Abstract
Objective
To assess the sociodemographic, health, and mental health of children in different
types of out-of-home placements after investigation by child welfare agencies; to
determine whether there are systematic differences in the children and their caregivers
by type of out-of-home placements; and to provide the first description of these characteristics
in a nationally representative sample for children in informal kinship care after
child welfare involvement.
Methods
Using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW II),
we compared children (0–17.5 years) in formal nonkinship foster care, formal kinship
foster care, and informal kinship care shortly after a child welfare investigation.
All analyses were weighted to reflect the sampling design.
Results
Children in informal kinship care are at comparable risk of having chronic health
conditions and poorer health but are less likely to receive school-based services.
All children in kinship care (formal and informal) are less likely to be reported
to have mental health problems and are more likely to live with older caregivers whose
educational level is low and whose health is reportedly poorer.
Conclusions
Although children in kinship care have health problems similar to children in nonkinship
foster care, they are likely to live in families with fewer economic and educational
resources. This mismatch between need and access has implications for the long-term
well-being of the children who are living in informal kinship arrangements without
system-level support of formal foster care.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
April 5,
2014
Received:
December 2,
2013
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.
