Examines the influence of the court system in referring children in foster care to mental health services, with special attention to potentially different patterns of referral and service use based on a child’s racial or ethnic background. The review and abstracting focused on case records in court, caseworker, and service provider documents. The study scope covered 142 children between the ages of 2 and 16 who were nearly equally divided among 3 ethnic-racial groups: Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic. Results confirm previous studies that determined that children in foster care are heavy users of mental health services. In addition, results suggest that psychotherapy and counseling services are consistently ordered more frequently for Caucasian children than for African American or Hispanic children. A related finding is that a high-risk population with limited financial resources such as some African American or Hispanic youth may be less likely to receive mental health services than areCaucasian youth. Further study is necessary to explain possible ethnic disparities.
