize and promote child-saving over supporting and preserving Black families.
4. The most pervasive and problematic response to Black families’ needs, including non-safety needs based in material and financial hardship, was removal of children rather than provision of resources and supports.
5. Services were centered in compliance and monitoring and were not organized for engaging, supportive, strengths-oriented, culturally-relevant, and individualized services to Black families
6. Services were designed to be “color blind,” not accounting for Black families’ culture, community history and context, historical racism, ongoing oppression, and cumulative disadvantage
7. The court and legal system also harmed Black families by not assuring quality legal representation and authentic parental engagement in court processes.