Opinion ID: 691035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Kinship Foster Care

Text: 10 Placement of children for foster care with relatives is known as a kinship placement, and such children are referred to as kinship children. At the time the Wilder Decree was negotiated, one of the City's direct care programs used kinship placements, but there were few, if any, kinship placements by the voluntary agencies. 153 F.R.D. at 531 n. 12. Today, over 40 percent of the foster child population in the custody of the Commissioner of Social Services are kinship children. See Task Force on Permanency Planning for Foster Children, Inc., Kinship Foster Care: The Double Edged Dilemma v (1990). Seventy percent of these kinship foster children are currently placed by CWA's direct care programs, with the remainder placed by voluntary agencies. 11 State regulations that went into effect in 1985, before the Wilder Decree was approved, treat kinship foster care placements similarly to non-kinship foster boarding home placements, compare N.Y.Comp.Codes R. & Regs., tit. 18, Sec. 443 (1985) with N.Y.Comp.Codes R. & Regs., tit. 18, Sec. 444 (1985), though there are some dissimilarities relating to the licensing process for foster homes, compare N.Y.Comp.Codes R. & Regs., tit. 18, Sec. 444.5 (1991) with N.Y.Comp.Codes R. & Regs., tit. 18, Secs. 444.8 (1991). In 1989, New York State enacted legislation requiring local social service districts to search for suitable and willing relatives with whom a child in need of placement may appropriately reside, and further requiring, if such a relative is found, that the child be placed with that relative. N.Y.Soc.Serv.Law Sec. 384-a(1-a) (McKinney 1992); N.Y.Fam.Ct. Act Sec. 1017 (McKinney 1983 & Supp.1993).