| Project Title: | Factors Related to Quality of Family Foster Care |
| Grant/Contract Number: | 90CW1088 |
| Type of Project: | Research |
| Funding Agency: | Children's Bureau |
| Agency Contact Person: | Jan
Shafer (202) 205-8172 |
| Principal Investigator: | Patricia Ryan |
| Mailing Address: | Eastern
Michigan University Office of Research and Development Ypsilanti, MI 48197 |
| Total Project Duration: | 10/1/95 to 9/30/98 |
| FY 98 Total Costs: | $150,000 |
| Total Project Budget: | $450,000 |
| Child Maltreatment Focus: | Not specified |
| Type of Abuse: | Not specified |
| Sample Size: | Not specified |
| Age of Subjects: | 0-19 years old |
| Child
Abuse and Neglect Focus of This Project: |
Not specified |
| Summary |
| This study will determine the quality of the foster care experience in Wayne County, Michigan, and the factors that influence it, and will examine the relationship between agency and service characteristics (e.g., private versus public agency, caseload size, staff turnover, continuity of case services, provision of family preservation services, and use of kinship care) and the quality of foster care. The five components of quality foster care are the health and well-being of the child while in care; maltreatment in care; family continuity; types and numbers of placements; and duration of care and recidivism. Data collected on a sample of 500 families (approximately 900 children ages birth to 19 years) whose children spent time in foster care during 1993 will be used to analyze the entire stay in foster care for the majority of children and a 4-year span of experiences for those children who remain in care through the end of the study. These data will be analyzed in three stages: determination of the quality of the foster care experience for children in the sample, multivariate analyses of the factors leading to different levels of quality, and the development of alternative models of foster care that will maximize the quality of the experience for different types of families. The use of case data from the 1993 sample will be supplemented with interviews with 120 parents in the sample selected from among those whose children left foster care during the first 2 years. The interviews will explore the effect of foster care on the health and well-being of the child, family continuity for the child, and the extent to which the parent perceives foster care as having helped or hindered the process of change necessary to reduce risk to the child. Child welfare staff interviews will also be conducted in 120 cases where the child has not left care during the first 2 years. Results from this study will be included in a handbook that can be used to inform agency policy, improve agency practice, and train staff. |
