James P. Gleeson

Kinship care in child welfare: An analysis of states' policies

Abstract Dramatic growth in the number of children placed with their relatives and financially supported with foster care payments by the child welfare system has raised questions about the role of family and the role of government when children are in need of protection from abuse and neglect by their parents. This paper describes a study of states policies on the use of kinship care as a child welfare service. Thirty-two states submitted documents containing their written policies related to kinship care. A description and analysis of these written policies revealed a lack of clarity, a lack of consistency across states and value conflicts regarding policies guiding placement of children with their relatives. The study points to a need to a clearly define the purpose and goals of kinship care as prerequisite to the development of policies and practice guidelines.

Kinship Care and Public Child Welfare: Challenges and Opportunities for Social Work Education.

Abstract The growing practice of arranging and financing “foster placement” of abused and neglected children with relatives provides an opportunity to redefine relationships between extended families and the child welfare system. The dilemmas and possibilities presented by kinship care as a child welfare service challenge schools of social work to provide intellectual leadership and to prepare social workers for changing child welfare practice. The authors ideas concerning responses to this challenge focus on key mandates of the Council on Social Work Educations Curriculum Policy Statement and on five principal curriculum areas in social work education.

How Do Child Welfare Caseworkers Learn

A 1988 survey of 115 child welfare workers suggests that life experience, supervision on the job, self-directed learning projects, agency-sponsored inservice training, formal degree education, and professional continuing education all contribute to acquisition of essential practitioner knowledge and skills. Findings of this study are consistent with findings of research on adult learning and continuing education in the professions and suggest a multi-faceted approach to developing caseworkers for child welfare practice.

Family functioning, parenting style, and child behavior in kin foster care.

Face-to-face interviews with 120 predominantly African American kin caregivers of children in the child welfare system revealed significant associations between family functioning and child behavior problems. Caregivers who reported healthier family functioning tended to report lower levels of behavior problems by the children in their care. Healthier family functioning related to roles and affective involvement were associated with lower levels of child behavior problems, but, surprisingly, less healthy family functioning related to behavior control was also associated with lower levels of child behavior problems. Caregiver ratings of their parenting styles were related to family functioning but not to their ratings of the childs behavioral functioning. Results of this study suggest several implications for child welfare practice and future research.

Engaging Students in Practice Evaluation: Defining and Monitoring Critical Initial Interview Components.

Abstract The social work profession has strived for nearly a century to implement scientific methods to evaluate practice. Evidence indicates, however, that social workers currently do not evaluate their own practice. In this article, the author describes a method of engaging social work students in the evaluation of their own practice. Using this method, students focus on their implementation of the critical components of the initial interview in classroom role plays, field placements, and class assignments. The rationale for this approach is grounded in adult learning theories and the literature on research use by practitioners. An initial interview checklist is presented as one example of a tool for operationally defining initial interview components and for monitoring the implementation of these components.

Substitute care entry: The relationship between race or ethnicity and levels of county organization ☆

OBJECTIVEnPast studies demonstrate a relationship between race and the likelihood of children entering state custody subsequent to a maltreatment investigation. Research also shows that community structural characteristics such as poverty and residential mobility are correlated with entry rates. The combined effect, however, of race and community characteristics on substitute care entry is unclear. We analyzed 3 years of Illinois child welfare administrative and county-level structural data to assess the combined effect of child characteristics and level of community organization on substitute care entry.nnnMETHODSnBased on county indicators of crime, socioeconomic status, residential mobility, and child care burden, a latent profile analysis classified Illinois counties into three levels of social organization (high, moderate, and low). To test the relationship between community and child level predictors of substitute care entry, a dichotomous variable representing substitute care entry was regressed onto county level and individual covariates (child age, race or ethnicity, gender, and allegation). To test the combined relationship of community and individual level characteristics, interactions between county level of organization and race were explored.nnnRESULTSnLike previous studies, results showed that individual factors of race, age, and allegation were associated with the decision to place children in substitute care. Also consistent with past research, they revealed a general trend in which decreasing levels of social organization were associated with relatively higher odds of entry to care. The magnitude of this effect at each level of social organization, however, varied by race, with African American children in disorganized communities experiencing the greatest risk of removal.nnnCONCLUSIONSnThese findings suggest that efforts to understand the decision to place a child in substitute care may need to be community specific. In particular the level of community organization may influence the response of the system to maltreatment investigations. In communities with different characteristics and across racial groups, child welfare systems may need to examine decision making processes regarding childrens removal from parental care.