Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors of Adolescents in Kinship and Foster Care

Background: The mission of the United States child welfare system is to promote safety, permanency and well-being for children and youth. The underlying assumption of out-of-home placement is that kinship and foster families provide a safer, better quality care environment than biological families. Yet, decades of research literature has associated out-of-home placement with poor child outcomes.

Methods: This study contributes to previous findings using a series of hierarchical linear regressions and an improved research design. Data are drawn from a subset of 839 adolescents in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW). Measures at baseline, and 18 and 36 months after baseline allow for a longitudinal examination of the development of problem behaviors over time. Selection effects are corrected by considering the influence of pre-placement circumstances on post-placement outcomes. Outcomes for youth placed out-of-home are compared to the best available comparison group of youth that were investigated by Child Protective Services, but not placed.

Results: After correcting methodological shortcomings in previous research, this study finds no negative effects of kinship and foster care on behavior. Kinship care has a direct protective effect on externalizing behavior and foster care has an indirect protective effect on internalizing and externalizing behavior through an improved home environment. This is stronger for girls than for boys. This study also advances our theoretical understanding of how placements affect child outcomes. Results show that the current care environment, as measured by child/caregiver relationship and parental monitoring, is a better predictor of adolescent behavior than the out-of-home placement experience. Foster caregivers provide more parental monitoring than biological parents, but the child/caregiver relationship might not be as good in foster placements as it is in the biological family. There is no difference in child/caregiver relationship quality in kinship families relative to biological families and there is a trend toward increased parental monitoring in kinship versus biological families.

Conclusions: These findings provide some support for child welfare intervention through out-of-home placement. Child welfare practitioners should work with caregivers of all types to increase parental monitoring and improve child/caregiver relationships. Screening for substitute caregivers should emphasize quality of the care environment over other caregiver demographics.