Measuring Parent Engagement in Foster Care

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Today, child welfare agencies widely endorse a family-centered approach to foster care casework. This approach centers on a collaborative parent-caseworker relationship as a mechanism for maintaining parents' engagement in services and presumes that continued engagement will propel parents toward reunification. However, despite the importance of engaging parents, parents of in foster care are understudied. The existing literature offers little insight into parents' experiences of the foster care process, and even less in terms of quantitative analysis of parent engagement. The present study addresses this research gap by testing a new measure of parent engagement. The 46 parents of in foster care in the study sample were mostly female, either black or Hispanic, and at the time of study had an average open case length of 30 months. The piloted measure showed good reliability. Results suggest that parent engagement is significantly negatively related to distance from the parent's home to the child welfare agency and length of time the parent spent working with his or her longest running caseworker. Implications for further measure development and directions for future research on parents of in foster care are presented. KEY WORDS: engagement; family-centered practice; foster care; parents; reunification ********** According to the most recent federal estimates, there are approximately 510,000 in foster care in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2008).The majority of these have been removed from their caregivers (normally, parents) because of abuse or neglect, and parents must prove a certain level of competence to reclaim their from state custody. In fiscal year 2006, approximately 49% of these had a case goal of reunification (HHS, 2008). This means that in approximately half of foster care cases, child welfare workers were, to some extent, working with parents, children, foster parents, and service providers toward returning foster to safe and stable home environments with the individuals from whom they were removed. Today, child welfare agencies widely endorse a family-centered approach to foster care service delivery. This approach is based on the concept that an empowering, strengths-based parent-caseworker relationship is central to maintaining parents' engagement in services and the belief that continued engagement will propel parents toward success (that is, reunification; for example, Maluccio, 1981; Zamosky, Sparks, Hatt, & Sharman, 1993). However, despite the importance of engaging parents, parents of in foster care are understudied. The current literature offers little in terms of insight into parents' experiences in the foster care process and even less in terms of quantitative analysis of parent engagement. The present study attempts to flU this gap in the research by testing a new measure of parent engagement. BACKGROUND Family-centered Practice Social work theorists and researchers note that family-centered practice involves for parents, listening to and addressing their concerns, focusing on strengths, and helping them stay emotionally connected to their children (Petr & Entriken, 1995, p. 528);breaking down the power differential between client and worker (Forrest, 2003); and communicating empathy and concern for all family members, while clarifying expectations and gently asserting authority (DePanfflis, 2000). Caseworkers must be willing to take into account parents' perspectives. They must respect and incorporate parents' knowledge about their own families and develop service plans, in partnership with parents, on the basis of parents' personal goals. The approach manifests in frontline foster care casework in a variety of ways (for example, Dawson & Berry, 2002; Petras, Massat, & Essex, 2002). …