Report to the Congress on Kinship Foster Care. The Extent to Which Children in Foster CARE are Placed with Relatives

In 1998, approximately 2.13 million children in the United States (or just under 3 percent) were living with relatives without a parent present (U.S. Census Bureau, 1998).⁵ Between 1983–1985 and 1992–1993, the number of children in such arrangements grew slightly faster than the number of children in the United States as a whole (8.4 percent vs. 6.6 percent) (Harden, Clark, and Maguire, 1997).⁶ Many researchers have claimed that social ills such as increased homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, juvenile delinquency, AIDS, and child abuse and neglect placed great pressure on the nuclear family during this period and help explain the increase (Hornby and Zeller, 1995; Spar, 1993). Since 1994, however, both the number and the percentage of children in kinship care have decreased. ⁷

• Public Kinship Care

  • Although data are limited, it appears that in 1997, approximately 200,000 children were in the care of foster parents who were related to them (Geen and Clark, 1999).⁸ Table 1 provides data from 39 States on the number of children in public kinship care on March 31, 1998. Among these States, public kinship care accounted for 29 percent of all children in foster care and 37 percent of children placed in family foster care (as opposed to group homes or institutional care). However, the use of kin as foster parents varies greatly. In 11 of the States providing data, public kinship care accounted for less than one-tenth of all children in foster care, while in four States it accounted for more than one-third. Several of the largest States (California, Florida, Illinois, and New York) used kin as foster parents at relatively high rates and account for almost half of all children in public kinship care (97,504 children).

    These figures include only children in State custody. States have not maintained data on the number of relatives who voluntarily care for children who have been reported as abused or neglected. However, data from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) suggest that such voluntary placements are quite common.⁹ In 1997, social services agencies helped arrange for over 283,000 children to live with relatives outside of the foster care system.

    Because States’ data are scarce, it is difficult to estimate how fast public kinship care has increased—but available evidence suggests that it increased substantially during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the 25 States that do have data, the proportion of children in public kinship care increased from 18 to 31 percent between 1986 and 1990 (see Table 2). Three States (California, Illinois, and New York) accounted for most of this growth. Additional data from these States show that the trend continued through 1993.¹⁰ As for the nation as a whole, 37 of 50 States responding to a 1997 Urban Institute survey said that their use of public kinship care increased somewhat (23) or significantly (14) over the past three years (Boots and Geen, 1998).

    Table 1. Children in Public Kinship Care on March 31, 1998

    State	Number	As a Percentage of All Childr of All Children in Foster Care	As a Percentage of All Childr of All Children in FosterFamilies
    Total	132,122	29	37
    Total of California, Florida, Illinois, New York	97,504	42	52
    Alabama	600	13	19
    Alaska*	218	16	33
    Arizona	1,842	24	36
    Arkansas	223	8	11
    California	48,485	48	55
    Colorado	768	9	14
    Connecticut	1,463	24	31
    Delaware	184	14	18
    Florida	10,799	46	54
    Georgia	2,562	23	30
    Hawaii	856	35	40
    Idaho	81	10	12
    Illinois	25,563	50	59
    Kansas	62	9	13
    Kentucky	165	4	5
    Louisiana	647	10	14
    Maine	155	5	8
    Maryland	3,058	26	32
    Massachusetts†	1,929	14	22
    Mississippi	434	16	28
    Missouri	2,981	25	37
    Montana	361	19	22
    New Jersey	212	2	3
    New Mexico	254	23	28
    New York	12,657	25	30
    North Carolina	1,784	17	25
    North Dakota	83	8	12
    Ohio	1,905	13	16
    Oklahoma	1,495	24	33
    Oregon	1,797	26	30
    Pennsylvania	2,084	10	13
    South Carolina	136	4	6
    Texas	2,080	12	21
    Utah	26	1	2
    Vermont	135	10	16
    Washington	2,828	28	31
    West Virginia	129	5	7
    Wisconsin	568	6	7
    Wyoming	247	25	39

    Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services analysis of data from the Adoption and Foster

    Care Analysis and Reporting System, 1998.

    *Children in care as of September 30, 1997 (updated data are not available).

    †Children in care as of September 30, 1997 (only limited updates are available).

• Factors Contributing to Increased Use of Public Kinship Care

  • States’ increasing use of kin as foster parents is largely due to three changes in their child welfare systems. First, the number of non-kin foster parents has not kept pace with the number of children requiring care. Between 1985 and 1990, the number of children in foster care increased by 47 percent, while the number of available foster families decreased by 27 percent (Spar, 1993). Experts have identified a variety of reasons for this decline, including an increasingly negative public image of foster care, more working women, and high rates of burnout among foster parents, who feel overburdened and underserved by child welfare agencies (Spar, 1993). Moreover, many foster parents have been unwilling to care for the growing number of young children who have been exposed prenatally to drugs or alcohol or who have other special needs (Johnson, 1994).

    The second factor contributing to the increase in public kinship care has been a shift in the attitude of child welfare agencies toward more family-centered services. Advocates of kinship care argue that children fare better in their own families and that kin should be given priority when children require placement. Since children are more likely to be familiar with a kin caregiver, many experts suggest that these placements may be less traumatic and disruptive for children than placements with non-kin (Gleeson and Craig, 1994; Johnson, 1994; Zwas, 1993). In addition, experts argue that kinship care provides the best opportunity for a child to maintain a sense of family identity, self-esteem, social status, community ties, and continuity of family relationships (Dore and Kennedy, 1981; Laird, 1979; Pecora et al., 1992).

    Table 2. Children in Public Kinship Care in 25 States, 1986–1990

    Fiscal States and Illinois Year	All States (%)	All States Except California, New York and Illinois (%)
    986	18	12
    987	22	13
    988	25	14
    989	28	17
    990	31	18

    Source: Kusserow, 1992.

    Third, a number of court rulings have encouraged the use of kin as foster parents (see Chapter 2). In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled that kin are entitled to receive the same Federal financial support for foster care as non-kin foster parents.¹¹ In 1989, the ninth Circuit Court found that children have a constitutional right to associate with relatives and that States’ failure to use kin as foster parents denies them that right.¹² In addition, a number of States have faced class-action lawsuits that resulted in settlements that increased the financial support and services offered to public kinship caregivers.

View full report

Download

"full.pdf" (pdf, 680.86Kb)

Note: Documents in PDF format require the Adobe Acrobat Reader®. If you experience problems with PDF documents, please download the latest version of the Reader®