Kith and kin care: parental attitudes and resources of foster and relative caregivers

Abstract

Children in the custody of local child welfare systems are increasingly placed with relatives, rather than in traditional foster care. Scholars and practitioners have called for an examination of these care environments, as a step toward determining how beneficial they are to children in out of home placement. The present study compared a group of traditional ( n=51) and kinship ( n=50) foster parents in four domains: (1) parenting attitudes; (2) social resources; (3) economic resources; and (4) health. The caregivers were interviewed in their homes, via a standardized parenting questionnaire and a background questionnaire designed for this study. Kinship care providers endorsed more problematic parental attitudes than traditional foster parents did (i.e. less warmth/respect, more parent-child conflict/anger, more strictness/overprotectiveness). Because kinship parents were found to be older than traditional foster parents in this study, differences between the two groups on parenting attitudes were examined controlling for age. These analyses resulted in non-significant differences between the two groups on parenting. However, even when controlling for age, kinship care providers reported that they have fewer economic and social resources, and poorer health than traditional foster parents reported. These results are considered in terms of the literature on the quality of family contexts and its relation to child outcomes. The implications of these findings for child welfare practice are also discussed.