A Functional Approach to Reducing Runaway Behavior and

Stabilizing Placements for Adolescents in Foster Care

Hewitt B. Clark
Kimberly A. Crosland
David Geller
Michael Cripe
Terresa Kenney
Bryon Neff
Glen Dunlap
University of South Florida, Tampa

Teenagers’ running from foster placement is a significant problem in the field of child protection. This article describes
a functional, behavior analytic approach to reducing running away through assessing the motivations for running,
involving the youth in the assessment process, and implementing interventions to enhance the reinforcing value of
placements for adolescents, thereby reducing the probability of running and associated unsafe periods. A case study
illustrates this approach and a study compares 13 adolescents who ran away frequently and received interventions with
a group of matched adolescents who had similar patterns of running but received only services as usual. The percent-
age of days on runaway status showed a significant pre-post reduction for those in the functional group, in contrast to
no statistical change in the comparison group. Potential benefits this approach may have for foster care and child pro-
tection in improving youth safety, permanence, and connections for life are discussed.

Keywords: runaway behavior; functional assessment; applied behavior analysis; behavior analytic interventions;
foster care; placement stability

Estimates on the number of youth who run away or are
evicted by their caregivers each year in the United States
range from 575,000 to over 1.6 million (Greene,
Ringwalt, Kelly, Iachan, & Cohen, 1995; Hammer,
Finkelhor, & Sedlak, 2002) and the number of homeless
and/or runaway youth is increasing (Kipke, Palmer,
LaFrance, & O’Connor, 1997; Thompson, Pollio,
Constantine, Reid, & Nebbitt, 2002). Whether youth are
missing from their parents’ home, a foster home or a
Authors’ Note: The authors wish to extend their appreciation to Arun Karpur
for his assistance with the data analysis; Hans Soder for his assistance in
accessing, analyzing, and interpreting state datasets; Dawn Khalil for her cre-
ative development of the case example graphic profile; and Amanda Fixsen for
her editorial assistance on this paper. Correspondence concerning this paper
may be addressed to Hewitt B. “Rusty” Clark, PhD, director, National Center
on Youth Transition for Behavioral Health: System Development and Research
Team, Department of Child and Family Studies, Florida Mental Health
Institute, University of South Florida, 13301 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, MHC
2332, Tampa, FL 33612–3807, or via e-mail using clark@fmhi.usf.edu.
Research on Social Work Practice, Vol. 18 No. 5, September 2008 429-441
DOI: 10.1177/1049731508314265
© 2008 Sage Publications
residential facility, running away can hold serious conse-
quences for young people. They may be exposed to the
risk of abusing alcohol and drugs, criminal and sexual vic-
timization, sexually transmitted disease, arrest and incar-
ceration, and/or prostitution (Biehal & Wade, 1999;
Courtney et al., 2005; Hyde, 2005). Running away from
foster care settings not only places young people in harm’s
way, but also frequently jeopardizes their current place-
ment, which often leads to more restrictive placements
and an interruption in learning opportunities at school.
These types of interruptions can hinder youths’ abilities to
build the life skills needed for greater self-sufficiency and
to form the social support network essential for resilience
and quality of life (Choca et al., 2004; Christenson, 2002;
Clark & Crosland, in press; Iglehart, 1994).
Runaway behavior can contribute to placement insta-
bility, and placement changes can then contribute to the
development of behavior problems in youth who previ-
ously did not exhibit such problems (Newton, Litrownik,
& Landsverk, 2000). Two or more placement changes
during the 1st year of out-of-home care was shown to be
associated with more subsequent placement changes
429
430 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
(Webster, Barth, & Needell, 2000). Multiple placement
changes before the age of 14 have been associated with
later delinquency arrests (Ryan & Testa, 2005) and sub-
sequent placement instability (Webster et al., 2000).
Some placement disruptions are associated with the
externalizing behaviors (e.g., noncompliance, fighting)
of children and youth (Newton et al., 2000). However,
the majority of placement changes that children and
youth experience are related to features of the foster
home or agency, or system/policy issues such as kinship
placement, sibling consolidations, or the use of tempo-
rary emergency shelter placements (Hartnett, Falconnier,
Leathers, & Testa, 1999; Newton et al., 2000). Thus,
placement changes can contribute to the development
of problem behaviors and, in turn, these can contribute
to increased placement disruption and incidents of
running away.
In Florida, it was estimated on the Florida Department
of Children and Families (FL DCF) Missing Child
Tracking System (MCTS) that 2,398 children and youth
were reported missing from out-of-home placements dur-
ing FY 2004-05, and 78% of these children and youth
were on runaway status. Youth who ran were between 8
and 18 years old, with the highest incidence of running
occurring for the 16-, 17-, 15-, and 14-year-olds, respec-
tively. Approximately 60% were female, 39% Caucasian,
40% African American, and 14% Hispanic. Most of the
youth had one episode (49%) or two episodes (21%) of
running away during this 1-year period. However, 18% of
the youth had four or more episodes of running away dur-
ing this period. FL DCF defined the term running away
as “A child who has left a relative placement, nonrelative
placement, shelter home, foster home, residential group
home, any other placement alternative, or their in-home
placement without permission of the caregiver and who is
determined to be missing.” A criterion was also set to
define children who habitually run away as, “A child who
has run away three or more times” (FL DCF, 2002). The
duration of run episodes was distributed about equally
across the following distributions: 0 to 1 day (26%), 2 to
7 days (27%), 8 to 30 days (24%), and 31 to 365 days or
more (23%).
Although different studies have found different risk
factors associated with running away, some of the com-
mon factors are: history of runs, placement disruptions,
use of substances, and victim of abuse (Thompson,
Zittel-Palamara, & Macao, 2004; Witherup & Lee,
2007; Yoder, Whitbeck, & Hoyt, 2001). A large-scale
study of children running away from out-of-home place-
ments in Illinois provides factors that may be predictive
of youth and situations associated with running away
from placements (Courtney et al., 2005). Similar to the
Florida data, girls were more likely to run than were
boys. Ninety percent of runners were 12 to 18 years of
age, most of these being 14 years old or older. Other fac-
tors associated with higher likelihoods of running were
histories of placement instability, the presence of men-
tal health diagnoses or substance abuse problems, place-
ments in residential facilities, and prior runaway
episodes. Some of the factors that were associated with
a lower likelihood of running were living with a relative
or living in a setting with a sibling.
A preliminary evaluation of children in Florida’s fos-
ter care system revealed some similar risk and protective
factors associated with the likelihood of running away
(Witherup, Vollmer, Van Camp, & Borrero, 2005). The
primary risk factors included such things as being:
female, between 13 and 17 years of age, in temporary
custody of the system (e.g., adjudicated dependent, cus-
tody to DCF, termination of parental rights petition
filed), and in a group-type placement (e.g., shelter facil-
ity, group home, residential). Some of the protective fac-
tors were being: male, under 13 years of age, Caucasian,
in a more permanent custody status (e.g., termination of
parental rights obtained, long-term custody to relative,
temporary custody to relative or nonrelative), and in a
home-type placement (e.g., foster home nonrelative,
family shelter home nonrelative, approved relative care-
giver). These researchers also examined risk factors
related to frequent placement changes, and their prelim-
inary findings suggest that being in settings with more
than four children or in settings for older youth (ages 12
to 15 years of age) were associated with a higher risk of
placement disruption.
Based on interviews of youth who run away (Courtney
et al., 2005), some adolescents reported that they were
“running to family” in order to: touch base with family
and friends; find a sense of safety, comfort, connection, or
normalcy; or to assist their mothers or siblings.
Some recognize that their families of origin are neither
healthy, safe, nor even reciprocally caring environments. But
many youth equated being around a biological family with
being “normal” and their desire for a “real home” (which fos-
ter care was not, in their minds). (Courtney et al., 2005, p. 4)
A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
In recent years there have been increased efforts to
extend the perspectives and methods of behavior analy-
sis to a variety of challenges encountered in child wel-
fare and the foster care system. While behavior analysis
has been well established for some decades in develop-
mental disabilities and other areas, it has taken longer
 Clark et al. / FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO REDUCING RUNAWAY BEHAVIOR
for the discipline to be demonstrated in the realm of
child protection. The Behavior Analysis Services
Program (BASP) represents a major step in this direc-
tion as it brings the programmatic application of behav-
ior analysis to a statewide level (Stoutimore, Williams,
Neff, & Foster, 2008, this issue).
A hallmark of behavior analysis is its reliance on data
to make decisions regarding appropriate treatments
(Neef & Iwata, 1994), and this characteristic has
become most evident within the past two decades with
the advent of functional analytic and functional assess-
ment perspectives (Horner, 1994; Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer,
Bauman, & Richman, 1994; Repp & Horner, 1999). The
functional approach of behavior analysis calls for a
preintervention assessment of environmental conditions
that serve to maintain a specified behavior and then uses
assessment information to devise an intervention plan
tailored to meet the circumstances and needs of the indi-
vidual. The term functional assessment refers to the
“process of gathering information that can be used to
maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of behavioral
support” (O’Neill et al., 1997, p. 3). Two of the primary
outcomes of a functional assessment are: (a) identifica-
tion of the consequences that maintain the target behav-
ior, which leads to inferences about the function or
outcome of the behavior for that individual, and (b) iden-
tification of the antecedent conditions (events, situations)
that help predict when a target behavior is more likely to
occur and when a target behavior is less likely to occur.
Few intervention studies have been conducted on run-
away behavior, and the studies that have occurred have not
utilized a functional assessment approach to tailor the
intervention to the runner (D’Angelo, 1984; Slesnick,
2001; Slesnick & Prestopnik, 2005; Thompson, 2002).
For example, a study of adolescents who ran away com-
pared those who attended at least three family counseling
sessions to those who did not participate (Ostensen, 1981).
The recidivism of running showed a moderate improve-
ment over a 3-month period for the youth who participated
in the counseling versus those who did not. However, a
subgroup of adolescents in foster care who participated in
the sessions did not differ from the nonparticipants.
There is literature suggesting that a runaway-like behav-
ior (i.e., wandering out of a designated area without per-
mission) was maintained by escape/avoidance and/or
positive reinforcement factors. Piazza et al. (1997) and
Tarbox, Wallace, and Williams (2003) provided analog
studies on elopement with children and adults with mental
retardation, 4 to 39 years old. Both studies provided thor-
ough functional analyses of elopement that was defined as
movement away from the caregiver and/or into the next
room, without permission. The general conclusions from
431
these studies were that elopement was maintained by pos-
itive reinforcement (e.g., attention, edibles, toy play) and
was successfully reduced through interventions such as dif-
ferential reinforcement of other behaviors, functional com-
munication training with social praise, or differential
reinforcement of appropriate walking with the caregiver.
Although these studies examined a topographically
different behavior than running away and conducted a
direct functional analysis (i.e., attention and access to toy
play were systematically controlled)—the findings of the
Piazza et al. (1997) and Tarbox et al. (2003) studies hold
implications for designing interventions with adolescents
who engage in runaway behaviors, even though a more
indirect assessment method would typically be required.
An indirect functional assessment would include infor-
mation gathering via multiple methods such as focused
interviews with caregivers, friends, family, and the youth
themselves (Kern & Dunlap, 1999). The functional assess-
ment process would seek information related to: (a) the
motivations for the adolescent’s running (e.g., what
the youth was seeking to obtain by running, and/or what
the youth was attempting to avoid by leaving the foster
care placement); as well as (b) the specific circumstances
or situations that might have triggered the running
episode. This information would then be used to devise
an individualized, multicomponent intervention plan
focused on reducing the youth’s motivations for running
away and increasing the youth’s motivations for staying
in a safe setting.
The purpose of this article is to describe and demon-
strate the impact of behavior analytic functional assess-
ments and resulting intervention strategies to address the
runaway behaviors of youth who met the criteria of FL
DCF for habitually running away. The analyses were con-
ducted in the context of the BASP and are presented in two
parts. Part I provides a case example to depict the types of
placement and runaway histories youth experience and the
array of interventions that may be used regarding runaway
behaviors and placement instability. Part II provides the
results of a pre/post analysis of runaway behaviors and
placements of 13 youth in foster care who were referred to
the BASP for habitually running away. A matched com-
parison group of children with similar rates of run behav-
iors who were not served by the BASP during this period
were also included in the analysis to illustrate the contrast
to services as usual.
PART I: CASE EXAMPLE
A case example is presented to provide the reader
with a sense of the types of placement and runaway
432 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
Figure 1: Katrina’s Placement and Run History From Her Entry into the Foster Care System at About 14 Years 9 Months Old to
Her First Run at About 14 Years 11 Months, Through to The Behavioral Analysis Services Program Intervention Starting at About
17 Years 5 Months (Vertical Broken Line) and Ending With Her Independent Living Experience Shown Through to Her Age of About
19 Years 6 Months.
trajectories of some youth in the foster care system, and
to illustrate the types of functional assessments and
interventions used to address runaway behavior. The
case example is that of a Hispanic female who was
placed in the Florida foster care system a few months
prior to her 15th birthday. This girl was the first youth
with whom the functional approach described in this
article was used on runaway behaviors by the BASP. The
data for this case example were obtained from the behav-
ior analyst’s case records as well as two of the FL DCF
databases (MCTS and Florida’s Integrated Child Welfare
Services Information System [ICWSIS] database).
Katrina’s Story
Katrina (a pseudonym) was removed from her home
at the age of 14 years 9 months due to confirmed phys-
ical and sexual abuse. Figure 1 depicts the placement
and runaway pattern from Katrina’s first out-of-home
placement through to her achieving independent living
at age 18 years 4 months, where she remained at the
time of the writing of this article. However, her road to
independent living was a very rocky one, as is illustrated
in Figure 1. The vertical axis lists the types of settings
she experienced and the horizontal axis shows the days
from her removal starting with her placement in an
emergency group shelter facility.
Katrina was moved to her first foster home after
being in the shelter facility about 2 months. After being
in this foster home for 2 days she ran away for a day,
returned and was placed in a second foster home for 10
days, and was then placed in a second group shelter
facility. Five days later she ran away again for a couple
of days and was then placed in a new foster home where
she stayed for almost 2 months. After this period she ran
away for a day and then returned to the foster home for
another 18 days, at which time she was transferred to the
group shelter again. She immediately ran for a 10-day
period, returned to the original shelter for a day, ran for
another day and was placed at another foster home from
which she ran for another 10-day period. Upon her
return, she was placed in the shelter facility where she
stayed for 3 months, at which time she was sent to
another foster home. Fifteen days later, she was placed
in a third group shelter facility for 16 days, then placed
in another foster home where she remained for over 4.5
months. Katrina then returned to the second emergency
group shelter facility where she remained for approxi-
mately 4 months. On Figure 1, the data points between
approximately 560 to 710 days depict her placement of
roughly 5 months in foster care—which involved sev-
eral brief placements in different foster homes—ranging
from 6 days to 121 days, followed by a fourth foster
home placement. At the age of 16.5 years, Katrina began
a series of short and extended periods of running (one
for over a month and another for over 2.5 months), with
brief returns to the foster home or shelter facility. She
was then placed in a group home where she remained for
over 3 months before the brief runaway pattern resumed.
During the 2-year 8-month period from age 14 years
9 months to 17 years 5 months, Katrina experienced
some 20 plus placement changes and 13 runaways,
some of which were for extended periods. These place-
ment changes were across nine different foster homes,
three different group shelter facilities, and a group
home. Also, during this period, she was missing from
 Clark et al. / FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO REDUCING RUNAWAY BEHAVIOR
the foster care system for over 160 days and had numer-
ous different caseworkers. On the 7th day of a 16-day
run, Katrina showed up at the caseworker’s office and it
was at that time that a BASP behavior analyst was called
in to assist. The behavior analyst was introduced to
Katrina as someone who had worked with youth who
ran away and was interested in hearing what Katrina had
to say about her situation. However, this meeting was
not sufficient to convince her to return to the group
home at this time, rather she resumed her run. Through
this initial conversation with Katrina, as well as several
subsequent ones upon her return, the behavior analyst
and the caseworker were able to conduct an informal
functional assessment to determine the variables that
were possibly maintaining her running away from
placements. The process involved asking her a number
of questions regarding her preferred places, people and
activities, as well as asking about those that she found
aversive. In particular, questions such as the following
evoked helpful responses from Katrina: “What type of a
home would you like to live in?” “How would you like
to be treated where you live?” “How is school going for
you?” “What would make your living situation more
workable so you wouldn’t need to run away?” She indi-
cated that a particular home where her brother lived
would be her most highly preferred placement. She also
stated that it was important to her that she be afforded
the opportunity to seek employment that fit in with her
time in school. Katrina also reported some anxiety about
what would happen to her upon leaving the foster care
system and that she did not believe that her current and
past placements prepared her for independence. Finally,
she expressed distaste for what she viewed as unfair and
selective discipline in her current placement.
Given the information from the initial interview, the
behavior analyst was able to provide some immediate
feedback as to what Katrina could expect from him in
terms of helping her to get where she could access more
preferred people and activities, and experience less
exposure to aversive events that might set the stage for
her running away.
Results of the interview with Katrina allowed the
behavior analyst to formulate hypotheses as to what
maintained her running away behavior and what might
reduce the likelihood of running again. First, Katrina’s
preference for being placed with her brother suggested
that remaining in an approved placement could poten-
tially be positively reinforced by placement with him.
Although the behavior analyst and caseworker were
unable to confirm it, it was thought when she ran she
often saw her brother. Katrina was informed that a
potential placement with her brother was being
433
explored, but that the process might take a while. The
behavior analyst assured her that he would take forward
her expressed interest in this placement and attempt to
represent her wishes during the placement review
process. In turn, he told Katrina he would be better able
to advocate for her if she were stable in her current
placement. Such an approach may not have addressed a
function per se, but it could be said to have acted as a
setting event whereby the reinforcing value of remain-
ing in the current placement was increased.
Another possible function of Katrina’s behavior was to
escape from settings she found aversive. The behavior
analyst and case manager gleaned information from
Katrina and group home staff that suggested running
away may function as a negative reinforcer (i.e., escape
from aversive situations such as coercive staff interac-
tions). Staff reported difficulties interacting with her say-
ing that she was “loud, disrespectful and excitable.” They
complained that when she got upset, she spoke in Spanish
so that they did not understand what she was saying. Her
group home behavior plan indicated that if her behavior
was poor, she would not be allowed to go on weekend
visits, rather her brother and his guardian could come by
to see her at the group home. There had also been conflict
over her desire to have certain, inexpensive food items
available to take to school rather than the standard group-
home bagged lunch. In the overall picture of her day-to-
day life there were several indicators that her running
away behavior was, in part, maintained by escape from
unpleasant situations in her placement.
Through interviews with Katrina and staff, reviewing
her history in foster care and considering her running away
in light of its possible behavioral functions, several
approaches to keeping her safe and stable in a more pre-
ferred placement were brought to light. A placement with
her sibling was explored and she was kept fully informed
as to the progress of efforts in this direction. The case man-
ager and behavior analyst met with staff at the group home
in order to address some of the aspects of that placement
that might be motivating Katrina’s running away. As a
result, some key staff began to explore possible employ-
ment for her while she remained at the group home. The
case manager and behavior analyst explored other place-
ment options in case her first choice was unavailable.
Throughout this process, Katrina was kept informed, via
frequent phone calls and visits, of the progress toward
addressing her concerns. She was praised for maintaining
stability in the group home while the process unfolded.
Katrina committed to and did make progress on the level
system at the group home following these efforts.
The behavior analyst and caseworker worked quickly
to implement as many of these interventions as possible,
434 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
visiting and communicating with Katrina and the group
home staff frequently regarding their progress. In just over
2 weeks after she had returned to the group home, they
were successful in arranging for Katrina to meet a foster
family and, based on her interest, she moved in with the
family. This foster parent had experience with older
youth and had been trained and certified by the BASP as
a Competency Trained Home in the Essential Tools for
Positive Behavior Change (FL DCF, 2005; Stoutimore
et al., 2008, this issue). By the week’s end, Katrina and
the foster mother had “hit it off” really well. Over time,
Katrina reported that she really felt a part of this family
and that they cared about her. She stayed in this home
consistently for almost a year (310 days), with the fos-
ter family and funding agency allowing her to continue
living with them beyond her 18th birthday, when she
was emancipated. Of the 12 other foster homes in which
Katina had been placed, this was the first home where at
least one of the foster parents had been through this
competency training.
The behavior analyst and caseworker encouraged the
foster parents to be attentive to all of the features of the
intervention as well. Thus, the foster parents made sure
Katrina had some time to talk privately with one of them
each day, go on outings, go on visits and outings with
her girlfriend and/or brother; learn how to make her own
lunch with healthy items and favorite snack items; and
do activities that made her feel apart of this family.
After about 6 weeks, Katrina had an opportunity to
interview for an after-school job. Although she didn’t
get this one, she did get one soon thereafter. However,
none of the after-school jobs she had really interested
her until she happened upon an opportunity to provide
in-home support for an elderly lady. In addition to being
paid, this job included room and board. This indepen-
dent living and work arrangement proved to be a good
mix for Katrina, particularly since the location was not
far from her foster family—she was able to maintain her
supportive relationship. After a 1-year 3-month period,
Katrina was still in this independent living situation and
was beginning to explore alternative postsecondary train-
ing, community college, and/or other work options.
Katrina’s foster mother continued to be actively involved
in mentoring and guiding her.
CONCLUSION
Katrina’s case example illustrates the types and frag-
mented placement histories that foster care youth may
experience. Many features of this placement history have
been associated with the likelihood of runaway behaviors,
such as multiple placement changes, living in residential
group-type placements and having limited acceptable
options to respond when confronted with aversive condi-
tions. This case example suggests the value of informal
functional assessments and assessment-based interven-
tions that the behavior analysts, caseworkers, and care-
givers used resulting in a dramatic change in the
placement and runaway trajectories for Katrina. By
assessing what Katrina suggested were reasons for her
running and what she suggested were her preferences, the
behavior analyst and caseworker were able to formulate a
hypothesis of escape and noncontingent reinforcement
factors that may have triggered and/or maintained her
runaway behavior. Based on this, they worked with
Katrina and her caregivers to implement an assessment-
based intervention that provided her with the most exten-
sive placement stability, in the most normalized types of
settings that she had experienced since removal from her
home. Katrina also achieved “family” connections that
may prove to be enduring lifetime supports.
PART II: COMPARISON GROUP ANALYSES
This part of the study involved examining the impact
of the BASP interventions on the percentage of days on
runaway status, rate of runs, and rate of placement
changes for 13 youth who met the criteria of habitually
running away. To provide a basis for understanding
changes from pre- to postintervention conditions, a
comparison group of youth, who met the runaway crite-
ria and were matched on several additional factors, was
also examined.
The effectiveness of the behavior analytic functional
assessments and intervention strategies were examined
by comparing the changes across conditions for the
BASP group of children who habitually ran away, in con-
trast to the matched comparison group. The following
hypothesis is addressed in this part of the study: The
behavior analytic functional assessments and individually
tailored interventions will result in improvements in the:
(a) percentage of days on runaway, (b) rate of running
away, and (c) rate of placement change over the pre/
postconditions for the BASP group in contrast to that of
the comparison group.
Methods
Participants
Thirteen youth from two metropolitan counties in
Florida who habitually ran away during the period from
late 2002 to 2004 were referred to the BASP. These were
 Clark et al. / FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO REDUCING RUNAWAY BEHAVIOR
the first 13 youth that the BASP worked with on runaway
behavior who had not previously been served by the
BASP; were ages 12 to 17 at the time of intervention; and
had not been incarcerated for extended periods during
their pre/postperiods (youth were not excluded from this
analysis for detention stays which might range from 1 to 5
days, but rather for incarcerations in locked secure facili-
ties with little opportunity for running away). Of these 13
BASP participants, 11 were female, 9 were Caucasian, 2
were African American, 1 was Hispanic, and 1 was bira-
cial. Katrina, the case example presented in this paper, was
not included as one of these 13 because she had been
involved prior to the time period referenced above.
In order to match comparison youth to treatment youth
for the same period and geographic area, data were
secured from two state databases maintained by FL DCF:
MCTS and ICWSIS. All comparison youth were matched
to treatment youth by gender and race. Then the three
comparison youth closest in age at first run to each of the
treatment youth were selected as their respective matches.
The overall mean difference in age at first run between all
treatment youth and their assigned comparison youth was
0.52 years, with a standard deviation of 0.65. Youth were
not used as matched comparisons if they were not habitual
runners (i.e., had run away fewer than three times), had
ever received services from the BASP, or had experienced
any extended periods of incarceration during the compar-
ison pre- or postconditions.
The decision to use three comparison youth per treat-
ment youth was made to provide additional statistical
power, which is particularly appropriate with a small sam-
ple size (Hennekens, Buring, & Mayrent, 1987). Only three
comparisons were used for each BASP youth because of the
limited size of the comparison pool and the fact that there is
not a significant increase in power beyond a 1:4 match
(Miettinen, 1969). In several cases the best matches for age
at first run were comparison youth who had already been
used as matches for another treatment youth. Thus, the 39
total matches (3 for each of 13 treatment youth) were made
with a total of 26 comparison youth. Seven comparison
youth were best matches to each of 2 different treatment
youth and 3 comparison youth were best matches for each
of 3 different treatment youth. In each case, the comparison
youth’s hypothetical intervention date was set from his or
her date of first run to match the number of baseline days
for the BASP participant.
Data Sets and Data Analyses
Baseline, or preintervention data, and postinterven-
tion data were gathered from ICWSIS and MCTS and
were examined for each youth across the dependent
variables of: (a) percentage of days on runaway status;
435
(b) annualized rate of running away; and (c) annualized
rate of placement change. For treatment youth, baseline
began with their first run episode and ended at the start
of the BASP involvement. The postperiod began with
the BASP involvement and was arbitrarily defined as
lasting 365 days. For comparison youth, baseline began
with their first run episode and was defined as having
the same duration as the matched treatment youth. (Note
that a comparison youth could have two or three differ-
ent baseline durations, if matched with two or three dif-
ferent treatment youth.) The postperiod consisted of the
following 365 days, except for four cases where there
were only between 161 and 349 days of data available
(e.g., a participant left the foster care system).
For each of the dependent variables, three statistical
comparisons were conducted. First, a comparison
between the baseline for the BASP group and that of the
comparison group was made using the two-sample
Wilcoxon rank–sum test (two-sample test), a nonpara-
metric equivalent of independent sample t test, as the
dependent variables did not strictly conform to the normality
assumptions. The statistical significance for all analyses
was tested with α = .05. Second, differences between
the baseline and postperiod for both groups were
assessed separately using the Wilcoxon matched pairs
signed-rank test, a nonparametric equivalent of a paired
t test. Third, the two-sample Wilcoxon test was used to
compare the change from baseline and postperiod for
the BASP group to the pre/postchange found for the
comparison group.
Intervention Procedures
Functional assessments. The functional assessments
that were conducted by the BASP behavior analysts for
this study suggested that some of the escape/avoidance
factors for runaway behaviors included: restrictions
imposed by the foster home, group home, or emergency
shelter facility; no one seeming to care and feelings of alien-
ation/aloneness; mistreatment by caregiver/staff; bullying at
school or in the neighborhood; gang pressures; and avoid-
ing/escaping the rules or expectations of the living and/or
school settings. Alternatively, or concurrently, running
away could have been running to access positive rein-
forcers. The functional assessments indicated that some
of the runaway behaviors were to access: greater control
and autonomy; parents, siblings, or extended family
members; preferred home settings; girlfriend or boyfriend;
friends; teenage activities and parties; experimentation with
drugs and sex; peer recognition for beating the system; a
sense of fun, risk, excitement, normalcy, and freedom; or to
demonstrate that they are adults and “can take care of them-
selves.” Some of the antecedents (or triggers) for runs were
436 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
factors such as: peers in the setting or other friends
prompting a run; an incident of mistreatment or a situa-
tion that the youth saw as unfair; an opportunity to escape
from a highly monitored or locked facility; avoidance of
a consequence related to problem behaviors at school or
residence; a positive or negative telephone conversation
with a parent or sibling; and a feeling of loneliness or
depression.
Description of the array of individually tailored inter-
ventions. The behavior analysts and caseworkers in this
study used an array of interventions to stabilize the ado-
lescents’ placements at home, in school, and to meet their
current and longer term needs and wishes. The following
features that, singularly or in combination, composed
most of the 13 interventions that were implemented with
the youth and their caregivers and caseworkers were: (a)
informal functional assessments which involved exploring
the youth’s interests, preferences, and reasons for running
away; (b) someone to spend some time each day listening
and talking with the youth in a nonjudgmental fashion; (c)
access to family, siblings, and other preferred people
through safe visitations; (d) enhancing the reinforcing fea-
tures of the current living situation through increased
access to preferred items and activities, time with special
people, and improved interactions between staff personnel
and the youth; (e) more active communication with rele-
vant school personnel and supports for the youth, for
example, supervised homework time, tutoring; (f) explor-
ing and acting on the type of living situation that the youth
might want to have in the short term or long term; and (g)
for older youth, conducting informal “futures planning”
regarding possible jobs, postsecondary education, and/or
independent living situations the youth might be interested
in. A more detailed description of some of these types of
interventions is outlined on Table 1.
The youth in both the BASP and the comparison
groups received services as usual for regular foster care in
Florida—with those in the BASP group having additional
services provided by a behavior analyst during the inter-
vention related to the run behaviors. Services as usual
includes but is not limited to: a comprehensive behavioral
health assessment for every child entering into dependent
care (conducted by a licensed mental health provider);
minimum monthly face-to-face visits by a caseworker,
staffings to address specific needs and recommendations
for services/treatment/therapy/placements; and judicial
reviews, typically two to three times per year.
Results
Figure 2 shows the mean percentage of days on run-
away status for the baseline and postcondition for the
40% Comparison
Mean Percent of Days on Runaway Status
35%
30%
25% BASP
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Baseline Period Postperiod (1-Year)
Conditions
Figure 2: The Mean Percent of Days on Runaway Status Shown
for the Behavioral Analysis Services Program (BASP) Group
(solid dots) and The Matched Comparison Group (Open
Triangles) Across The Baselines and the Postperiods.
BASP group (solid dots) and comparison group (open
triangles). The BASP group was on runaway 38% of the
time during baseline decreasing to 18% after the inter-
vention. The baseline for the comparison group was
34% of days on runaway status and the postcondition
was slightly higher at 38%. The two-sample Wilcoxon
test found no statistical difference between the two
baselines. The signed-rank test indicated a statistically
significant decrease in the mean percentage of days on
runaway status between the baseline and postperiod for
BASP group (p = .05), while the difference was not
statistically significant for the matched-comparison
group. Additionally, the change from baseline to the
postperiod was significantly larger for the BASP group
than for the comparison group (two-sample test, p =
.05). As is evident from the slope of the lines on Figure
2, the BASP group showed a substantial reduction in the
percentage of days on runaway status versus the com-
parison group that showed an increase.
The average annualized number of runaway episodes
is shown in Figure 3 for both groups and conditions. The
baseline rate of runaway between the BASP and com-
parison group was statistically different, with the BASP
group having an average rate of 12.6 runs per year and
the comparison group with an average rate of 7.0 runs
per year. The average rate for the BASP group decreased
from 12.6 to 3.0, while the comparison group decreased
from 7.0 to 3.1 in the postperiod. The decreases in annu-
alized rate of runs were statistically significant for both
groups. The difference between the baseline and postpe-
riod was significantly larger for the BASP group in con-
trast to the matched comparison group.
The average annualized number of placement
changes is shown in Figure 4 for both groups and both
conditions. As with the rate of running away, the rate of
placement change is substantially different between the
 Clark et al. / FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO REDUCING RUNAWAY BEHAVIOR 437

TABLE 1: An Array of Intervention Strategies for Consideration

Category Intervention

Preference strategies
Living arrangements
Incentive arrangements
Train and coach personnel
Introduce more preferred activity equipment and materials (e.g., workout equipment, bicycles), activities
(e.g., video games, sports, music), and extracurricular activities (e.g., attending sporting events
or concerts) to increase the likelihood of youth engagement.
Establish safe visitation arrangements with preferred people (e.g., parents, siblings) to allow the youth
access to these people without having to run to them.
Involve the youth in determining their preferred type of living situation or specific living setting.
Arrange access to a more preferred placement.
Make available an array of “youth-preferred” living situations (e.g., supervised apartments, dorm-type
settings) for older youth.
Establish a “behavioral contract” so a youth can earn rewards based on individual target behaviors
such as requesting permission to go places, reporting whereabouts, not running away, or completing
school homework.
Establish allowances for assuming responsibilities around the house.
Create a flexible fund for personnel to use with youth to support the above types of incentives
and activities.
Support older youth in their interests in exploring and getting jobs.
Conduct training and consultation with caregivers, caseworkers, resource coordinators, and
supervisors to enhance their ability to provide a more reinforcing approach and environment
for the youth.
Provide training to caseworkers and supervisors on the Positive Parenting Tools to enhance their ability
to interact with youth in ways that will more fully engage the young people.
Improve personnel’s competencies with these transition-age youth by: (a) increasing the rate of positive
social descriptive praise and associated reinforcers, increasing sincere care statements, and
decreasing the rate of coercives; (b) increasing the opportunity for youth to talk about how things are
going (e.g., what’s happening in their daily life, problems or concerns they might have);(c) identifying
youth interests, goals, and dreams; and (d) supporting their pursuit of these (e.g., get an after school
job, opportunity to earn a driver’s license); and (e) providing more engaging activities and activity
materials in their living situations.
Enhance the abilities of caseworkers and their supervisors to be able to: (a) receive contacts from youth
on runaway in inviting and reinforcing ways; (b) conduct informal functional assessments with youth
regarding their reasons for running away; and (c) identify preferences of youth that might provide
information regarding preferred placements and/or other strategies to make it likely that they would be
more engaged and stick around.
Provide guidance to foster care caseworkers and supervisors to enhance their coaching skills for
assisting foster parents, adoptive parents, and natural parents to use improved interactional skills
with young people.

baseline rates, with the BASP group at 29.6 and
the comparison group at 15.6 and these differences were
statistically significant. The rate of placement change
reduced significantly for the BASP group from baseline
to post-period (29.6 to 10.1) and for the comparison
group (15.6 to 8.4). Also, the difference between the
baseline and postperiod rate of placement change was
significantly larger for the BASP group when compared
to the matched comparison group’s change.
DISCUSSION AND APPLICATIONS TO
PRACTICE
This study provides an illustration of the impact of
behavior analytic assessments and interventions to
reduce the percentage of days on runaway, frequency
of runaway episodes and to improve the stabilization of
placement for youth who have a history of running
away. The findings across the 13 youth with habitual
running patterns with whom the BASP was involved
suggest that the array of interventions implemented col-
laboratively by the behavior analysts, caseworkers, and
caregivers were effective in reducing the percentage of
days and rate of runaway. The percentage of days on
runaway for the BASP group decreased from 38% in
baseline to 18% postintervention. For the comparison
group, the percentage of days on runaway increased fol-
lowing the hypothetical intervention, possibly placing
them at even more risk of abusing alcohol and drugs,
criminal and sexual victimization, contracting/spreading
sexually transmitted diseases, arrest and incarceration,
prostitution, and further placement disruptions (Biehal
& Wade, 1999; Courtney, et al., 2005). The annualized
baseline rate of runaway episodes was statistically dif-
ferent between the two groups, with the BASP group
being at 12.6 runs and the comparison group at 7.0 runs.
Both groups’ rates of runs were reduced during the post-
period, with the BASP group reduction being statisti-
cally significantly larger than that of the comparison
438 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
14
12
Mean Number of Runs per Year
10
8
6 opportunity to run again until they return. However,
4 Comparison
2
0 runaway (e.g., refer to BASP baselines on Figures 2
Baseline Period
Figure 3: The Mean Annualized Rate of Runaways Shown for The
Behavioral Analysis Services Program (BASP) Group (solid dots) and
The Matched Comparison Group (Open Triangles) Across the Baselines
and the Postperiods.
30
Mean Number of Placement Changes per Year
25
20
15
10
5
0 group in contrast to the comparison group, but both
Baseline Period
Figure 4: The Mean Annualized Rate of Placement Change Shown for
The Behavioral Analysis Services Program (BASP) Group (Solid Dots)
and The Matched Comparison Group (Open Triangles) Across the
Baselines and the Postperiods.
group. The average annualized rate of placement change
across the two groups was also statistically different
during the baseline periods, with the BASP group show-
ing a placement change rate almost twice that of the
comparison group. The functionally determined inter-
ventions applied to the BASP group resulted in an almost
200% reduction in placement change between the base-
line and postperiod and less than a 100% reduction for
the comparison group. As was the case with the other
dependent variables, the pre/postplacement change
rate for the BASP group was greater than that of the
comparison group.
One of the implications of the data across all three
of these dependent variables is that certain factors may
trigger a referral to the BASP by the foster care system
personnel. A youth who runs or requires a placement
change more frequently in comparison to a youth who
runs for extended periods may get more attention from
the system even though extended runaways may also
put the youth at considerable risk. Another feature of
BASP
the data is a possible interaction effect between the
percentage of days on runaway and the rate of run-
away. If youth are on runaway status, they have no
this interaction is not fully supported by the data in
that some of the highest rates of runaway occurred dur-
ing the periods with the highest proportion of days on
Postperiod (1-Year)
Conditions and 3). That is, during the periods in which both
groups had 38% of days on runaway (i.e., BASP base-
line and comparison group postperiod on Figure 2), the
average rates of runaway were highest during BASP
baseline and lowest during the comparison group’s
postperiod (Figure 3).
The case example and analyses across the aggregate of
youth provide compelling support for the feasibility and
effectiveness of this behavior analytic approach for
assessing and intervening with youth who have serious
BASP histories of runaway behaviors. However, as encouraging
as these findings are, neither part of this study involved a
rigorous experimental design. The use of the matched
comparison group did provide a quasiexperimental
demonstration that the proportion of days on runaway
Comparison
would not have decreased without the intervention. The
difference in rate of runaway and placement change were
substantial and statistically significant for the BASP
Conditions
Postperiod (1-Year) groups did show a reduction from the baseline to the post-
period for these two variables.
The use of archival records for both case examples
and group data has advantages and numerous limita-
tions. Data systems change (e.g., definitions of place-
ment type) and more attention to the accuracy of data
entry may vary for different years and under different
administrations. However, using the dataset from which
placement payments (i.e., ICWSIS) were made may
mean that these study findings are more accurate than
had a dataset been used for which these contingencies
were not in place. These archival datasets do not include
information such as the reason for a placement change
(e.g., youth behavior, availability of a placement at a
specific time, system policy changes such as placing
siblings together or matching youth and foster families
based on ethnicity).
There continues to be a critical need and rich opportu-
nity for future research to provide a stronger examination
of the functional relationship between assessment/ inter-
vention and runaway behaviors. As was mentioned in this
section previously, the relationship between youth runaway
patterns and the system’s response may not reflect the level
 Clark et al. / FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO REDUCING RUNAWAY BEHAVIOR
of risks functioning in a youth’s life. For example, is a
youth who runs frequently at greater risk than one who is
on a long duration run? Also it is extremely important to
better understand how to be proactive and prevent a child
from running the first time, thus possibly avoiding a pattern
of unsafe run experiences and placement disruptions.
(Biehal & Wade, 1999; Courtney et al., 2005; de Man,
2000; Miller, Eggertson-Tacon, & Quigg, 1990).
The goal of addressing runaway behavior with
youth in out-of-home placements is not only to
reduce the rate of running away and duration of
unsafe days, but, more importantly to stabilize these
young people in settings that they would prefer or
with arrangements that make their placements more
livable. For example, one thing that Katrina wanted
while at the group home was to be able to take the
snack food Lunchables as one of the items in her
lunch and to have someone to talk with each day. She
also expressed an interest in a home-like setting and
efforts were successful in securing this for her. Using
a functional assessment framework while listening to
her wants/needs assisted in guiding the behavior ana-
lyst, caseworker, and caregiver in developing effec-
tive and appropriate interventions. The strategies
employed provided a dramatic change in the trajec-
tory for this young woman and created an opportunity
for the development of social networks that might
represent the kind of lifetime support that leads to
improved quality of life.
Applications and Considerations for
Improving Practice and Policy
The term human or social capital has been coined to
refer to the complex social mechanisms that parents gar-
ner to advance their children’s chances of success
(Coleman, 1988). Carneiro and Heckman (2003) have
suggested that social capital in the form of social skills,
attitudes, and cognitive abilities learned in childhood
and adolescence may be variables predictive of success
in school and life. Whereas the majority of typical
young people develop social networks that include
family, friends, and other community members who
provide guidance and support both financially and
socially, many youth living in out-of-home dependency
systems lack opportunities to develop these types of
social and economic capital (Clark & Crosland, in press;
Shirk & Stangler, 2004). It would seem that one of the
first steps in minimizing this gap for these foster youth
would be to assist them in identifying their preferred liv-
ing situations and stabilizing them in these settings (e.g.,
Clark & Davis, 2000; Witherup, Van Camp, Vollmer, &
Prestemon, 2006).
439
The findings from this current study should assist the
fields of child welfare, mental health, and juvenile jus-
tice in examining their practices to prevent and amelio-
rate runaway behaviors. Transformation of these fields
will require a major paradigm shift, one that if adopted
will necessitate changes at the system and policy levels
to support personnel in the use of new child friendly and
effective practices. This, and a focus on assisting
children in maintaining and building their connections
to lifetime support networks, should greatly improve the
long-term adjustments and outcomes for our children
and youth.
Some of the evidence-based practices, and other more
recent promising practices, might prove to be particularly
helpful in serving children and youth more humanely and
effectively. A few of these that are worthy of mention are
described here briefly.
1. Dependency systems should implement evidence-based
programs to effectively serve youth at-risk with
conduct disorders and/or emotional/behavioral distur-
bances. These include programs such as Multidimensional
Treatment Foster Care (Shepard & Chamberlain, 2004)
and the Teaching-Family Group Home Treatment Model
(Wolf, Kirigin, Fixsen, Blase, & Braukmann, 1995).
2. A functional assessment method is being researched for
assisting youth in making informed choices regarding
their preferences in living situations (Witherup et al.,
2006).
3. The Transition to Independence Process (TIP) model is
an evidence-informed practice for working with youth
and young adults who have emotional/behavioral chal-
lenges (Clark & Davis, 2000; Clark & Foster-Johnson,
1996). The TIP model engages young people in a process
of personal futures planning and coaches them in prepar-
ing and facilitating their transition toward greater self-
sufficiency and achievement of their short-term and
long-term goals. The TIP model is driven by seven prin-
ciples and associated practice elements. The model has
been shown to improve outcomes across the transition
domains of employment, education and career training,
living situation, personal effectiveness/wellbeing, and
community-life functioning (http://tip.fmhi.usf.edu;
Clark, Pschorr, Wells, Curtis, & Tighe, 2004; Karpur,
Clark, Caproni, & Sterner, 2005).
4. Recognizing that these youth in out-of-home care are in a
mode of discovery just as their peers from families of origin
are, one European program has implemented a cell phone
connection so that young people who “take off” are encour-
aged to keep in touch. Personnel are trained to receive these
calls in ways that may be reinforcing to the youth; and the
staff, to the extent possible, guide the youth to remain safe
and express to them: that they are missed; statements of car-
ing, empathy, or concern; and that they are welcome to call
and return (J. Roethlisberger, personal communication,
2004). This same communication link is used at entry to the
program to help teach young people appropriate behaviors
such as requesting permission to go places and reporting
their whereabouts.
5. The staff interactions described in the previous item
are similar to those used within the TIP model and a
youth interaction tool training that BASP provides to
foster caseworkers and supervisors (FL DCF, 2004).
440 RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
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