Through this issue brief, young people who are in, or have been in, foster care offer their insights and aspirations to help guide the actions of child welfare systems as they seek to provide more normal experiences for these youth. The brief begins by explaining new provisions in the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act that promote normalcy, including the requirement for States to implement a “reasonable and prudent parent” standard that allows caregivers to make more daily decisions for young people in their care; a mandate that child welfare systems engage all young…
red dot icon
Journal Article Grandparents or other relatives are raising over 2.7 million children in the United States; and research suggests that the birth parents of these children maintain varying levels of involvement with them and their relative caregivers. However, the impact of parental involvement on children's developmental outcomes remains largely unexplored. This study sought to understand the role of maternal and paternal involvement (each parent's contact with the caregiver, contact with the child, friendliness to the caregiver, and quality of relationship with the child) on competence levels of African…
red dot icon
Journal Article The present study was conducted to investigate differences in nurturant fathering, father involvement, and young adult psychosocial functioning among small samples of three nontraditional family forms. A total of 168 young-adult university students from three family forms (27 adoptive, 22 adoptive stepfather, 119 nonadoptive stepfather) completed retrospective measures of nurturant fathering and father involvement and measures of current psychosocial functioning. Results indicated that adoptive fathers were rated as the most nurturant and involved and that nonadoptive stepfathers were…
red dot icon
Journal Article Providing effective foster care is a major undertaking that continues to plague this country. The ultimate goal of substitute care is to provide child victims of maltreatment with a safe and nurturing home environment. The goal of this theory driven research project was to identify ecological factors correlated with effective non-kin family foster care. Various levels of analysis were considered including individual, family and community. The findings of this study identified three factors as significant predictors of effective foster care. Included are implications for social work in the…
