Placing a child in out-of-home care is one of the most important decisions
made by professionals in the child care system, with substantial social, psychological,
educational, medical and economic consequences. This paper considers
the challenges and difficulties of building statistical models of this decision by
reviewing the available international evidence. Despite the large number of
empirical investigations over a 50 year period, a consensus on the variables associated
with this decision is hard to identify. In addition, the individual models have
low explanatory and predictive power and should not be relied on to make placement
decisions. A number of reasons for this poor performance are offered, and
some ways forwards suggested. This paper also aims to facilitate the emergence of a
coherent and integrated international literature from the disconnected and fragmented
empirical studies. Rather than one placement problem, there are many
slightly different problems, and therefore it is expected that a number of related subliteratures
will emerge, each concentrating on a particular definition of the placement
problem.