Placement stability among children in kinship and non-kinship foster placements across multiple placements

Abstract

The child welfare system has focused on kinship placements, which have been found to protect against disruption. However, the existing literature has primarily studied time to disruption for a single disruption despite the fact that many children have multiple placements while in care. The current study used survival analysis to investigate whether the type of placement (kin versus non-kin) related to time to placement disruption across up to four placements. Participants included 447 youth aged 5–15 years (M = 9.94, SD = 2.40; 50.8% female) from a larger project examining the outcomes of a family finding intervention. Using survival analysis, we examined the role of a kinship placement on placement disruptions across up to four placements while controlling for demographics, externalizing behaviors upon entry into care, treatment group (family finding versus control), and kin involvement outside of the placement. Results revealed that kin placements contributed to fewer disruptions across the first three placements. Findings align with policies prioritizing kin placements and suggest that the benefits of kinship care hold even for later disruptions. Thus, caseworkers should continue to consider kinship care, even if prior kin placements have disrupted.