British Journal of Social Work: 'What factors relate to good placement outcomes in kinship care?'.

Farmer, Elaine

Since recent legislation and other developments are likely to lead to increased use of placements with kin, this paper considers the evidence base about the factors that relate to good outcomes in kinship care in England. It is based on a study using case file reviews on 270 children, half of whom were in kin and half in stranger foster care, and interviews with a sub-sample of 32 family and friends carers and a number of social workers, parents and children. The placement outcomes considered were placement quality and disruption. The study found that the kin placements that were most likely to disrupt were those in which children were older at placement, showed difficult behaviour, there was an absence of high carer commitment and contact was not supervised. There were also lower levels of disruption in placements with grandparents and when kin carers had been approved as foster carers and so received financial and practical support. However, poorer-quality placements lasted significantly longer in kin than in stranger foster care. Moreover, the outcomes of kin placements turned out to vary widely by local authority. The implications of these findings for policy and practice are considered.

40:2, pp 426-44, March 2010