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Children leaving foster care: outcomes of permanency planning
Insights
Permanency planning helps children in foster care achieve stable family reunification. Most children in the study were functioning well in their permanent homes after 12-16 months, highlighting the need for family support services.
Area of Science:
- Child Welfare
- Family Studies
- Social Work
Background:
- Foster care aims to prevent institutional abuse but has inherent challenges.
- Subtle deficiencies and concerns exist within foster care systems.
- Permanency planning emerged as a strategy to ensure child stability.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the outcomes of permanency planning for children in foster care.
- To assess the long-term stability and well-being of children in permanent placements.
- To identify service needs for families involved in the foster care system.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study design.
- Tracking child outcomes in foster care and after reunification/adoption.
- Analysis of placement stability and child functioning.
Main Results:
- Over 50% of children reunified with biological parents.
- Adoption rates differed by race, with more Caucasian children adopted.
- 78% of children remained in permanent placements at 12-16 months post-study.
- Most children demonstrated positive functioning.
- Significant need for services for biological and reunified families.
Conclusions:
- Permanency planning is effective in achieving stable family outcomes for children.
- Support services are crucial for the success of reunified families.
- Considerations for policy include the role of relatives and addressing racial disparities in adoption.
Abstract:
Foster care, created to overcome some of the disadvantages and abuses of institutional care of children, can present its own problems. One problem is overt abuse, but there are other, more subtle, deficiencies and concerns about foster care. In response, the concept of permanency planning has been introduced as a philosophy, a policy, and a technique. It is designed to return every child who enters care to the stability of a family as quickly as possible. This paper presents findings of a longitudinal study of the outcomes of permanency planning. Results show that over half the children returned to their biological parents, that adoptions were more common for Caucasian than black children, that 78% of the children were still in their permanent placements 12-16 months later, that most children were functioning well, and that there was a marked need for services for the families. In addition to the results of the study, the discussion focuses on implications for foster care practice and child welfare policy, including the importance of relatives, the impact of foster care placements, the needs of biological families, and the provision of services and supports for reunified families.