Carrie Jefferson Smith

When Moms Are Incarcerated: The Needs of Children, Mothers, and Caregivers

Maternal incarceration increasingly contributes to the number of children placed in kinship care arrangements. The needs of incarcerated women, their children, and the childrens caregivers have historically been dealt with in isolation. Practitioners across substantive areas of corrections, child welfare, and aging must think creatively and collaboratively about ways to positively assist these families. This paper examines the needs of children, imprisoned women, and the childrens kinship caregivers from an ecological theoretical perspective. Key findings from evaluation studies of programs designed to strengthen families affected by maternal incarceration are discussed. Finally, interventions that increase adaptive exchanges between incarcerated women, their children, and the childrens caregivers are suggested.

Kinship care: Issues in permanency planning

Abstract Kinship care represents one of the newest paradigms in program options in public child welfare services and is one of the fastest growing segments in the child welfare system. This paper assesses the implementation of the goal of permanency planning articulated in the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), with a group of children placed with relatives by the child welfare system at one year of age or less. The paper compares the outcomes of permanency between infants placed with relatives and children placed in foster care in a middle sized urban/rural county in Upstate NY between April 1993 and April 1994, and followed until April 1996. The aim is to assess the viability of the outcome goal of permanency planning for these children, and identify barriers to the achievement of the permanency goal. The strategies used to address the permanency goal will also be discussed in light of the conditions of case closures and in view of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), that emphasizes the outcome of permanency and shortens the time span to achieve this for all children under care. The implications for service delivery are also discussed.

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren: Emerging Program and Policy Issues for the 21st Century

Abstract recent years the issue of “grandparents raising their grandchildren” seems to have leapt into the consciousness of researchers, advocates, service providers, policy analysts and the general public. Current estimates indicate that there are 2.5 million American households headed by grandparents (U. S. Bureau of the Census, 1998). This article explores the development of this issue, seeking to (1) explain why it is capturing the attention of some advocates, researchers and policymakers, (2) identify the challenges for grandparent-headed families and (3) explore public policies and programs emerging from a developing intergenerational agenda directed at assisting such families.

Grandparents raising grandchildren: challenges faced by these growing numbers of families and effective policy solutions.

Carrie Jefferson Smith has taught the graduate-level family and child policy course in the Syracuse University School of Social Work for the last four years. She has over 17 years of experience in child welfare in the areas of child protective services and foster care. She is currently the co-investigator on a study assessing the impact of augmented services to grandparent and relative caregivers in achieving permanency for children in foster care. Ana Beltran is Project Director of Generations United’s national project to support Grandparents and Other Relatives Raising Children. Among the project’s objectives are educating Capitol Hill, the Federal agencies, and state and local policymakers about the issue of grandparents and other relatives raising children and these families’ needs for a continuum of supportive public policies and programs. Ms. Smith may be contacted at Syracuse University, School of Social Work, 307 Sims Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-1230 (E-mail: cjsmith@social.syr.edu). Ms. Beltran may be contacted at Generations United, 440 First Street, N.W., Suite 480, Washington, DC 20001 (E-mail: anab@cwla.org).

KinNet:A Demonstration Project for a National Support Network for Kinship Care Providers.

Summary The KinNET project came into existence because of the need to support a growing number of grandparents and other relatives providing care for children within the foster care system. It was a demonstration project funded by the Childrens Bureau designed to create a national network of support groups for older relatives mostly grandparentscaring for children in and associated with the foster care system. Grandparents and other relatives are an invaluable resource to the child welfare system. However, these caregivers are also an overburdened population that needs creative and supportive interventions to enhance their capacity to provide quality care and reduce the risks to the children. In this intervention the support group approach was tested (a replication of the Brookdale Foundation model with project management from Generations United). Support groups often provide kinship caregivers with access to important emotional and community support, information and referral, relaxation, and respite. This article briefly describes the project, a profile of the caregivers (n = 102) and the children in their care (n = 226), and highlights from the survey data. In addition, we discuss the three key lessons learned from the project and make recommendations to better serve this population.

Kinship Caregivers: Health and Burden

Grandparents and other relatives are raising more than seven million children in kinship care households in the United States. Kinship caregivers are increasingly sought out to provide care for children as a mechanism for preventing children from entering the formal foster care system. Kinship caregivers who were participants in the KinNET program were surveyed to assess their level of perceived burden, health, and experience in support groups. Satisfaction was high for the support groups and facilitators. The independent variables in the model account for 43% of the variability in the caregivers burden score. The effect of the number of hours of care provided is negligible in magnitude and statistically insignificant.

WHAT'S IN A LABEL? HELPING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS BECOME FAMILIAR WITH THE DSM IN PREPARATION FOR THEIR SENIOR YEAR FIELDWORK PRACTICA1

This paper explores the development of an undergraduate course module devoted to the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). The skills-based course in which this module is presented is focused on helping junior year BSW students to prepare for their senior year fieldwork practica. Students enrolled in this course between 1998 and 2000 were surveyed. The results indicate that the respondents found the course module to be helpful not only in preparing them for their senior year fieldwork practica but also in their post-BSW employment and MSW programs as well. An excerpt from the module is included as an appendix.

A Retrospective Look at the Experience of Parental Incarceration and Family Reentry During Adolescence

ABSTRACT Few studies provide firsthand experiences of parental incarceration in adolescents’ own voices. Fourteen young men and women retrospectively shared their experiences of parental incarceration and family reentry during adolescence. Individual interviews focused on the following qualitative research questions: (1) What is the experience of parental incarceration and reentry for adolescents? (2) How does the child–parent relationship change from pre- to postincarceration? Relationships with incarcerated parents tended toward estrangement. Negative emotions and need for emotional support were predominant in the sample. Findings have implications for improving mental health services for children and families, trauma work, and policy interventions across services.

Kinship care and issues in permanency planning

ABSTRACT Kinship caregivers are a child-care resource for families experiencing stress or temporary parenting due to illness, incarceration, or death of a parent. This article examines whether and how felt caregiver burden influences the reported propensity of caregivers to want to adopt the children in their care. Kinship caregivers who were enrolled in KinNET completed the survey (N = 102) and the data were entered anonymously into SPSS for analysis. Their mean age was 57.51 years (SD = 10.13), 95% were female (SD = .19), and two-thirds were non-white (SD = .73). Using “likelihood of adopting the child in my care,” as the outcome variable in the linear regression analysis, caregiver’s age, monthly income, and total hours employed were significant predictors. Total pressures, family service needs, and physical problems scales were not statistically significant predictors. The adjusted R square was .439 and significant (.006). Understanding the factors that are predictive of adopting children in kinship care will help programs target services more effectively. Helping kinship caregivers and the children in their care is also important in promoting their health and social well-being.

Commentary: Mandatory reporting for child protection in health settings and the rights of parents with disabilities.

This commentary considers the intersection of mandatory reporting in health settings and the public child protection systems treatment of parents with disabilities. Its impetus is the August 2015 technical assistance document issued jointly by the U.S. departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) that affirms the applicability of the ADA and Section 504 to child protection system (CPS) processes. The DOJ/HHS document speaks to actions of state child protection agencies and courts, without addressing the first step, mandatory reporting. Nonetheless, there are implications for how mandated reporters understand child risk in the presence of disability, and health settings are one venue where mandated reports initiate. This commentary seeks to provide medical professionals with greater understanding of the CPS process and its intersection with disability rights. It concludes that mandatory reporter training must include ADA principles for addressing disability so parents are not unnecessarily reported for investigation.