Displaying 1 - 10 of 15
Abstract
This study followed PRISMA guidelines to conduct a systematic review of literature published from 2002 to 2022 to assess the differences in outcomes of children and youth who were adopted out of foster care compared to children and youth in foster care (CYFC) who were in other permanency placements (reunified, aged out, long-term foster care). The search was carried out from May 27, 2022…
Background
Mentoring, specifically peer mentoring, emerged in the child welfare setting in the early 2000s. Peer parent programs provide child welfare involved families a unique opportunity to connect with parents that have successfully navigated the child welfare system and who share similar lived experiences. No …
Overview
A Special Guardianship Order (SGO) gives one or more individuals, usually family members, parental responsibility for a child who cannot live with their birth parents. Although the making of an SGO enables the person who holds the Order to exercise that responsibility ‘to the exclusion of all others’, the basic legal link between the child and their birth parents is preserved.
In the development of the policy framework for SGOs, there was a strong focus on people who were already caring for children – family members or foster carers in particular. However, they are now most…
Abstract
Many foster youth do not exit care for a permanency option and remain in foster care until they age out or are emancipated. Research findings have described the alarming circumstances of these former foster children’s adaptation to emerging adulthood. Public policy over the past three decades has sought various means of improving outcomes for these former foster youth. This review examines the legislative history leading up to extended care, the research on youth leaving foster care, youth preferences for extended care, the competition of extended care with…
Historically, adopted children would have no contact with their birth family, indeed this was seen as a virtue. This creates problems of identity for the child. For both the child and the birth family there are issues of ambiguous loss: the significant other is absent yet perhaps present somewhere in the world. For adoptive parents, answering children’s questions, especially the question ‘why was I adopted’, is hard when you have little knowledge, if any, of birth parents.
When children are adopted from the care system staying in touch with members of their birth families must be…
Abstract
Foster care is the preferred type of out-of-home placement for children and youth when they are not able to live with their own parents. However, placement instability, and its effect on children's behavioral well-being, remains a major issue in foster care. Ten multilevel meta-analyses were performed to examine factors that can affect instability of foster care placement. We included 42 studies (published between 1990 and 2017) examining putative factors associated with placement instability, which yielded 293 effect sizes. Indications of publication bias were…
Abstract
The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize the effects of interagency and cross-system collaboration aimed to improve child welfare-involved children and family outcomes related to safety, permanency, and well-being. We conducted a comprehensive search to identify studies that evaluated interagency/cross-system child welfare collaborations, resulting in 11 studies selected for inclusion. The analysis included narrative and meta-analysis approaches. All selected studies focused on substance use; our search criteria did not identify any interagency collaborations related…
This paper explores the diversity of U.S. state policies and practices for teens in foster care in two potentially competing areas: teens’ need for a permanent connection to a family (either their birth family, or an adoptive or guardian family), and teens’ developmental and practical needs in transitioning to legal adulthood, independence, and self-sufficiency. In the context of these concurrent goals, policies, practices, and programs can serve as incentives or disincentives to pursuing permanency for teens.
Child welfare agencies can use a variety of strategies…
Abstract
There is growing recognition that competent, committed resource parents are a critical component to the effective delivery of foster and adoptive services for teens placed in out-of-home-care. This study implemented a systematic review process to identify the personal characteristics, skills and abilities of successful resource families that maximize foster and adoptive parent retention and maximize placement permanency of teens placed in out of home care. Starting with an extensive search of the literature across the last two decades and outreach to locate studies, the authors…
Abstract
Objective:
Children in out-of-home placements typically display more educational, behavioral, and psychological problems than do their peers. This systematic review evaluated the effect of kinship care placement compared to foster care placement on the safety, permanency, and well-being of children removed from the home for maltreatment.
Methods:
Review authors independently read titles and abstracts identified in the searches, selected appropriate studies, assessed the eligibility of each study, evaluated the methodological quality, and extracted outcome data for meta-…