Toward Increased Child Welfare Permanency Options: The Kinship Guardianship Assistance Payment (Kin-GAP) Program

Legal guardianship has been a lesser-used means to achieve permanency for children in foster care.  While guardianship was one of the permanency options specified in the landmark Child Welfare and Adoption Assistance Act of 1980, child welfare practice has tended toward family reunification and adoption (Pecora, Maluccio, Whittaker, Barth, & Plotnick, 2000; Shlonsky, 2004).  Despite its potential as an alternative to long-term foster care when adoption is not possible (Taylor, 1935, 1966, Simmons & Barth, 1995, Testa, 2002; Weisner, 1989; Weissman, 1949, 1964), subsidized guardianship has remained a largely under used resource. 

The present study sought to determine whether positive gains in permanency outcomes occurred in the decade following inception of a Kinship Guardianship Assistance Payment (Kin-GAP) program.  Implemented in 2000, the program resulted from a multi-year effort by stakeholders in a large western state to facilitate permanency for the largest group of children in out of home care—those in relative placements (Needell et al., 2014).  The program helps children in kinship placements to formally exit the child welfare system by providing a cash-benefit-supported option to kin caregivers who are unable or unwilling to adopt but are willing to become legal guardians. 

The study examined two permanency outcomes:  exits to permanency for children placed in kinship care; and, for those exiting to Kin-Gap, the likelihood of reentry to care, and drew on child-specific, event-level administrative data containing information on all children 0-17 years old entering foster care for the first time statewide from January 1998 through December 2013 (n=395,387).  For the first study outcome, pre and post-Kin-GAP implementation comparisons were made between proportions of children exiting annually to permanency of those who experienced a predominant placement episode in kin care.  For the second outcome, reentry rates for children exiting to Kin-GAP were compared with those for children reunifying from kin care.  To further understand the characteristics of children who disrupt from Kin-GAP, an event history analysis (Cox proportional hazard model) examined factors associated with reentry to care following Kin-GAP for those who exited between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2013.

Positive results were observed in both study outcomes.  Following Kin-GAP implementation, the total number exiting to permanency exceeded the number of children entering care each year who were placed predominantly in kinship care.  For those exiting to Kin-GAP, reentry rates were much lower than those experienced by children reunifying from out-of-home care.  Factors associated with reentry to care after a Kin-Gap exit were similar to those observed by past studies of reentry following reunification.  The presentation will discuss this innovative program and examine the implication of these results for child welfare policy and practice.