Advocating For Children In Foster And Kinship Care

This book is the first to provide strategies for effective advocacy and placement within the foster care and kinship care systems. It also takes a rare look at the dynamics of the foster and kinship relationship, not just among children and the agency workers and service providers who intervene on their behalf, but also between children and those who take in and care for them as permanency develops. Drawing on their experience interacting with and writing about the institution of foster care, Mitchell Rosenwald and Beth N. Riley have composed a unique text that helps practitioners, foster parents, and relative caregivers realize successful transitions for youth, especially considering the traumas these children may suffer both before and after placement. Advocating for a child's best interests must begin early and remain consistent throughout assignment and adjustment. For practitioners, Rosenwald and Riley emphasize the best techniques for assessing a family's capabilities and for guiding families through the challenges of foster care. Part one details the steps potential foster parents and kinship caregivers must take, with the assistance of practitioners, to prepare themselves for placement. Part two describes tactics for successful advocacy within the court system, social service agencies, schools, and the medical and mental health establishments. Part three describes how to lobby for change at the agency and legislative levels, as well as within a given community. The authors illustrate recommendations through real-life scenarios and devote an entire chapter to brokering positive partnerships among practitioners, families, and other teams working to protect and transition children.

KINSHIP FOSTER CARE: POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH assembles the thinking and research of experts from several professional fields concerning what has become the fastest growing type of substitute care for children in state custody. The editors have contributed the initial and concluding chapters of the book and the lead chapter in each of its three sections.

First published in 1999, this work draws together a multi-national collection of papers, and aims to stimulate the development of policy and practice in this often neglected area. It aims to offer examples of good social work practice, informed by relevant theoretical insights; to give a voice to kinship foster carers and young people so that practice can be informed by an understanding of their experience; to share the results of current research; to highlight issues for policy makers; and to place the issues in the wider international context of developing social policy, ideology and social change. There are contributions from the UK, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, the US and New Zealand.

Since the early 1980s, states child welfare agencies' use of relatives as foster parents has grown rapidly, yet little information is available on this practice. This lack of information has made it difficult to evaluate how well kinship care ensures children's safety, promotes permanency in their living situation, and enhances their well-being--three basic goals of the child welfare system. Kinship Care: Making the Most of a Valuable Resource sheds light on this changing issue. Using a study involving focus groups of child welfare workers and kinship caregivers, in addition to interviews with local administrators, advocates, and service providers, the authors describe frontline kinship care practices in today's system. They also examine how and when child welfare agencies use kin as foster parents, how their approach to kinship care differs from traditional foster care, and how kinship care practices vary across states. The book also features the experiences of actual kinship foster parents, their challenges, and their interaction with agencies and the courts. Finally, the book provides recommendations for policy development, worker and caregiver training, and issues for further research.

This book is a witty and intriguing look into the world of foster care through the eyes of a foster parent. It breaks down the expectations and regulations that parents in foster care are faced with, and it touches on the problems in government policy that affect foster children. It does all this while thoroughly entertaining the reader. It is an indispensable resource for anyone considering adoption or foster care and a great read for just about anyone else.

Family members have traditionally provided kinship care for each other in times of crisis. Recently, such care has become part of the child welfare system. This edited volume presents several studies designed to identify current knowledge about kinship care as a child welfare service. Presented in five parts, the book summarizes the current state of knowledge, discusses permanency planning, examines parent-child relationships in kinship foster care, addresses issues related to kin caregivers of children in the custody of the child welfare system, and proposes a research agenda. The chapters are: (1) "Kinship Care as a Child Welfare Service: What Do We Really Know?" (James P. Gleeson); (2) "Defining Best Practice in Kinship Care through Research and Demonstration" (Faith Johnson Bonecutter); (3) "Who Decides? Predicting Caseworkers' Adoption and Guardianship Discussions with Kinship Caregivers" (James P. Gleeson); (4) "Adoption and Subsidized Guardianship as Permanency Options in Kinship Foster Care: Barriers and Facilitating Conditions" (Sally J. Mason and James P. Gleeson); (5) "The Well-Being of Children in Kinship Foster Care" (Sandra J. Altshuler); (6) "Comparing Mothers of Children in Kinship Foster Care: Reunification vs. Remaining in Care" (Marian S. Harris); (7) "Casework Practice with Fathers of Children in Kinship Foster Care" (John M. O'Donnell); (8) "Kinship Care When Parents Are Incarcerated" (Creasie Finney Hairston); (9) "Child-Rearing Perspectives of Grandparent Caregivers" (Olga Osby); (10) "The Effect of Caregiver Preparation and Sense of Control on Adaptation of Kinship Caregivers" (Donna D. Petras); (11) "Caregiver Burden in Kinship Foster Care" (Rocco A. Cimmarusti); and (12) "Future Directions for Research on Kinship Care" (James P. Gleeson and Creasie Finney Hairston). (Each chapter contains references and 34 tables). (KB)