Placement Instability: Placement Characteristics and Demographic Factors Associated with Foster Parents’ Intent to Turnover and Disrupt Placement

Background: Many children in out-of-home care experience placement disruption (U.S. Department for Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2022), which negatively impacts their well-being (Crandall et al., 2020; Gardenhire et al., 2019; Lefevere et al., 2017). Turnover rates among foster parents are high (Gibbs & Wildfire, 2007), impacting placement instability for these youth. Despite an increase in recent systematic reviews on foster parenting, there is little focus on foster parent demographic characteristics related to turnover (Hanlon, 2021) and placement disruption (Oosterman 2007; Konijn et al., 2019). This study sought to explore demographic characteristics and placement factors associated with placement disruption and foster parent turnover. The specific research question guiding this study was “What are the associations between foster parent demographics, child demographics, and placement characteristics and foster parent intent to (a) disrupt foster placement and (b) quit foster caring?”

Methods: Data from this study were collected via a survey sent to licensed foster parents across six states, and included a final sample of 363 foster parents. Measures included demographic and placement characteristics of both foster parents and youth, child behavior problems, and proxy measures to capture intent to turnover and intent to disrupt placement. Two hierarchical linear regressions were specified to explore the associations between demographics (i.e., race, marital status, education level, and income), foster parent characteristics (i.e., number of previous disruptions and years of foster caring), foster child demographics (i.e., age and gender), and child characteristics (i.e., length of time in the current foster home, number of previous disruptions while in care, permanency goal and scores on the ECBI) with the intent to (a) disrupt foster placement and (b) quit fostering.

Results: Results indicated that higher behavioral issues (b = .02, t = 3.98, p < .001, 95%CI: .01, .03), and older youth (b = .13, t = 2.40, p = .02, 95%CI: .02, .24) were most at risk for placement disruption. Youths who resided in the foster home longer (b = 1.49, t = 3.00, p = .003, 95%CI: .51, 2.47) and had higher behavioral issues (b = .011, t = .024, p = .001, 95%CI: .02, .86) were associated with higher intent to turnover among foster parents.

Conclusion and Implications: While extant literature has long explored behavior as an indicator of placement disruption (Jedwab et al., 2019; Konijn et al., 2019), findings for intent to turnover are somewhat novel. Even when controlling for experience as a foster parent (i.e., length of time as a foster parent, number of previous disruptions initiated, and number of previous foster children), behavior problems remained a consistent indicator of placement instability. This points to larger systemic issues, for instance, the lack of support (Tonheim & Iversen, 2019), available mental health treatment (Pecora et al., 2009), and communication with case workers (Denlinger & Dorius, 2018), impacting disruption risk and wearing on the ability of foster parents to continue their role (Dowdy-Hazlett & Clark, 2023). Research, practice, and policy implications and recommendations will be discussed.