Paper
Issues on present and future of kinship foster care
- issue: Issue 1 / 2009
- authors: Carme Monserrat Boada
- keywords: Spain, foster care, children, protection
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- downloaded: 1
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abstract
Background. This paper summarises the findings of research that was developed with the support of City Council of Barcelona and the Institute of Research on Quality of Life in the University of Girona. The general objective was to gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of the kinship foster care phenomenon within child protection system. It refers to out-of-home care provided by relatives (grandparents, uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins) to children in the custody of the State.
Kinship foster care has acquired increasing importance in the last years within the child protection systems throughout Western Europe and North America. In Spain (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2003), 48% of all children in legal custody had been placed in residential homes and 52% in family foster care (relative and non relative). Although the percentage of foster children in kinship homes is much higher (85%) than that of children in non-relative foster homes (15%), the scientific research on this phenomenon is still scarce and recent.
Purpose. The research was carried out gathering the points of view of the three main stakeholders: kinship carers, children placed in extended family and practitioners of child protection services. It includes:
- characteristics of children in kinship foster care, their parents, their kinship carers and practitioners involved in Barcelona;
- the perceptions, evaluations, expectations and satisfaction referred to kinship care of the main stakeholders involved in this phenomenon.
The study has been undertaken with a methodology of mixed design, gathering quantitative and qualitative data. The instrument designed for collecting quantitative data was a questionnaire that included (i) items to describe the characteristics of carers, children and practitioners involved, and (ii) items about perceptions, expectations and satisfaction according to the above seven objectives. All these items were measured by means of a 5-point Likert scale, value 1 meaning very little and 5 very much. There were three targeted questionnaires - for the children, the caregivers and the practitioners - aiming for equivalence of the items for the 3 samples. The questionnaires were returned in March 2004, and we repeated the survey with the subjects of the 3 samples and with the same items in March 2005.
The qualitative data collection considered different procedures: (a) a few items in the questionnaire with open questions were included, (b) data collection by systematic observation of six caregiver support groups throughout a year in 6 districts of the city of Barcelona, and (c) six caregiver focus groups.
We used the entire population. We worked with 9 of the 10 districts of Barcelona city and with 10 of the 11 child protection teams (EAIA). The questionnaires were returned: (i) by 161 caregivers who reported on their placement and that of 162 children; (ii) by 38 practitioners who reported on the situation of the 161 caregivers and that of 162 children; (iii) by 72 of the 162 children (only children ages 8 and above were asked). Between 2004 and 2005, a total of 451 questionnaires were collected.
Key findings. About the characteristics of the main stakeholders, our findings are similar to those in Europe and North America studies: grandparents are the most frequent kinship caregivers (73.5%), followed by aunts and uncles (18%). There are more women than men, and their average age is 56.7 years (=12,745). Half of the children are placed with relatives since their birth or first months (50%) and most of them live with their maternal grandparents (a quarter part of the sample). Most kinship care placements (73.5%) consist of only one child, with from two to four people living together at home. Nearly one half (43.6%) of carers are single parents, mostly single women, who tend to be older than caregivers who are a couple, and with significantly more adolescents in their care (c22=7.710; p=0.021). In most placements (87.1%) parents do not live with the caregivers and the child. The reason for placement in out-of-home care is often parental substance abuse, including alcoholism. In one third of the families, one of the parents or both have died. The number of unknown fathers is also relevant (11%). Children and youth in kinship foster care are more often placed because of neglect than due to physical or sexual abuse.
Up to half of children in kinship care receive no visits from their parents. Half of the visits take place with the caretakers present and most of the others occurred without any supervision.
The average age of EAIA practitioners is 41.9 years (=6.227). They have been working in the field of child welfare for an average of 7.1 years (=4.449), and women (86.5%) are more represented than men.
About the perceptions, evaluations, expectations and satisfaction referred to kinship care, some findings about kinship care suggest positive aspects for a child's well-being. These may be summarized as follows:
a.children, caregivers and practitioners in our sample tend to report the relationship between the child and the carer as positive, and these results are significantly more positive than for the relationship to parents.
b. Examination of findings also reveals differences between assessments in several domains: for example, children's health and social relationships are reported to be more positive than their school learning, with statistically significant results.
c. We have found that children have positive views on their care and about don't want to be removed.
d. Kinship caregivers seldom say that they feel isolated or fatigue, whereas although practitioners identify those feelings in them to a higher degree. On the other hand, caregivers and workers hardly differ in considering the support provided to carers as moderate.
e. There is a general perception that a breakdown in placement is not very likely.
f. Another positive results are the stability and permanence of this placement resource.
g. We've found that children and caregivers both report a high level of satisfaction with the fostering situation within the extended family.
h. The quite high children's satisfaction with life as a whole and satisfaction with different domains in life is similar to the normative answers in Catalan adolescent population.
Nevertheless results also show some weaknesses of kinship care that suggest a few issues for discussion with an aim to avoiding future breakdowns in this resource:
a. The lowest rates are to be found in the cases that kinship care is with adolescents, with carers above the age of 66 and with single carers, issues that would have to be considered for the implications for policy and practice.
b. The issue of visits between parents and their children placed in kinship care should be given careful thought due to the many difficulties that arise. This issue requires improvements for practice and policy in two directions:
- Practitioners, parents, kin and child should be involved in discussing the problems posed by visits and plan the solution in a shared decision-making process.
- Supervised visits will be necessary in some cases when parents could be a danger.
c. Carers and practitioners agree on the importance of making changes in legal issues: they say that carers have only a few legal rights as carers in issues concerning the child and the many responsibilities they undertake; on the contrary, the State holds all the rights. They also include the need for clearer written information about these legal matters. Furthermore, their proposals for improvement for financial support to kinship care are also alike. Finally the proposals for social, psychological and educational support, applying flexible criteria because of the heterogeneous nature of the group, and the need for specific training for carers and practitioners in kinship care. The absence of effective social, financial, educational and psychological support and training would increase the likelihood of kinship care success.
Finally, researchers must keep studying to gain further knowledge in this field. In Spain it would be necessary to promote a population study on substitute placement resources - mainly kinship care, residential homes and family foster care - to know their current situation; their characteristics and their outcomes, strengths and breakdowns. In addition we must work towards standardized measurements for kinship care being available.
By listening to children, carers and practitioners, findings primarily suggest positive aspects for a child's well-being. Furthermore, it seems that child welfare services will continue to rely on extended families to act as foster parents; but services cannot be trusted solely on kin's goodwill and motivation if we consider the rapid demographic changes in family behaviours and composition, employment patterns and other population shifts. Kinship foster care, due to their needs and salient characteristics, has to receive a great deal of attention in both child welfare services and research communities. In this sense it is necessary to design social policies in order to support children in kinship foster care to assuring their quality of life.
Key references
Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales (2003). Situación general de las medidas de protección a la infancia. Madrid: Dirección General de las Familias y la Infancia. Available at http://www.mtas.es/SGAS/FamiliaInfanc.htm.
Montserrat, C. (2006). Acogimiento en familia extensa: un estudio desde la perspectiva de los acogedores, de los niños y niñas acogidos y de los profesionales que intervienen. Intervención psicosocial, 15(2), 203-221.
Montserrat, C. & Casas, F. (2006). Kinship foster care from the perspective of quality of life: Research on the satisfaction of the stakeholders. Applied Research in quality of life, 1(3-4), 227-237.
Contacts: Carme Montserrat Boada, Ph. D. Professor associated of Department of Psychology, University of Girona (Spain), C/ de la Creu 2. University of Girona. 17071 Girona (Spain), E-mail: carme.montserrat@udg.edu, Phone +34 636439927.