For generations, relatives and close family friends have come together in times of crisis, stepping up to care for children when parents cannot, in arrangements often referred to as kinship care. Millions of children in the U.S. live in kinship care, which helps maintain important connections to relatives, community, culture and all that is familiar, leading to a greater sense of stability and belonging.
Typically, these arrangements are created privately by individual families in ways that address short- and long-term needs. Sometimes, however, they are arranged by a child welfare agency — and in those cases, our new survey shows, a patchwork of inconsistent state policies leaves kin caregivers without the resources and support they need to take care of their extended family members.
When child welfare agencies arrange for kinship care within the foster care system, agencies can approve kin as foster parents, and some kinship foster parents are fully licensed. When facilitated outside of foster care, this practice is often referred to as kinship diversion — an attempt to address child safety concerns while staving off court-ordered removal and placement into foster care.
An estimated 100,000 to 300,000 children are placed in diversion arrangements each year. And when policies and practices are in place to ensure all parties are informed, protected and resourced, these diversions can have tremendous benefits for children and families.
But our national survey, conducted by Child Trends and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, shows that state policies on kinship diversion and the child welfare agencies commissioned to uphold those policies are falling short. Insufficient oversight and accountability over how child welfare agencies call on kin can result in parents’ rights being trampled, children’s safety being compromised and the good intentions of family members being exploited.
New Insights on State Kinship Diversion Policies, a brief released by the foundation in a series called Family Ties: Analysis From a State-By-State Survey of Kinship Care Policies, shows that policies vary widely from state to state — with big policy gaps in many states.
For instance, although diversion arrangements should be authorized by the parents, agency officials make the final decision in a quarter of states. This raises major concerns of due process, particularly when these arrangements could last weeks, months or even be open-ended. Policies should ensure parents are not coerced into placing their child with someone but are instead informed of options that can best serve their family. Moreover, parents who have not formally entered the child welfare system often lack access to legal counsel who can connect them with the services and support they need to reunite with their children.
The survey also shows a lack of consistency in the services and support given to caregivers participating in kinship diversion. A new federal rule makes it clear that all licensed kinship foster parents must have the same financial support as non-relative foster parents in every single state. For families in diversion arrangements, only a quarter of state child welfare agencies provide any financial support outside of what is available to kinship caregivers who are not involved with — or monitored by — a child welfare agency. Beyond money, the survey revealed that every single service was more likely to be provided to those kin who were foster parents rather than kinship caregivers of children in diversion arrangements.
When states use kinship diversion to not only provide stability and care for children but also cut the costs of state care, they need to adequately direct money to ensure caregivers have resources and support. Policies offering inadequate support for kinship diversion create a false dilemma for families — choose foster care with support or kinship diversion without it — and children suffer either way.
It is encouraging to see federal and state policy increasingly acknowledge and support the vital role of kinship care, including new opportunities to provide prevention services to kin and to streamline foster home licensing for kinship caregivers. Now is the time to build on that progress and for states to take full stock of how they engage in kinship diversion to ensure kinship caregivers — as well as the parents and children in diversion arrangements — have the resources and decision-making power they need.
Disclosure: The Annie E. Casey Foundation is one of the funders of Fostering Media Connections, The Imprint’s parent nonprofit company.Per our editorial independence policy, the organization had no editorial rolein our news coverage.
