Predictors of child well-being: The impact of relative caregiver and permanent placement type on children in foster care

Child welfare services and the foster care system have changed in the past 30 years, and greater numbers of families are currently at higher risk of child abuse and neglect than in the past. Legal guardianship has recently been identified as an alternative permanent placement option to support the growing numbers of kinship caregivers who are caring for children in state custody.;Using the framework of kinship and attachment theories, this research investigated differences between kinship foster caregivers and non-relative foster caregivers and examined whether child well-being differed by caregiver type and permanency placement type. In addition, child and caregiver characteristics that predict caregiver and permanency type were assessed.;The study entailed a secondary analysis of data from the National Study of Child and Adolescent Wellbeing (NSCAW), a federal dataset that is nationally representative, and includes data from children and caregivers who are involved with the child welfare system. In addition to the sample of children under age 11 in the NSCAW dataset, the subpopulations of children living in out-of-home care (n=1031) and permanent placements other than reunification (n=432) were analyzed.;These analyses indicated that females were more likely to live in kinship foster care than males and minority children were less likely than Caucasian children to live in an adoptive placement. Kinship caregivers were more likely than nonrelative foster caregivers to be older than 35, and have less than a high school education. Adoptive caregivers were more likely than subsidized guardians to be Caucasian.;The analysis of wellbeing found the odds of children in kinship foster care having severe scores on behavior and/or adaptive indices were significantly lower than for children in other out-of-home placements. Young children were more likely to have severe developmental/educational needs when compared to children age 5-10.;These study results suggest a critical need for further research on the well-being of young children in foster care, and continued exploration of broad child health outcomes in temporary caregiver and permanent placement settings in order to ensure that children are able to access the behavioral/emotional supports, mental health services, and developmental interventions essential to achieving true well-being.