A Nontraditional Assessment Framework for Formal Kinship Homes

This article presents a framework for assessing kinship homes that differs from traditional family foster home evaluation. Because kinship care families and situations are usually quite different from those of other prospective foster parents, distinctive criteria for approving placement of children in kinship homes are needed. When it is necessary for a child to be removed from his or her parent(s), the juvenile courts and the child welfare agency have several options. Placement decisions and other case plans consider the child's developmental level, safety needs, and educational needs, as well as cultural factors. According to best practice principles, the practitioner should first look for possible caregivers among relatives. Placement with known relatives may cause less trauma for the child than placement with strangers [Chipungu 1991]. Placement with relatives also tends to be culturally sensitive and may help agencies meet specific statutory requirements [i.e., the Indian Child Welfare Act of 19781. Kinship care is also a strategy for family preservation. It generally enables children to live with people they know and trust, supports the transmission of children's family identity, supports the child's cultural and ethnic identity, helps children stay connected to brothers and sisters, and helps children retain or build connections to extended family members [CWLA 1994]. Emphasizing the family preservation approach to kinship care recognizes that the most desirable place for children to grow up is in their own families. Gray and Nybell [1990] report reluctance of child welfare workers to place children within extended family networks because they assume that the dysfunction of the parent(s) permeates the entire family system. The idea that child maltreatment is transmitted across generations almost without interruption is a product of early research and the popular press [Kaufman & Zigler 1987]. Most adults who were abused and neglected as children do not maltreat their own children. Kaufman and Zigler [1987] conclude that approximately 30% of adults who were abused as children maltreat their own children. Although this is significantly higher than the 5% in the general population, kinship homes with this history should not be ruled out without thorough individual assessment. Neither should kinship homes be excluded when the reason for child placement is related to parental absence or neglect. The most common reasons for children to be placed in kinship care are child neglect and parental substance abuse, frequently including prenatal drug exposure of the children [Berrick et al. 1994; Gabel 1992; Meyer & Link 1990; Thornton 1991; Scannapieco et al. 1995]. The AIDS epidemic is another factor in the increase in kinship care [Burton 1992]. Minkler & Roe [1993] projected that by the end of 1995, approximately 20,000 children in New York City alone would be orphaned because of AIDS, and many of these children would be cared for by their relatives. The assessment framework that follows confronts the negative myths about kinship care by offering a structure for evaluating individual homes and families. Theoretical Perspective Since the 1970s, the ecological perspective has dominated social work practice [Garbarino 1982; Germain 1979; Maas 1971; Minuchin; 1970], and its roots go back to Mary Richmond's conception of the "readjustments between human beings and their social environment" [Richmond 1922: 175]. That perspective is particularly important in the process of assessment [Belsky 1980; Pecora et al. 1992; Allen-Meares & Lane 1993], including family assessment [McPhatter 1993; Paquin & Bushorn 1993; Reichertz & Frankel 19931. From an ecological perspective, kinship home assessments examine all aspects of the family-in-environment configuration. Cultural sensitivity is necessarily central to this perspective. The ecological approach recognizes the unique cultural characteristics and interdependence of kin and their resource systems, without viewing children from diverse backgrounds as homogeneous. …