ABSTRACT
D espite trends away from out-of-home placement (De-partment of Health and Human Services, Children's Bu-reau, 1997; Pecora, Whittaker, Maluccio, Barth, & Plotnick, 1992), the number of children removed from their homes and placed in foster care is large and increasing. In 1982 there were 262,000 children in care. In 1996 507,000 children were in foster care, and 725,000 children were served by the foster care system at some time during that year (Tatara, 1998).
