Associations between child protective services workers’ attitudes toward kinship foster care placement, sociodemographic characteristics, and job characteristics

Abstract

ABSTRACT When necessary to separate children from their parents, placing a child with kin leads to better outcomes. Child Protective Services (CPS) staff attitudes toward kinship foster care placements are an understudied factor that may influence decision-making and vary based on staff characteristics. Using February 2023 survey data from 2,861 CPS staff and multivariate linear regression analyses, we assessed associations between staff’s sociodemographic and occupational characteristics and attitudes toward kinship placement. Gender, race, position, work unit, and employment duration with CPS were significantly associated with staff attitudes. Understanding how staff view kinship placement is an important step toward removing barriers to its use.