Permanent placements that are safe and stable promote well-being of children leaving foster care; however, placement disruptions and reentry into the welfare system following placements that were intended to be permanent are common (Konijn et al., 2019). What is not known is whether disruptions during foster care stays are particularly risky for children’s emotional health if they occur in the context of more than one removal of the child from their parents or guardians (i.e., from home). Using the most current data available through the nationally mandated Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS), we explored characteristics and removal reasons of children who re-enter foster care and used hierarchical, binomial logistic regression to analyze the moderating effect of multiple removals from home on the link between placement disruptions during stays in foster care and emotional disturbance (ED). The sample consisted of 659,105 children served by the U.S. foster care system during Fiscal Year (FY) 2018. Findings suggest that children who re-enter foster care are more likely to be older, and disproportionately more were children of color. Children who re-enter foster care tend to experience more placement disruptions in subsequent removal episodes than children who have been removed from their home only once. Finally, we identified an interaction effect for placement disruptions and multiple removals on the likelihood of a child in foster care having ED. This study discusses implications for targeted permanency and post-permanency services.

安全稳定的永久安置促进离开寄养机构的儿童的福祉；然而，在打算永久安置之后，安置中断和重新进入福利系统是很常见的（Konijn 等人，2019 年）。尚不清楚的是，如果在将孩子从父母或监护人（即从家里）带走不止一次的情况下，寄养期间的中断是否会对孩子的情绪健康造成特别大的风险。使用通过国家规定的收养和寄养分析报告系统 (AFCARS) 获得的最新数据，我们探索了重新进入寄养的儿童的特征和移除原因，并使用分级、二项逻辑回归分析多次离家对寄养期间安置中断与情绪障碍 (ED) 之间的联系的调节作用。样本包括在 2018 财年 (FY) 期间由美国寄养系统服务的 659,105 名儿童。 结果表明，重新进入寄养的儿童更有可能年龄较大，而且有色人种儿童的比例更高。重新进入寄养机构的儿童在随后的搬迁事件中往往比仅从家中搬出一次的儿童经历更多的安置中断。最后，我们确定了安置中断和多次搬迁对寄养儿童患有 ED 的可能性的交互作用。本研究讨论了对有针对性的永久性和永久性后服务的影响。