Assessing the Potential of a Training Intervention to Address Stigma-Related Barriers to Accessing Financial Support for Kinship Care

Introduction: Kinship care offers a viable pathway for ensuring the permanency needs of children without necessarily terminating parental rights. Yet, notwithstanding its many benefits, including enabling children to continue to foster a relationship with their birth family, it is accompanied by the financial burden of raising children. The establishment of the Title IV-E Guardianship Assistance Program (GAP) was supposed to enable states to use federal funds to support kinship caregivers to ease the financial burden they face taking care of their kins. However, the stigma associated with family members receiving financial support for taking care of their kin sometimes prevent them from taking advantage of the resources provided through GAP. There is limited empirical attention on the effectiveness of training interventions in helping kinship caregivers overcome the stigma faced for accepting needed GAP financial support. Based on the reasoned action theory, this study sought to investigate how a tailored training program in North Carolina addressed relative’s hesitation in taking the necessary steps to tap into the financial assistance while developing mechanisms to deal with stigma. We hypothesize that participant involvement in the 10-session training program will reduce their unfavorable views toward receiving financial aid.

Methods: The 10-session training for kinship caregivers had two delivery modes: in-person and virtual. A paired sample t-test was conducted to assess whether, on average, participants' unfavorable views about financial aid dissipated. We also used the Difference-in-Difference (DiD) quasi-experimental analytic method to assess whether changes in views about receiving needed financial support for child care differed by training delivery mode. In all, 178 (in-person=43 and virtual=135) kinship foster parents participated in the training and consented to be in the study.

Findings: Results from a paired sample t-test revealed a statistical difference in the means of participants’ unfavorable view of receiving financial support after receiving the tailored training (M_difference= -.833, SD_difference= .12, t= -6.91, p<.01; d=.80). The Difference-in-Differences results were statistically significant (DiD = −1.002, SE=0.196, p<.001, r2=0.57), suggesting that the in-person sessions were more effective at changing people’s views about accessing financial aid.

Implications & Conclusions: Financial assistance is central to the growth and development of foster families. As a result, it is important that caregivers are aware of the financial support available to them and also understand the importance of taking advantage of these resources while dealing with the stigma associated with receiving assistance. Taken together, our findings point to the need for in-person training programs to help caregivers deal with the negative perceptions surrounding receiving financial assistance and point to the need for similar programs across various states in the country.