Kinship Care and Permanence: Guiding Principles for Policy and Practice

Abstract

ith the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), which was designed to reduce the length of a child's stay in foster care by enforcing strict timeframes for movement to permanency, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), which has decreased the number of families receiving welfare assistance, an even larger number of children may enter temporary or permanent care of the public child welfare system or may have additional barriers affecting their departure from care. For example, in studies of the impact of welfare reform on foster care and child welfare, Wells and Guo (2003) and Wells, Guo, and Li (2000) found that a reduction in cash assistance was linked to negative child welfare outcomes and that when single mothers received income from work, their children stayed in custody longer and were more likely to be placed with relatives instead of being reunified with their mothers.Kinship caregivers have become increasingly important in the permanency equation. Unfortunately, there has been little published about policies and practices to promote permanence in kinship homes, particularly kinship adoption. As a result, in 1997 the federal government provided funding opportunities for demonstration projects to inform practice in this area.The Kinship Adoption Project (KAP), on which this article is based in part, was a 3-year joint public-private partnership between the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, a public child welfare agency, and Bellefaire Jewish Children's Bureau, a private social service agency. KAP comprised two components: (a) an exploratory study aimed at identifying the barriers and facilitators in kinship adoption and (b) a social service program designed to alleviate barriers so that kinship adoption could be achieved. Though the focus of this project was promoting kinship adoption, the voices of kin participants and child welfare practitioners revealed much information about kinship care, including barriers to permanence and what they felt would be helpful by way of supportive services.

Adoption Preparation

“…Such perceptions could contribute to a worker's decision to provide different services to kin and non-kin families. Children adopted by relatives often have a pre-adoptive risk history and are likely to exhibit behavioral problems kin adopters may not be prepared to manage (Lorkovich et al, 2004). It is vital that kin adopters also receive comprehensive preparation to promote positive child outcomes.…”

The Relationship Between Caseworker Attitudes About Kinship Care and Removal Decisions

“…Professional beliefs about the use of kinship caregivers can influence worker decisions and the way services are provided. In a 3-year exploratory study on the barriers of kinship care, Lorkovich, Piccola, Groza, Brindo, and Marks (2004) found that workers, administrators, and policy makers experienced difficulty separating their concerns and attitudes about the biological family from kinship caregivers. These attitudes about kinship homes may impede worker's willingness to encourage or support kinship placements.…”

Legal and Informal Adoption by Relatives in the U.S.: Comparative Characteristics and Well-Being from a Nationally Representative Sample

“…Some relatives choose to parent informally because adoption would require that they gain consent from the child's biological parent(s) and/or show that the child's biological parents were unfit (Geen, 2003;Aldous, 1998), which could strain existing family relationships. Others may not understand or value the legal distinctions between adoption and guardianship, and/or the benefits available to adoptive families, such as adoption subsidies and Medicaid coverage for families adopting eligible children from foster care (Lorkovich et al, 2004). In addition, some grandparents may prefer to provide care informally because they hold out hope that their adult children will at some point resume principal responsibility for the child or they are unsure about whether their own current or future health status will permit them to continue to parent.…”

“…While relative adoption from foster care has received some limited academic focus (Ryan, Hinterlong, Hegar, & Johnson, 2010;Lorkovich, Piccola, Groza, Brindo, & Marks, 2004;Howard & Smith, 2003), private adoptions by relatives have received virtually no attention, and indeed even counts of this population are scarce (Placek, 2007), though they are more numerous than kin adoptions from foster care (Vandivere, Malm, & Radel, 2009). Research related to the well-being of the far greater number of children cared for by relatives without the structure of a legal adoption, that is children "informally adopted" by their kin, is also quite limited (Ehrle, Geen, & Clark, 2001).…”