Introduction
Kinship foster care: filling the gaps in theory, research, and practice

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Overview of the special issue

This third special issue attempts to answer some of those questions by illuminating areas that are beginning to receive empirical attention. As kinship foster care becomes entrenched in the child welfare system and as the body of research becomes more comprehensive, voids in the literature are more easily identified. This issue is entitled, Kinship Foster Care: Filling the Gaps in Theory, Practice, and Research, because each article selected for inclusion touches on an aspect of kinship care

A comprehensive synthesis of the literature

Cuddeback (2004) article is an extremely comprehensive and insightful synthesis of the kinship care research literature. The author's review covers a broad array of areas that target caregiver demographics, families of origin, child functioning, services, placement issues, family psychosocial characteristics, and child welfare professionals. Many of the conclusions are consistent with what is generally known about the kinship care population. For example, the synthesis revealed that, when

Kinship caregiver intervention

Strozier et al. (2004) use both quantitative and qualitative data to report the results of a computer-related intervention used with 46 kinship caregivers. Of the 46, over half (57.5 percent) were African American, which reflects the disproportionate representation of this group among kinship care providers. Whites totaled 30 percent, while Hispanics and Native Americans were a combined total of 12.5 percent. The intervention consisted of eight weeks of computer training that covered a range of

Parental attitudes of kin and non-kin foster parents

Harden, Clyman, Kriebel and Lyons (2004) investigate the parental attitudes and resources of non-relative foster parents and kinship foster parents. Fifty-one traditional foster parents and 50 kinship care foster parents participated in the study. African-Americans made up 88% of the total sample. In actuality, this is a study of African-American grandparents as no ethnic/racial comparisons could be undertaken. Grandmother's age and marital status were the most predictive of parental attitudes.

Life after kinship foster care

Carpenter and Clyman (2004) use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth to examine outcomes for women who had resided in kinship care, public and private. This study is included in the issue because of its focus on the long-term (into adulthood) effects of kinship care. To be in the kinship group, respondents had to have lived with any relative without either biological parent for at least 1 month. The comparison group included women who had lived with at least one biological or

Additional gap in need of filling

The articles in this special issue highlight some aspect of kinship foster care that is now beginning to receive additional research interest. There is yet another major gap that appears to have been overlooked. Numerous studies focus on the caregivers and the children in their care; however, little research has focused on the child welfare agencies themselves. Population surveys, administrative data, caregiver surveys, child assessments, focus groups, and provider surveys cannot shed light on

Concluding observation

Kinship foster care has become part of the public child welfare system and the knowledge base for this practice has not been able to keep pace with its utilization. This third special issue offers some input for filling the gaps and serves to highlight additional areas that warrant investigation. There will, no doubt, be additional special issues on this subject as the body of research on kinship foster care continues to expand.

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