ABSTRACT
The entrance of infants and very young children into the group care population, however, has added a new twist to the debate concerning the appropriate use of group care. The effect of abuse and neglect on decreasing the odds of initial group care placement is even greater for children who suffer from health problems. Approximately 9% of the sample of children who entered care between January 1988 and June 1989 and who had been initially placed in a facility other than a group home, entered group care at some point during the study period. The bivariate relationships to placement in group care do not account for relationships between the explanatory variables. When the effects of all the factors are tested simultaneously, gender, removal reason, AFDC eligibility status, ethnicity, and preplacement preventive services seem to have little or no effect on eventual entry to group care.
