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Kinship placement has been shown to be superior to foster care in increasing permanency and safety for children. Despite the many benefits of kinship placement, kinship caregivers receive less support than foster family, this creates unique challenges.
This study analyzes data from a statewide kinship caregiver survey which collected demographic data, challenges, and needs. 865 kinship caregivers reported their top three challenges and needs. Needs were stratified by caregiver and child characteristics. The authors found that there are striking differences in reported challenges and needs…
Abstract:
More information is needed for child welfare agencies to understand service utilization across systems and identify ways to better meet the complex needs of children in foster care.
This chapter summarizes results of a study of high service use, or “superutilization,” among children in foster care. The study linked administrative data from child welfare, Medicaid, and other services for two sites. After defining superutilization, latent class analysis was used to identify types of superutilization and predictive analytics were used to identify characteristics at…
Foster homes promote optimal outcomes among youth who experience difficulties in their original families. However, foster caregivers often face various challenges and difficulties. Guided by ecological framework, the current study examined how multiple factors from foster caregivers’ surrounding environments impact satisfaction and retention among 462 foster caregivers in the United States.
Regression analyses suggested that certain demographics, parenting characteristics, and agency characteristics were associated with foster care retention, levels of satisfaction, and overall foster care…
Abstract:
Under national and international legislation, when choosing a foster home, continuity of upbringing and connection to the child’s cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds is desirable. However, research shows that such considerations are only taken into account to a small extent and that children from minority backgrounds are often settled in majority foster homes. The Norwegian Child Welfare Service has been criticised for this.
In this article, the focus is on youth with minority backgrounds living in majority foster homes and their views on cultural…
Alternative Care is a form of care provided to children by caregivers other than their birth parents. In India, the existing alternative care mechanisms include institutional care, foster care and kinship care. As a continuum of support for care experienced youth, there is a provision of aftercare in the country. Child Protection System and Alternative Care in India have become more structured with relevant laws and policies in place, which guide the service delivery mechanisms to rehabilitate children in vulnerable circumstances, and those separated from their birth parents. In the recent…
Background:
Children in foster care constitute a risk population for developing symptoms of attachment disorders. However, little is known about the longitudinal course of attachment disorders and their association with attachment security in foster children.
Method:
This longitudinal study assessed attachment disorder symptoms in a sample of foster children (n = 55) aged 12 to 82 months. Foster parents with a newly placed foster child were assessed at three points during the first year of placement. At all assessment points, the Disturbance of Attachment Interview (…
Abstract:
New research shows that children exposed to early psychosocial deprivation benefit substantially from family-based care. The results were presented by senior author Kathryn L. Humphreys, PhD, at the 2023 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. Results of research from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, the first randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional (orphanage) care, showed that the positive effects of foster care last more than two decades.
Abstract:
Practising self-care is vital for foster carers to cope with the stresses of the caring role, provide the best care possible and continue in their task. This current study contributes to emerging research on the self-care practices of foster carers in Australia and worldwide. It used an exploratory design, surveying 148 foster carers about their self-care and conducting individual, semi-structured interviews enabling nine of them to elaborate on their self-care experiences.
he results indicate that while the participants sometimes engage in self-care and value it as a…
This study aimed to investigate relational outcomes of Italian emancipated foster youth across open-ended reflections about their perceptions of their relationships with the biological and foster family, with partner and peers. A total of 26 Italian emancipated foster youth (19–25 years old) recruited by social services completed a single in-depth interview. A qualitative thematic analysis was selected for this study.
The results revealed two major themes of foster care experience that emerged often simultaneously from the participants’ narration:
(1) Positive Relational Outcomes…
This article presents the development, current status and contemporary challenges of foster care in Poland and Hungary. Both countries, due to their post-socialist tradition, are characterised by the experience of the development of institutionalised foster care during the socialist era, similar consequences of the socio-political transformation of the 1990s and a converging social policy context resulting from membership of the European Union structures for nearly 20 years. The …