Social work researchers share expertise to improve foster care

In 2025, the North Carolina Collaboratory committed significant funding to launch the Foster Care Parent Recruitment and Retention Pilot Program. One of two Carolina teams funded by the Collaboratory to address this critical issue — research professor Dean Duncan and research associate Nancy Hagan of the UNC School of Social Work — is working in Jackson County.

“We can bring in insight from a long history with data sets and understandings of the system as a whole, as well as specific counties,” Hagan said. “Counties can’t solve it on their own. The state policy and practice will be more effective and more sustainable if it is informed by the work on the ground and the input of the counties, rather than being a directive or a top-down kind of model. The Collaboratory gives us a forum to exchange with each other, and we’re learning from each other, which is so essential.”

Here is an excerpt from a Q&A with the researchers about the project:

What problem is North Carolina trying to solve when it comes to foster parent recruitment and retention?

Hagan: These are systemic problems that are not particular to Jackson County, statewide. We have a growing population in the state, and capacity hasn’t always kept up with it. There are influences like COVID, workforce shortages and changes and a swelling population of youth.

How can counties use data and evaluation findings in real time to adjust their approaches rather than waiting for long-term results?

Duncan: It’s difficult. It’s extremely difficult. Counties don’t really have the resources, and particularly, most of the smaller counties don’t have the resources to actually have somebody looking at data. Frequently, it’s the county director or a supervisor who’s looking at what’s going on, and they’re too busy putting out fires all the time to actually sit back and say, “What’s going on here, and what’s the cause of the problem?” There are always calls coming in and messages to be returned, and there are just not enough hours in the day, and certainly not enough staff to be able to do that. We’ve been working with counties across the state, providing information back to them about what’s going on with their program areas and their child welfare caseload, helping them to identify problems and providing possible causal factors and how the process can be changed. We do that not only for the counties, but for the state division of social services, too, about what the particular issues are and what some possible solutions are to be able to work on that.

Based on what you are seeing so far, what is one key takeaway for state and local leaders who are considering future investments in North Carolina’s foster care system?

Hagan: We found that foster families self-identify as doing the work because they want to make a difference in the life of a child. The system relies on people coming forward to do that, really out of the goodness of their hearts. If our task is diligent recruitment and retention, how do we recruit people to do that in this ever-changing world where pressures on families and individuals are significant anyway?

And then, really importantly, how do we retain those families and support them? We see a large drop-off after the first placement, so that initial experience really impacts whether they decide to go forward or not and continue to foster. One thing that we’ve seen over and over is this peer-to-peer support and support from the agencies, being able to call a social worker 24/7 and get an immediate response, so how do we strengthen the entire system to be able to support families who are doing this?

Read more about the Collaboratory’s research and partnership.