State officials investigating several cases of abuse of adopted children

By Barbara LaBoe

An alleged child starvation case near Longview is one of more than a dozen cases — including one death — that have state officials reviewing how adopted children are placed and treated.

The number of abuse cases is small compared to all adoptions. But a string of high-profile child starvation cases last year — including one from May accusing Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock of starving their five adopted children at their Bunker Hill-area home — has state officials alarmed.

"Starting in the beginning of 2011 we started seeing a cluster effect of these types of cases," said Mary Meinig, director of the state's Family and Children's Ombudsman office, who included a section about adoption abuse in her annual report, released last week.

Many of the cases include starvation. "We have so many great adoptive homes in the state, but then we also have these. ... I think it's apparent that it needs to be looked at."

"We want to jump start this as quickly as possible," said Denise Revels Robinson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services. "There's a sense of urgency here. Not crisis, but urgency, because these are very serious issues."

One adopted child, 13-year-old Hana Williams of Sedro Wooley, died in May from hypothermia and starvation after being left outside as punishment. The Trebilcock's adopted son, then 13, landed in emergency room in March so severely malnourished that he weighed just 49 pounds, according to court documents.

Officials are concerned at the severity of these cases, the apparent spike in them and that so many seem to involve adopted children. The adoption cases are particularly concerning because screening by the state or private adoption agencies should catch unfit parents before children are placed.

Dr. Frances Chalmers, a Mount Vernon pediatrician who consults with DSHS, began to get a "nagging feeling" that something was up and started tracking starvation cases herself. Meinig started doing the same, finding 15 adoption or guardianship cases since 2009 that involved starvation or severe abuse. Eleven of those cases were in 2011.

Not all the cases listed in Meinig's report became public because, unlike the Trebilcocks, not all the parents were criminally charged. All are horrific, though, including cases where children were beaten with wooden boards embedded with nails, sexually abused and severely malnourished.

While Hana Williams' death is the most serious and disturbing case, "even the kids who don't die are significantly traumatized," Chalmers, said.

Adoptions, concerns increasing

Officials aren't sure if the surge of cases in 2011 is the start of a disturbing new trend — but they're working to find out. A work group of child experts - ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire — will look at adoptions, including foreign adoptions, as well as abuse by withholding food.

Among other topics, they'll investigate:

• Are neglect and abuse — including withholding food — on the rise and are they more prevalent in adoptive homes?

The state hasn't tracked withholding food cases before. Anecdotally, though, the number of cases seems to be rising. Of the five criminal withholding food cases statewide in 2011, four involved adoptions.

It's also possible that increased social worker training — and publicity about the most horrific cases — may have led to more cases being reported last year, said DSHS Spokeswoman Sherry Hill.

• Did a rapid increase in adoptions let some unfit parents slip through the cracks?

In recent years, state and federal law encouraged quicker adoptions to move children out of foster care and into permanent homes. Meinig said they need to examine if it's also lead to unfit parents being approved for adoption.

In 2002, there were 1,074 adoptions of Washington children in foster care or other child welfare programs. By 2009 that number nearly doubled to 2,091. The increase from 2008 to 2009 alone was 66 percent. Nationally, the increase from 2002 to 2009 was only 12 percent.

• Does the adoption process itself need to be reworked?

Child welfare officials screen parents adopting through the state foster care system and license private adoption agencies, but state workers do not screen private adoptions or adoptions in other states or countries. Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig included non-Washington adoptions or families who had no prior contact with state Child Protective Services. The state group will investigate if more oversight is needed.

• Does age, race or gender play a role in abuse of adopted children?

Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig involved foreign and/or cross-race adoptions. Officials don't know if that played a role in these cases, but want to examine it further. Three of the Trebilcock's five adopted were from Haiti.

There isn't one simple answer, though, because abuse itself is so complex.

"Nobody's going to say during screening that ‘If I don't like them, I'm not going to feed them,' " Meinig said. "And I don't think anyone actually envisions that they're going to do this. I think it's a progression thing that happens."

Local case, common threads

The Trebilcocks deny they starved their children and are fighting the charges in both the criminal and child dependency courts. (See related story.)

But Meinig said the allegations in the case bear several of the hallmarks common in all the cases she reviewed.

The five adopted Trebilcock children, ages 8 to 14, told investigators they were denied food. Kitchen cabinets had alarms on them and the children were punished for "stealing food," they said. Other family members, though, appeared well-fed, according to investigators.

"There was plenty of food" in all the cases, Meinig said. "These were really purposeful withholding and punishment and control. ... Food is kind of the ultimate control."

The Trebilcock children also told investigators they were beaten and made to stand outside, isolated from the rest of the family - another commonality Meinig found in many of the cases. The Trebilcocks also were home-schooled, which some officials say can be a way hiding the signs of starvation.

"Food withholding as a form of abuse has been around forever, from its mildest form of a misbehaving child being sent to bed without dinner to really severe cases of withholding that lead to medical problems," said Dr. Chalmers, who helps train social workers to look for signs of abuse. "So I've been trying to think about ways we could identify these kids before they die or end up in the hospital for malnutrition."

Reluctance to call

State officials hope the group of child experts can meet by early February and complete its work by May.

Any recommendations will be forwarded to DSHS, which will brief the governor's office as well as the Legislature, Revels Robinson said.

The state's budget crunch doesn't leave much extra money for new programs or enforcement, but Revels Robinson said she believes many of the recommendations could be relatively inexpensive. Some of the changes could be a change of emphasis in screenings, for example. Additional or substitute training also could provided to social workers at little cost, she said.

Officials also stress one of the best defenses against child abuse is for people to speak up when they suspect it. Too often people are afraid to "cause trouble" and then live to regret it, they said. And while there may not be immediate action from one report or call, that doesn't mean the calls are ignored, they said.

"We really do rely on the eyes and ears of the community to alert us," Revels Robinson said.

Hana Williams — the 13-year-old who died in May — "had a number of friends and family who now say ‘I wish I'd called earlier,'" Chalmers said. "We really need to encourage people to be less reluctant to make those calls."

Source http://tdn.com/news/local/state-officials-investigating-several-cases-of-abuse-of-adopted-children/article_7fac29c2-3f25-11e1-b980-0019bb2963f4.html

Beware the Child Protectors by William Norman Grigg

When Salt Lake City police and caseworkers from the state Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) surrounded the home of Janet Adolf on June 4th, they were not responding to an accusation of child abuse or neglect. The armed raid had been staged to seize Mrs. Adolf’s eight-year-old daughter, who wasn’t at home — although her three terrified siblings were. According to Mrs. Adolf’s attorney Michael Humiston, the order had been issued because he had advised caseworkers of his intention to monitor their visits to Mrs. Adolf’s home in order "to protect Janet’s rights."

As the case is described by Humiston, Mrs. Adolf’s problems began when her eight-year-old daughter was "intimidated" into making allegations of sexual abuse. Although the family’s original caseworker, Kirk Soderquist, "tried to tell the court that there was no basis to the allegations," the youngster was removed from her home and temporarily placed in foster care; Soderquist was removed from the case and replaced with another caseworker.

"What Rights?"

After a month in a foster home, the child was returned to Mrs. Adolf and a second caseworker was assigned to make regular home visits. Humiston left a message with DCFS announcing his intention to "coordinate" the visits, so that he could be present to protect "the family’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights." According to Humiston, when this was explained to Judge Sharon McCully of Utah’s Third District Juvenile Court — who issued the order that led to the June 4th raid — she exclaimed, "What rights?"

Humiston, an attorney from Heber City, Utah, contends that the State of Utah has conducted "a systematic reign of terror." "By law, parents can be anonymously accused, and never get to face their accusers," observes Humiston. "There’s no right to a jury, no right to remain silent, and no that the parents are unfit."

In early March, Humiston filed a $500 million class-action suit against Utah Attorney General Janet Graham and several other state officials on behalf of five families whose children had been seized by the DCFS.

According to Humiston, the amount of damages sought in the lawsuit is equivalent to the amount of child welfare subsidies received by the state of Utah since 1994.

The situation described by Humiston is by no means unique to Utah. Across the United States, thousands of families have been ripped apart by citizen, teacher, or acquaintance — they enjoy none of the rights and immunities associated with due process. Acting in the "best interests of the child," social workers can terminate parental rights on a whim, and order police agencies to enforce those whimsical decisions at gunpoint. create a compulsory "home visitation" system, through which agents of the state will be able to subject parents to regular scrutiny — and determine for nearly a quarter of a century to create a national home visitation network. Should they succeed, armed raids similar to the one mounted against the home of Janet Adolf may become quite common.

"Village" Takeover

The "early childhood intervention program" — the Pre-natal and Early Infancy Project (PEIP). Christopher Caldwell of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, who covered the First Lady’s Senate campaign swing, explained that PEIP is a child abuse program that "involves sending social workers on regularly scheduled pre-emptive visits into the homes of children whose parents are deemed to put them ‘at risk’ of wrong parenting."

In her ghostwritten manifesto It Takes a Village, Mrs. Clinton gushes, "I cannot say enough in support of home visits" by government social workers. After all, she declares, "Keeping children healthy in body and mind is the family’s and the village’s first obligation," and in those "terrible times when authority we vest in government...." allowed abuse to occur," Mrs. Clinton contends that "social workers and courts should make decisions about terminating parental rights of abusive parents more quickly, rather than removing and returning abused children time and again." Government-authorized "home visitors" of the type extolled by the First Lady are authorized to pass judgment on the "adequacy" of parents, and to summon child protection workers should it be decided that the "village" must now "act in place" of inadequate parents.

Like most advocates of home visitation programs, Mrs. Clinton invokes the tragedy of child abuse to justify state intervention within the home. However, as the Physicians Resource Council (PRC), an affiliate of the Alabama Family Alliance, documents in a new study entitled The Parent Trainers, "most advocates of home visitation … clearly state that their goal is to institutionalize home visitation services for all new parents."

Deborah Daro, a former research director for Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA), candidly explained that the objective "is to bring home visitation services to all new parents." The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which was empanelled by George Bush in 1991, reached the same conclusion, calling for "the sequential implementation of a universal voluntary neo-natal home visitation system" (which by strict definition could not be at once "universal" and "voluntary").

Home visitors — who are also called Family Support Workers (FSW) — serve three missions, according to the PCAA. First, "being a teacher is central" to the FSW’s mission. Second, "the home visitor is also a friend, adviser, and advocate for parents," and is responsible for helping forge links between the family and local "community service" gencies. "Finally," states the PCAA, "the home visitor is a monitor" who is expected to consultation sessions with CPS to review ‘high risk’ cases" and to take "appropriate actions … when abuse or neglect or imminent harm are suspected." One FSW explains that "because so many of our families are at risk of child abuse and neglect, our watchful eye can see the potential for danger before it becomes a real problem and do something about it."

In other words, home visitors/FSWs are the designated "watchful eyes" of the state within the home, empowered to "teach" parents, shepherd them into the suffocating embrace of the welfare state, and arrange for the seizure of children from parents deemed unsuitable. Furthermore, since enrollment in most home visitation programs begins with the birth of the child (and in some, enrollment begins before birth), the clear purpose is to make the state, by way of the home visitor, the custodian of first resort for the children involved. "We must remove the children from the crude influence of families," Soviet Communist Party educators were instructed at a conference in 1918.

"We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them." Dr. C. Henry Kempe, the most influential American advocate of home visitation programs, subscribed wholeheartedly to that concept.

Dr. Kempe was co-author of the ground-breaking 1968 book The Battered Child, which inaugurated the contemporary "war on child abuse."

Kempe’s work was cited as authoritative by the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, and by the American Academy of Pediatrics when it recommended in 1998 that pediatricians should "advocate at the local, state, and national levels for the funding … of quality home-visitation programs." Not surprisingly, Kempe also earned favorable mention in Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village. What makes Kempe’s influence troubling is the fact that he was an unabashed proponent of the totalitarian view that children are "state property," and that home visitation should be "a compulsory, universal service" imposed on American families. In a June 9, 1975 lecture to the Ambulatory Pediatric Association in Toronto, Dr. Hillary Clinton in her law journal writings and in It Takes a Village.

The the common-law maxim, "A man’s home is his castle," Kempe insisted that "all too often the child is a prisoner in its dungeon. It is a dungeon of constant anger, dislike, aggression, or even hatred."

While most people would acknowledge that such dismal, tragic circumstances do characterize the plight of a relatively small number of children in our country, Kempe insisted that the conditions he described were normative rather than exceptional, and thus justified a "limited intrusion into family privacy by society" in the form of "health visitors." Such visitors would be regarded as "fully capable of determining which children are at risk, whether they are thriving adequately or not doing well," and help to "form a bridge between these families and the health care system."

Regular the teacher, the school nurse, or the school nurse practitioner.
Kempe emphasized that the regime he described would not be limited to troubled families; rather, participation in the home "health visitor" program would be compulsory for all, "similar to the concept of compulsory, universal schooling": "It seems incomprehensible that we have compulsory education, with truancy laws to enforce attendance and, I might add, imprisonment of parents who deny their child an education, and yet we do not establish similar safeguards for the child’s very survival between birth and age 6."

Lethal Guardians acting as officers of the state, which is, after all, the most powerful instrument of organized coercion and lethal violence. Once again, Kempe’s priorities are in harmony with instructions given in 1918 to Soviet educators, who were told: "From the first days of their lives [Soviet children] will be under the healthy influence of Communist children’s nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists."

Kempe also emphasized that a stealthy, incremental approach would be necessary in order to construct a nationwide home visitation system. The program could begin in "any state, or any of our 3,362 counties," he told his audience in Toronto. Furthermore, he admonished advocates to be flexible enough to adjust their proposals to meet local conditions. "If it should turn out that local or state health departments are not very interested or are unwilling to undertake the health visitor program, there may be other approaches for its implementation," he observed. Pointing out that the state of Michigan had "placed the charge on the [state] Department of Education to assure that everyone is ‘educable,’" Kempe explained that this mandate "gives the Department the right to provide screening procedures and comprehensive health care to make every child school-ready."

The Clinton Administration’s Goals 2000 — which was an outgrowth of a national education agenda created by the Bush Administration in 1989 — provides millions of dollars in federal subsidies for state early-intervention programs, all of which are justified by the supposed need to ensure that children arrive at the doorstep of government schools "ready to learn."

State Property

According to Kempe, "those of us who are qualified to assess and correct the problems that produce child abuse and ‘failure to thrive’ should have explicitly described the child as the property of the state.

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton provoked widespread criticism for her suggestion that children should have the right to "divorce" their parents — but, once again, she was merely building upon Dr. Kempe’s work. "When marriages fail, we have an institution called divorce, but between parent and child, divorce is not yet socially sanctioned," Kempe commented during his 1975 lecture. For parents deemed these families," Kempe declared. "When that fails, legal termination of parental rights should be attempted."

From Kempe’s perspective, parents exercise authority over their children only by the grace of the state, and the state has the right to revoke parental authority at any time: "Where the state is supreme, the particular problem is easily managed; in a dictatorship each child belongs to the whether one of our cherished democratic freedoms is the right to maim our own children."

Kempe offered this paean to totalitarianism, the world had not yet beheld the horrifying spectacle of the state-run orphanages in Communist Romania, in which thousands of children lived and died in unimaginable filth and squalor. Nicolae Ceausescu, the Transylvanian despot who ruled that the individual Romanian child "is the socialist property of the whole society."

Communist China’s child care policies are also in harmony with Kempe’s vision of the child as "state property." A Chinese population control womb, murdered through infanticide, or confined in state-run orphanages.

Steven W. Mosher, one of the world’s leading experts on Red China’s "one-child" policy, describes that nation’s government-run orphanages as "killing fields." Human Rights Watch-Asia reported in 1989 that Chinese orphanages have a mortality rate of at least 72 percent, with medical neglect and malnutrition the leading causes of death. Most of the children consigned to this hell are girls; an account recently smuggled out of China described a case in which a starving girl child, desperately seeking surcease from starvation, attempted to eat the flesh from her own arm. child care regime.

Foot in the Door

Dr. Kempe was the founding director of the Kempe National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado. Kempe’s successor, Dr. Richard Krugman, served as chairman of President Bush’s U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which recommended "the sequential implementation of a universal voluntary" home visitation system.

In 1985, the state of Hawaii enacted the "Healthy Start" program, a home visitation program that identifies "at risk" families through screening at birth. Healthy Start literature acknowledges that the program "evolved from the work of the Kempe program in Denver."

maltreatment … or maternal life skills, mental health, social support, or substance abuse."
Healthy Start officials, according to the PRC report The Parent Trainers, are now "screening over 52 percent of all new births in the state and provid[ing] services to roughly 20 percent of all newborns and their families."

In 1992, Hawaii’s Kempe-inspired Healthy Start program was used as the template for the Healthy Families America (HFA) initiative, which was created by Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA) in conjunction with the Freddie Mac Corporation and Ronald McDonald Charities. PCAA, it will be task force" promoting home visitation services under various program names. "In California," notes the PRC, "programs are called ‘Welcome Home Baby,’ Georgia’s program is known as ‘First Steps,’ Colorado’s ‘Bright Beginnings,’ Illinois’ ‘Good Beginnings,’ Massachusetts’ ‘Good Start,’ and Arkansas’ ‘New Beginnings’...."

To those state-level examples, a recent report published by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation (a major corporate supporter of home visitation programs) adds Missouri’s "Parents as Teachers" program; the "Nurse Home Visitation Program" — based on Elmira, New York’s PEIP program — which has been put in place in Memphis, Tennessee and Denver, Colorado, "and [is] now being replicated nationally"; Arkansas’ Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), "which seeks to prepare 3-year to 5-year-olds for kindergarten and first grade"; and the Comprehensive Child Development Program, "a five-year federal demonstration program that worked with poor families in 24 sites to promote malignant design of using home visitation programs as an incremental means of nationalizing children as "state property."

The PCAA reports that "Healthy Family" sites, under various names, are operating in 42 states and the District of Columbia. A recent survey by the organization found that one in five parents with children under the age of one received some type of home visitation service in 1997.

Furthermore, the organization’s effort to make home visitation universal received a tremendous boost in the federal budget for fiscal year 1999: The PCAA received $33 million through the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and an additional $14 million for "research and data collection." The organization’s 42 state chapters also have access to Children’s Trust Funds, which are financed through surcharges on marriage licenses and birth certificates, fees for vanity license plates, and check-offs on individual state income tax returns.

In addition, the PCAA "was instrumental in the reauthorization of the Family Preservation and Support Services Program (renamed the Safe and Stable Families Program)," points out The Parent Trainers. Federal funding for that program, which totaled $275 million in fiscal year 1999, is projected to increase to $305 million by 2001 — and a large portion of that amount will be devoted to cultivating and expanding government home visitation efforts.

Testing for Child Abuse

In order to determine which newborn children are "at-risk" and thus qualify for home visitations, observes The Parent Trainers, state-based "Healthy Family" groups must "gain access to medical records of women who are pregnant or have just given birth. To complete this phase, HFA programs employ ‘Family Assessment Workers’ (FAWs) who will screen and assess mothers to determine their risk status." In some cases, an FAW "is designated as a temporary, volunteer employee of the hospital (when she is on hospital grounds) to allow her access to medical records. In other cases, a member of the hospital staff may agree to do the initial record screen and then make referrals to the FAW. Or, the FAW may not have access to medical records, but may be allowed to enter hospital rooms and administer ‘verbal screens’ by asking postpartum mothers directly to answer the questions on the 15-point initial screen."

The questions in the initial screening deal with the mother’s marital status and history, education, socio-economic status, family background, and Family Stress Checklist" (FSC) — ten open-ended, invasive questions presented to both parents. The FSC is supposedly designed to determine a parent’s propensity toward child abuse. On each question the parent receives a score from 0 (no risk) to 10 (highest risk). According to Hawaii’s high risk category, eligible for Healthy Start home visitor services." However, as The Parent Trainers points out, "A score of 25 … is fairly standard risk and in need of home visitation services."

Among typical FSC questions can be found inquiries regarding "harsh punishment"; PCAA literature emphasizes that spanking is considered a form of abuse. Having been "suspected of abuse" is another risk factor for a parent, as is being "in the midst of multiple crises or stresses," having "unrealistic expectations of the child’s behavior," or perceiving a child’s behavior as "difficult or provocative." Clearly the FSC is designed to define most — if not all — parents as placing their children "at risk." This is to be expected, given that the objective of "Healthy Start" and its offspring is a universal system — based on voluntary enrollment if possible, but employing coercion if necessary.

The FAWs charged with conducting "screenings" and arranging for home visitations are generally volunteers who may have had only a few days of training. No specialized academic background is required to become a FAW; a high school diploma or its equivalent is sufficient. (One PCAA survey found that one-quarter of all FAWs had no college training.) FAWs are encouraged to lure parents into visitation programs by offering bottles, breast pumps, or other helpful gifts to parents as a pretext for a post-hospital visit. "Comments made at a recent HFA national conference indicate ‘creative outreach’ may also include sending flowers to the reluctant mother on Mother’s Day, or even sending flowers to the mother of the mother, if it appears she is the source of resistance," observes The Parent Trainers. "It may also include taking the reluctant mother out to the beauty parlor if this may gain her confidence and make her feel obligated to participate in the program."

To illustrate the success of such tactics, an Arizona program reported that "90 percent of mothers offered the program accept HFA services." Furthermore, PCAA urges FAWs to make "persistent outreach efforts" for several months, if necessary, until reluctant families "have explicitly of the service." Should Kempe’s vision of compulsory home visitation to protect children be consummated, it stands to reason that rebellious parents would be the first to have their children taken from them — as the case of Janet Adolf’s family in Salt Lake City would seem to illustrate.

Levels of Involvement

As is almost always the case with any grand, malevolent scheme, the Kempe-inspired home visitation campaign makes malicious use of the worthy motives of otherwise decent people. Diana Lightfoot, director of the Physician’s Research Council and co-author of The Parent Trainers, explained to The New American: "There are three levels at which the home visitation scheme is working. At the first, most immediate level, we have the social workers or FAWs themselves, who usually have no agenda beyond doing what they consider to be the right thing — fighting child abuse, helping children get a good start, helping parents who may be overwhelmed. And of course, these are all very commendable motives."

At the second, intermediate level, continued Lightfoot, "we have the state departments of social services and other government officials who know means they employ. For a lot of state officials, the chief motivation is money; there is a lot of taxpayer money being thrown at the states by the federal government for these programs. At the top level we have the ideologues — the Hillary Clinton, Janet Reno, and Donna Shalala types — who family."

Dr. Sam Watson, Lightfoot’s co-author, remarked to The New American that "Kempe, despite his reputation as a great humanitarian, praised country are the product of that same mindset as well. In some states, money from the state lottery is underwriting home visitation programs; in others it is money from the tobacco settlement. These sources of revenue have been a real windfall for advocates of home visitation."

"The seed of Kempe’s vision has been planted, it has been watered with taxpayer money," Lightfoot stated. "Whether it will grow to fruition depends upon the American public. It is vitally important that we educate families and parents about the dangers of home visitation programs, and the totalitarian nature of the vision behind those programs."

© Copyright 1999 American Opinion Publishing Incorporated

Source: http://jimcooper.biz/ptfw/resources/BewareTheChildProtectors.pdf

Is Kinship Care Good for Kids?

by Tiffany Conway and Rutledge Q. Hutson

March 2, 2007

More than 2.5 million children are being raised by grandparents and other relatives because their parents are unable—for a variety of reasons—to care for them. 1 These relative caregivers are willing to care for the children—but they may require financial help in order to meet the children’s needs. A number of states have utilized subsidized guardianship programs as a way of supporting such families, often called “kinship families.” Such placements help the child to, among other things, maintain family—and oftentimes community—connections. These programs provide subsidies to relatives and, in some cases, other interested, non-relative adults who are caring for and have a close emotional bond with children who are not biologically their own.

Subsidized guardianship is consistent with national policy preferences espoused in both the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997,2 and there is considerable evidence of the value of subsidized guardianship programs. Still, some wonder whether kinship care is a good thing—and how we know this. This fact sheet addresses these often unasked but crucial questions.

Children in kinship care experience greater stability.

􀂾 Children in kinship foster care have been found to experience fewer placement changes than children placed with non-kin foster parents do.3

􀂾 Multiple studies indicate the value of placing siblings together, when safe and appropriate.4 Perhaps equally as important, children in foster care consistently express the desire to be with their siblings. Research has shown that children in foster care are more likely to live with their siblings if they are placed with kin.5

􀂾 Fewer children in kinship care report having changed schools (63 percent) than do children in non-relative foster care (80 percent) or those in group care (93 percent).6

􀂾 Children who reunify with their birth parent(s) after kinship care are less likely to re-enter foster care than those who had been in non-relative foster placements or in group care facilities.7

􀂾 The Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) are designed to ensure that states are achieving safety, permanency, and child and family well-being. Kinship care bolsters states’ ability to comply with federal requirements by providing children with stability and permanency.8

Children in kinship care report more positive perceptions of their placements and have fewer behavioral problems.

􀂾 Compared to children in non-relative foster care and those in group care, children in kinship care are:

􀀹 More likely to report liking those with whom they live (93 percent vs. 79 percent [non-relative foster care] and 51 percent [group care])

􀀹 More likely to report wanting their current placement to be their permanent home (61 percent vs. 27 percent and 2 percent)9

􀀹 Less likely to report having tried to leave or run away (6 percent vs. 16 percent and 35 percent)10

􀀹 More likely to report that they “always felt loved” (94 percent vs. 82 percent [non-relative foster care])11

􀂾 In terms of scores in physical, cognitive, emotional, and skill-based domains, children in kinship care have scores more like those of children who are able to remain at home following a child abuse and neglect investigation than do children in foster or group care.12

􀂾 Both teachers and caregivers tend to rate children in kinship care as having fewer behavioral problems than do their peers in other out-of-home placement settings.13

Kinship care respects cultural traditions and may reduce racial disparities in a variety of outcomes.

In a number of cultures—including many communities of color—the family and home are understood to include the extended family, and in some cases the community. Kinship care represents an opportunity for states to provide federally required safety and permanency to a greater number of children who come into contact with the child welfare system, while enhancing their well-being by providing them with access to their ethnic, racial, and cultural traditions.14

Kinship caregivers provide stability to children and youth with incarcerated parents.

According to a 2000 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 75 percent of mothers and about 18 percent of fathers incarcerated in state prisons in 1997 reported that their children were being cared for by a grandparent or other relative.15 The incarceration of a parent is often traumatic on a variety of levels for children, and living with family members can provide some measure of stability.

In spite of the numerous benefits associated with kinship care, myths remain.

Myth: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
In fact, research shows that children living with relatives are no more likely—and are perhaps less likely—than children living with non-kin foster parents to experience abuse or neglect after being removed from their homes. A 1997 study found that non-kin foster parents were twice as likely as licensed kinship foster parents to have a confirmed report of maltreatment.16 Furthermore, Illinois found that children in kinship foster care are at lower risk for maltreatment than are children in either specialized or non-relative foster care.17

Myth: “It’s your moral responsibility.”
Clearly, kinship caregivers agree. They take the responsibility of raising their grandchildren, nieces, and nephews when the children’s parents, for a variety of reasons, cannot. These caregivers lack neither morals nor a sense of responsibility; they do, however, lack resources. They may be living on a fixed income or be retired; whatever the reason, it is highly unlikely that they planned financially for raising a relative’s child.18

􀂾 The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs at least $7,000 per year to raise a child.19

􀂾 The vast majority of children living with relative caregivers are eligible for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) child-only grant. However, 70 percent of relative caregivers do not access TANF or any other public financial assistance.

􀂾 Even when caregivers access TANF child-only grants, this assistance amounts to, on average, just over $4,000 per year—or about 57 percent of the anticipated cost of raising a child.20

Research debunks these old fears about the risk of placing children with kin.

In fact, the research tells us that many children who cannot live with their parents benefit from living with grandparents and other family members. Supporting kinship caregivers in their efforts to address the needs of these children thus provides an opportunity to improve the lives of many children who have already experienced trauma.

1 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 2000 Census American Fact Finder Advanced Query. Calculations by Children’s Defense Fund of the number of children living in relative-headed households without either parent present.
2 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (P.L. 104-193) requires states to consider giving preference to relatives over non-related caregivers when determining a placement for a child, assuming that relative meets all relevant state child protection standards. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (P.L. 105-89) clearly establishes legal guardianship as an acceptable and appropriate permanency plan.
3 Testa, M. 2001. Kinship care and permanency. Journal of Social Service Research, Vol. 28 (1) pp. 25 – 43.; Chamberlain, P., et al. 2006. Who disrupts from placement in foster and kinship care? Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 30, pp. 409 – 424.
4 Herrick, M. & Piccus, W. 2005. Sibling Connections: The importance of nurturing sibling bonds in the foster care system.
5 Shlonsky, A., Webster, D., & Needell, B. 2003. The ties that bind: A cross-sectional analysis of siblings in foster care. Journal of Social Service Research, Vol. 29 (3) pp. 27 – 52.; Wulczyn, F. & Zimmerman, E. 2005. Sibling placements in longitudinal perspective. Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 27, pp. 741-763.
6 National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) CPS Sample Component Wave 1 Data Analysis Report, April 2005. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, 2005).
7 Courtney, M. & Needell, B. “Outcomes of kinship care: Lessons from California.” In Child welfare research review. Vol. 2. J.D. Berrick, R.P. Barth and N. Gilbert, eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, pp. 130 – 149.
8 Outcome P1: Children have permanency and stability in their living situations; and, Outcome P2: The continuity of family relationships and connections is preserved for children.
9 NSCAW 2005.
10NSCAW 2005.
11 Wilson, L. Satisfaction of 1,100 Children in Out-of-Home Care, Primarily Family Foster Care, in Illinois’ Child Welfare System. Tallahassee, FL: Wilson Resources, 1996.
12 NSCAW 2005.
13 NSCAW 2005.
14Casey Family Programs. Commitment to Kin: Elements of a support and service system for kinship care. 2004; CFSR Outcome S2: Children are safely maintained in their homes whenever possible and appropriate.
15 Mumola, C. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Incarcerated Parents and Their Children. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 2000).
16 Zuravin, S.J., et al. “Child Maltreatment in family foster care: Foster home correlates.” In Child welfare research review. Vol. 2 J.D. Berrick, R.P. Barth. And N. Gilbert, eds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, pp. 189-200.
17 A Child Welfare Research Agenda for the State of Illinois. 1999. Urbana, IL: The Children and Family Research Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
18 Some question whether relatives who cannot afford to care for a child without assistance are appropriate placements. CLASP believes that placements with relatives, like all placements, should be made on a case-by-case basis and that when relatives offer benefits, like greater stability and less trauma, they should be supported in caring for a child.
19 This calculation is based on the cost of raising the younger of two children in a single-parent, two-child household with a before-tax income of less than $41,700. Lino, Mark. 2005. Expenditures on Children by Families, 2004. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Miscellaneous Publication No. 1528-2004. Retrieved 12/7/06 from http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/CRC/crc2004.pdf
20 Table 42, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families- Active Cases, TANF Families with no adult recipients receiving cash assistance October 2003 – September 2004. Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance. Retrieved 12/6/06 from http://www.acf.hhs.gov//programs/ofa/character/FY2004/tab42.htm.

Source: Center for Law and Social Policy • www.clasp.org