Foster Care

GAO's survey of open foster care cases in California and Illinois found that caregivers both in kinship care (in which foster children are placed with relatives) and in other foster care settings demonstrated good parenting skills. There is more continuity in the lives of children in kinship care before and after they enter foster care than there is in other foster children's lives. GAO found no consistent relationship between kinship care and permanency goals (such as adoption or guardianship) or the time foster children had spent in the child welfare system. However, more than 80 percent of the children in kinship care in each state had been in care longer than the maximum period of time generally allowed by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 before which a state would be required to initiate procedures to terminate parental rights. Differences in permanency goals and time in foster care may depend more on state policies and practices than on foster care setting. Both states are raising standards for kinship caregivers and widening the pool of potential kinship caregivers; they have taken initiatives either to make homes with relatives a viable permanency option or to facilitate permanency planning.

GAO noted that: (1) GAO's survey of open foster care cases in California and Illinois showed that in most respects the quality of both kinship and other foster care was good and that the experiences of children in kinship care and children in other foster care settings were comparable; (2) GAO found that caregivers both in kinship care and in other foster care settings demonstrated good parenting skills overall; (3) GAO also confirmed the belief that there is more continuity in the lives of children in kinship care before and after they enter foster care than there is in other foster children's lives; (4) in cases in which the courts have restricted parental visits with foster children to ensure the children's safety, the proportion of cases in which the caseworker believed that the caregiver was likely to enforce the restrictions was somewhat smaller among kinship care cases than among other foster care cases; (5) some of the standards that California and Illinois use to ensure good quality foster care and the level of support each state provides to foster caregivers are lower for kinship care than other types of foster care; (6) previous research on children who have left foster care has shown that children who had been in kinship care were less likely to be adopted and stayed longer in foster care than other foster children; (7) between California and Illinois, GAO's survey showed no consistent findings regarding the relationship between kinship care and permanency goals or the time foster children had spent in the system; (8) in Illinois, kinship care cases were more likely to have a permanency goal of adoption or guardianship than other foster care cases; (9) Illinois has found that kinship caregivers are willing to adopt, and Illinois is actively pursuing adoption in kinship care cases; (10) in California, kinship care cases were less likely than other foster care cases to have adoption or guardianship as a goal; (11) according to California officials, this may be because, at the time of GAO's survey, the state had only recently begun to offer adoption and guardianship options specifically designed for a foster child's relatives; (12) in California, there was no significant difference between the average length of time that children in kinship care and children in other settings had spent in the system; (13) in Illinois, children in kinship care had spent significantly less time in the system than other foster children; and (14) both California and Illinois are now taking steps to better ensure the good quality of kinship care and to encourage kinship caregivers to provide permanent homes for foster children who cannot return to their parents.