€Œi Didn't Know That I Could Talk to You Guysâ€�: Negotiating Family Engagement for Caregivers Involved with Child Welfare

Background: Caregiver-parent partnerships are promoted in child welfare policy as a way to achieve permanency goals and promote child wellbeing. Recent research has explored how these relationships can help reduce externalizing behaviors and create pathways towards reunification. However, less is known about caregivers’ perceptions of partnering with the families of the children in their care, regardless of permanency goal or outcome. As caregivers are involved in the daily care of children, they can play an important role in maintaining connections between children in-care and their families. This study fills the gap in extant knowledge about caregiver perceptions of family engagement and how they negotiate their relationships with parents/families involved in child welfare.

Method: This project uses a subset of data from a longitudinal study focused on family engagement practice model in Texas. As part of the project, we conducted a series of interviews with caregivers (n = 24) within 3-months of an initial training in the model and invited them to participate again one-year later. We used grounded theory methods to identify what factors influenced their decisions to engage with the family of the child/ren in care when presented with trainings and tools that promoted family engagement.

Results: From our analysis, we identified a model of decision-making for caregivers as they described their perspectives and experiences in building relationships with parents and families. There were three primary factors influencing the decision to engage with families: 1) implicit/explicit messaging from child welfare professionals about family engagement that creates confusion about what type of contact is allowed between caregivers and parents, 2) individual, familial, or cultural histories of disrupted bonds due to child welfare system involvement, and 3) needing a “middleman”, or neutral third-party, to help facilitate communication, especially at the start of the relationship. When presented with engagement strategies and the endorsed support of agencies, caregivers expressed openness as well as a desire for guidance on family engagement. Data collected in Year 2 interviews included examples of navigating these complex relationships over time.

Conclusion and Implications: Foster care is replete with complex dynamics, not least of which is the intricate relationship between foster caregivers, birth parents, and the children who navigate between these worlds. By delving into the experiences and insights of foster caregivers, including cases where reunification is not always the permanency goal, this study seeks to unearth the nuanced layers of family engagement that extend beyond conventional parameters of child welfare. Understanding these perspectives is important for developing empathetic, informed practices in child welfare that honor the complex interplay of relationships at the heart of foster care.