HD71 - Kinship Care in Virginia

  • Published: 1994
  • Author: Department of Social Services
  • Enabling Authority: House Joint Resolution 642 (Regular Session, 1993)

Executive Summary:
Study Charge and Objectives

Kinship care is the provision of full-time parenting care to children by any relative or other person with close personal ties. House Joint Resolution 642 requested the Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) to examine the issue of kinship foster care and ways to provide assistance to kinship caregivers. The resolution asked the department to examine the following issues in the study: impact of substance abuse on the use of kinship care, safety of children, frequency of parental visits, access to needed services, permanency planning (possibly a separate goal for children in kinship care situations), and standards for approval of relative foster homes. The resolution also specifically asked the department to consider the Child Welfare League of America's report on kinship care.

Approach And Scope

The study focused on kin who were receiving monthly payments from local social service agencies for the care of children placed in their home. These caregivers received funds from one of three sources: foster care (either federal Title IV-E or Pool Funds from the Comprehensive Services Act), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC -- federal Title IV-A), or state/local General Relief for "unattached children." VDSS used surveys to collect data from local social service agencies and the three kinship caregiver groups receiving payments from these agencies.

Kinship Care in Virginia

The 1990 census showed that 78,000 households (5%) out of 1,629,490 in the state have minor kin (other than their own children). Though the child population declined, children in kinship care increased 16.5% from 1980. One-fourth of kinship care households were at or below the poverty level, compared to only 8% of all families.

Children in Kinship Care: About 15,000 children residing with kin were receiving financial support from local social services agencies at a point in time in 1993. Over 14,000 children were residing with a relative and receiving AFDC; about 1,000 children with friends or distant relatives were receiving General Relief benefits; and 228 children were in foster care and placed with a relative (about the same as five years ago).

Kinship Caregivers: About 11,000 caregivers were identified for the study, and most caregivers were receiving AFDC. Figure 1 shows the distribution of caregivers by program. Over half of the caregivers were caring for only one kinship child and another one-fourth were caring for two.

Most caregivers responding were women from ages 22 to 82 - mostly aunts for foster care, grandmothers for AFDC, and friends for General Relief. About half the AFDC and General Relief caregivers and one-third of relative foster parents had incomes under $15,000, while one-fourth of foster parents and only one-tenth of AFDC and General Relief caregivers had incomes over $25,000.

Caregivers' major reason for taking a child into their care was wanting to take care of their own relatives. The agency's assistance mattered to 30% of the foster parents, but only to 11% of General Relief caregivers and 12% of AFDC caregivers. Love, enjoyment and concern for the safety and security of the child were important considerations for caregivers:

"Just knowing that they are safe from harm (and) the drug scene that they were exposed to before I got them"

"For the child, love and security of being with family instead of growing up in foster homes with strangers."

Conditions of the parent often caused the children's placement with kin. The following were most frequently specified:

• lack of housing
• inability to provide for other basic needs
• a abuse of drugs
• abuse of alcohol
• incarceration, with the parents in jail, prison or a detention center
• abuse and neglect of children

The survey responses indicated that children who are living with kin as a result of substance abuse presented a more difficult task for caregivers than those who are not.

Financial Support and Other Basic Needs

The caregivers in the study usually receive a monthly payment for the maintenance and care of the child placed in their home. All localities provide payments for foster care and AFDC, but only 32 have a General Relief program for "unattached children." Providers may also receive other assistance to supplement or substitute for monthly payments. Medicaid can cover medical needs of children, and food stamps can supplement the household's income for food. Caregivers may also receive parental child support, social security or supplemental security income for a child.

Kinship foster care providers may receive two to three times as much cash assistance as private kinship care providers. Figure 2 shows the average maximum payment that a kinship caregiver in each group could receive monthly for one child. The difference among the groups increases when a caregiver has more than one child. While foster care payments are on a per child basis and the same across the state, AFDC and General Relief payments are based on three geographic groupings and increase only incrementally for additional children.

All caregiver groups identified insufficient financial assistance as a problem. AFDC and General Relief caregivers found financial problems as the greatest difficulty about caring for the child of a relative or friend, as expressed by some:

"Not enough money. Dental bills alone have been over $1,000. School clothing, food are very expensive. I receive $249 per month which in these days of high food costs (is) nothing. I pay for his health insurance through my work, but I have no dental coverage and that was one area that was terribly neglected in his life."

Not surprisingly, those receiving the lowest monthly payment expressed the most concern about financial assistance and were more likely to use their own resources to meet the children's needs. Major needs were: clothing, school expenses, school activities, healthcare (dental care, eye glasses, health services) and recreation.

Services

If a local agency is involved in a kinship care case, the agency may provide services directly, purchase them for the child or caregiver, or help them locate needed services and provide the referral. In almost every service category, agencies reported providing more services for children in their custody. Overall, agencies reported case management and counseling as the services most commonly provided for all children and caregivers.

Only a small proportion of caregivers reported a need for services, primarily for counseling and child day care. However, the caregivers' responses about their difficulties in caring for the children suggest a possible understatement of the needs. Currently, children in foster care or those designated at risk of entering care are mandated to receive many services, while other children with kinship families are not.

Permanency and Safety for Children

Permanency planning focuses on the long-term situation of children in foster care with the aim of promoting the healthy development of every child through a caring, legally recognized and continuous family. Several widely recognized indicators of permanency planning are: length of stay with caregiver, frequency of parental visitation, and goal or legal status. Over the last 15 years, permanency planning has been a major issue in foster care. For AFDC and General Relief caregivers, these issues have received much less attention because the child's placement is often a private and informal arrangement.

Children's Length of Stay with the Caregiver: Generally, the longer children have been in an alternate placement, the less likely they are to return to a parent. The majority of the caregivers surveyed thought the children were going to stay with them indefinitely.

Parental Visitation: Frequent contact with parent is often a strong indicator of the child's possible return to the family. About one-third of the foster care group reported at least weekly visitation, but many caregivers stated that the children never visit their parents. Caregivers also reported problems 'with parent visits, and some identified visits as upsetting and a safety risk.

Goals for Children: Most agencies consider current foster care goals adequate to address kinship foster care situations. From their perspective, kinship caregivers usually offer a stable, consistent placement when children cannot be with their parents.

Adoption: Many kinship caregivers have considered adopting children in their care, but experienced barriers:

"Mother would not give her consent"

"Can't find father so he can sign papers. It's been four years. Want to adopt very much."

"I could not afford to adopt without getting the ADC of $131 a month I get now."

Guardianship: Florida and other states have instituted "standby guardianship" where apparent facing death can retain some responsibilities as long as possible; then the guardian/custodian takes over as needed. Given HIV/AIDS and other health problems, this is an option that Virginia needs to evaluate as a possibility for families.

Training: Most local departments identified the need for training for both workers and caregivers on such issues as permanency planning with relatives, family dynamics in kinship care, parenting someone else's children, and managing contacts between parents and children.

Foster Home Approval Process: Current VDSS policy requires that families providing kinship foster care meet the standards for all foster homes, but permit the waiver of standard. The waiver process allows the inclusion of more relatives as foster parents.

Recommendations

Virginia should consider appropriate financial assistance, services, safeguards and permanency planning for children in kinship care as part of the state's family preservation efforts. Provision of needed assistance and services can prevent increases in kinship foster care experienced in other states. Specific recommendations to support this are:

1. VDSS should evaluate the low utilization of relatives in kinship foster care. If these numbers are proportionately lower in Virginia than in other states because family and friends agreed to care for these children and thus avoided foster care altogether, then Virginia can concentrate on supporting these strengths. However, if an evaluation reveals that caregivers have not been informed of their options for payments and services, those situations must be remedied.

2. VDSS should work cooperatively with a university to conduct a more in depth assessment of the needs of children in private kinship care and determine the best approaches for meeting needs with the least intrusion into situations which are working well for the children involved.

3. VDSS should develop and distribute an informational packet for kinship care providers explaining possible assistance and services, including how and where to apply. It should also include such information as legal remedies, information on caring for HIV positive children, and local free or low cost resources.

4. VDSS should assess the feasibility and cost of providing additional financial support and services to private kinship caregivers, including:

(a) Modifying the AFDC plan to include an annual school clothing allotment for children in AFDC.

(b) Incorporating into the AFDC plan a special needs supplement for Child Protective Service cases for emergency needs at time of placement, transportation to service appointments, and other services.

(c) Setting aside some Foster Care Prevention funds or new Family Preservation money for direct services to help caregivers secure available services and assistance.

(d) Targeting some child day care funds for kinship caregivers who must work.

5. VDSS should evaluate the need for additional funding to support non-relative care by friends and neighbors, in order to provide a safety net to children through kinship care, and prevent foster care.

6. VDSS should study new permanency options for children who cannot return to a parent such as kinship adoption, open adoption, and "standby guardianship" for ill parents and should evaluate other states' legislation for these areas.

7. State and local departments of social services should develop and provide training for both local social services staff and kinship caregivers on such topics as Family Dynamics in Kinship Care and Permanency Planning with Kin, utilizing existing resources and exploring additional sources.

8. VDSS should analyze the impact of the proposed definition of kinship care used in the report on child protective services, prevention, foster care and adoption policies and, 9necessary, modify child welfare policies.

9. VDSS should examine local agency reports of difficulties in recruiting kinship foster homes due to "red tape" of the foster home approval process to identify and remove barriers to relative placements for children in foster care.

10. VDSS should develop guidelines for emergency placements with kin that will ensure at least minimal safeguards until further assessment can be completed for emergency situations in child protective services.