The DOI matches its Crossref record; 93 of the 93 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A Human-Centered Review of Algorithms used within the U.S. Child Welfare System
Open accessAbstract
The U.S. Child Welfare System (CWS) is charged with improving outcomes for foster youth; yet, they are overburdened and underfunded. To overcome this limitation, several states have turned towards algorithmic decision-making systems to reduce costs and determine better processes for improving CWS outcomes. Using a human-centered algorithmic design approach, we synthesize 50 peer-reviewed publications on computational systems used in CWS to assess how they were being developed, common characteristics of predictors used, as well as the target outcomes. We found that most of the literature has focused on risk assessment models but does not consider theoretical approaches (e.g., child-foster parent matching) nor the perspectives of caseworkers (e.g., case notes). Therefore, future algorithms should strive to be context-aware and theoretically robust by incorporating salient factors identified by past research. We provide the HCI community with research avenues for developing human-centered algorithms that redirect attention towards more equitable outcomes for CWS.
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“Second, current practices of using aggregate administrative data that is often poorly collected [31,53,107] and biased to predict an individual's behavior is a complex and hard task that may lead to unfairness in decision-making outcomes and is, in most western, liberal democratic systems unconstitutional and/or illegal [123].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“First, outcomes in the public sector like assessing risk of recidivism in criminal justice or assessing need in welfare services are poorly and inconsistently defined [11,42,55,107,129].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“However, prior research shows that workers allow decision-aids to supplant their own decisions when they lack confidence and/or experience [42,107,113].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“For instance, risk assessment algorithms in child-welfare have traditionally only used a narrow set of predictors (child and parent characteristics) to assess risk [107].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“For instance, law dictates which data is available for predictive modeling and how target outcomes are defined [107,114].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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In the citing paper
“Prior work has argued that algorithms in the public sector is a domain in its own right [34,62,107,109,121] and must be characterized differently as compared to algorithms in the private sector where the decision outcomes are well-defined.”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Consequently, they have also been scrutinized for achieving worse outcomes, exacerbating racial biases, and strengthening structural inequalities [42,101,107] within systems that are overburdened and under-resourced, yet critically needed [33,75].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
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“This is driving attention away from strength-based frameworks [9,20,99,107].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Saxena et al. [107] recently conducted a systematic review of algorithms employed in the U.S. child-welfare system and uncovered several discrepancies in regard to data, computational methods, and target outcomes of these algorithms [107].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“However, a more comprehensive understanding about the accumulation of risk is necessary to account for the family's social support system as well as the risk posed by the system itself [107].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Differing socio-technical imaginations of algorithms in the public sector are aligned well with existing literature [20,62,103,107,112].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
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“The benefits of strength-based approaches have been supported in prior literature [9,99,107,119] as well as the pitfalls for reappropriating algorithmic outcomes for different purposes [79,106].”
From A Framework of High-Stakes Algorithmic Decision-Making for the Public Sector Developed through a Case Study of Child-Welfare (2021) · cites this paper as [107]
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Self-citationMapping the Documentary Infrastructure of Welfare Governance in Digital India
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Metadata
- Authors
- Saxena, D., Badillo-Urquiola, K., Wisniewski, P. J., & Guha, S.
- Affiliations
- Marquette University (US)
- University of Central Florida (US)
- University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2020-04-21
- Pages
- 1-15
- OpenAlex
- W3009647070
- Cited by
- 116
- References
- 93
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 3
- FWCI
- 15.56
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- e-Publications@Marquette (Marquette University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Facebook Computational Social Science Methodology Research Award
- Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute
- William T. Grant Foundation (1067525)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Child Welfare and Adoption
- Social Sciences › Law › Artificial Intelligence in Law
- Keywords
- child welfare system, algorithmic decision-making, human-centered design, risk assessment model, foster youth, case law commentary, algorithmic fairness, predictive modeling, child welfare casework
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