With their children placed in kinship care, did parents get the services they needed?

Abstract

This secondary analysis involved exclusively parents with children placed in kinship care by a child welfare agency. It examined associations between parents’ receipt of needed services and 6 sets of variables measuring parents’ needs, access to service providers, social structural factors, demographic factors, family resources, and child welfare interventions experienced. The sample of 731 parents was extracted from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II. Data were analyzed using generalized least squares random-effects modeling. Analysis showed an association in positive direction between the percentage of needed services parents received and 4 measures: Medicaid coverage, education, case plan’s specification of needed services, and racial/ethnic homogeneity of parent and child welfare caseworker. Association in negative direction was observed between the outcome and unavailability of services, difficulty accessing services, refusal of services, caseworker engagement perceived by parent, and physical maltreatment. Implications of results include the necessity that caseworkers list in case plans the accurately identified needs of parents for services, along with mandates for those services. Implications also include need for adequate training in building caseworker–parent working alliance and need for sustained focus on reunification.