Washington, DC — Federal and state policies give preference to relatives as foster parents to care for children taken into state custody. Increasingly, however, states are using relatives to care for abused and neglected children to avoid having to take children into custody, according to a new Child Trends study, State Kinship Care Policies for Children that Come to the Attention of Child Welfare Agencies: Findings from the 2007 Casey Kinship Foster Care Policy Survey. When children are not taken into state custody, child welfare agencies offer significantly less financial and other assistance.
The study summarizes key findings from the most recent survey of states’ kinship care policies. Among the findings:
The survey reveals that there is a lack of consensus among states about how and when to rely on relatives to care for abused and neglected children and the appropriate level of financial assistance, support services, and supervision to give to children and kin. Tiffany Allen, the lead author of the report, notes that “states’ kinship care policies and practices may change significantly as a result of new federal legislation (The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act) that requires states to notify all relatives when children are removed from their parents’ homes and to inform relatives of their option of becoming a foster parent and the additional services and supports that are available if they choose this option.”
The study was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, headquartered in Baltimore, MD, and Casey Family Programs, headquartered in Seattle, WA.
Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center that studies children at all stages of development. Its mission is to improve outcomes for children by providing research, data, and analysis to the people and institutions whose decisions and actions affect children.
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