Children discharged from kin and non-kin foster homes: Do the risks of foster care re-entry differ?

Placement Discontinuity for Older Children and Adolescents Who Exit Foster Care Through Adoption Or Guardianship: A Systematic Review

“…No RCTs were identified in this systematic review, signaling a serious limitation in the literature. Three of the studies were longitudinal (Berry et al, 2007;Goldman & Ryan, 2011;Koh & Testa, 2011), and thus, addressed some of the common threats to internal validity found in observational research, such as ambiguous temporal precedence and maturation (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002).…”

“…In regard to research methods and design, 14 studies used multivariable regression to explore the impact of risk or protective factors on post-permanency outcomes while holding the effects of potential confounding variables constant. Other methods that were implemented in studies included structural equation modeling (SEM; Goldman & Ryan, 2011), propensity score analysis (Koh & Testa, 2011), generalized estimating equations (GEE; Nalavany, Glidden, & Ryan, 2009), and MANOVA Reilly & Platz, 2004). No RCTs were identified in this systematic review, signaling a serious limitation in the literature.…”

“…The rest investigated risk or protective factors for outcomes that could plausibly be considered proximal to discontinuity, such as child behavior problems, parent satisfaction with the adoption, or impact of the adoption on the family. All the studies in the final sample examined adoptive families, but only one (Koh & Testa, 2011) investigated outcomes for guardianship families. Finally, the majority of studies were published within the past 10 years, and five were published since 2011, consistent with the idea that post-finalization adjustment of adoptive and guardianship families is a fairly new and evolving topic in child welfare research (Berry et al, 2007;Selwyn et al, 2014).…”

“…Studies that investigated adoption alone suggest that somewhere between about 2-15 % of youth in finalized adoptions experience placement changes such as foster care reentry, but this range of estimates may mask important differences for older children or children with challenging behavioral needs (Barth, Berry, Yoshikami, Goodfield, & Carson, 1988;Barth & Miller, 2000;Berry et al, 2007;Festinger, 2002;Hartinger-Saunders, Trouteaud, & Matos-Johnson, 2014;McDonald, Propp, & Murphy, 2001;Rolock, 2014;Selwyn, Wijedasa, & Meakings, 2014). Fewer guardianship studies have examined discontinuity or dissolution, but some have reported rates of discontinuity from as low as 2 % to over 30 % for youth with histories of adjudicated abuse or neglect (Henry, 1999;Koh & Testa, 2011;Rolock, 2014;Testa, 2004). Thus, a reasonable estimate for the overall rate of discontinuity for adoptions and guardianships in the United States is between 2 and 15 %.…”

Financial well-being in family-based foster care: Exploring variation in income supports for kin and non-kin caregivers in California

“…In particular, compared to placement with a nonrelative, kinship care is considered a more stable placement setting in which children are less likely to experience placement moves while in care, and are less likely to experience re-entry to foster care following a reunification (see Berrick, 2000, for a review, and Connell et al, 2009;Farmer & Moyers, 2008;Koh & Testa, 2011;Perry, Daly, & Kotler, 2012). Relatedly, placement in kinship foster care is associated with ongoing family contact, with increased odds of visitation between children and their birth parents, and an increased likelihood that some or all siblings will be placed together (Berrick, 2000).…”