Interviews with 207 informal kinship caregivers describe a dynamic process that influences how children come to live with a relative other than their parent. This process involves three overlapping and often simultaneously occurring factors: (1) the reasons the children's parents were unable to care for them; (2) the caregiver's motivation for assuming responsibility for the child; and (3) the pathways or routes that children took to the caregiver's home. Understanding these factors and their mutual and simultaneous influence is important as we shape policies, programs and interventions to support families as they consider whether to care for a relative's child and once they assume this responsibility.

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One of the central purposes of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) is to facilitate timely adoptions for children in foster care who cannot be reunited with their birth parents by shortening the timeframe for terminating birth parents' rights to their children. This process is formally known as termination of parental rights or TPR. 1 However, in recent years, concerns have been raised by judicial and child welfare professionals that the accelerated timelines towards achieving permanency, or securing a permanent home for a foster child, may have an unintended consequence for some children. Specifically, concerns have focused on the risks of terminating parents' rights prior to an adoptive family being identified and whether this practice increases the likelihood that a child will remain in foster care until adulthood rather than be adopted. When children are not adopted after their parents' rights are terminated, they become, effectively, legal orphans. 2 Legal orphans refer to children who no longer have legal ties to their birth family, yet have no adoptive family either. While the accelerated timelines for TPR have caused some to worry, others find that delaying a TPR ruling has unintended consequences of its own. For example, in many states, strategies to recruit adoptive parents cannot be conducted for a child until TPR has occurred. Further, adoption recruitment specialists have expressed concerns that many prospective adoptive parents are reluctant to care for a child whose birth parents' rights are still intact. A sample of 20 judges representing 18 different states participated in telephone interviews to explore their perspectives and experiences around termination of parental rights proceedings and the challenges faced when making TPR decisions. The findings of this study suggest that some judges are concerned about the prospect of creating legal orphans, and the absence of an identified adoptive family does make some judges more apprehensive about TPR. The judges also cited other issues that make TPR decisions more challenging, including some older children's opposition to adoption and the potential loss of ties to the birth family. However, some judges also noted that the use of legal risk placements, open adoptions, post-adoption contact agreements, case conferencing models, and model court programs have helped to address their concerns about TPR and have made for a less-divisive decision-making process. This research brief also presents the study's implications for juvenile and family court policy and practices: the advantages of judges and caseworkers exploring children's views about TPR and adoption; ways for foster children to maintain birth family connections to support their well-being while in care and post-adoption; the importance of judges having familiarity with adoption recruitment efforts to inform their permanency decisions; and the importance of seeking consultation and additional guidance on ASFA mandates when needed.

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