Chang-ming Hsieh
Jane Addams College of Social Work
UIC
1040 W. Harrison Street (M/C 309)
Chicago IL 60607-7134
Phone: 312-996-0041
FAX: 312-996-2770
Email: chsieh@uic.edu

Gwen Walls Talley
Family Based Services
Grand Boulevard Federation
715 E. 47th Street, Chicago, IL 60653
Phone: 773-548-8140
Fax: 773-548-6622
gwentalley@ameritech.net

Nicole E. Anderson
Jane Addams College of Social Work
UIC
1040 W. Harrison Street (M/C 309)
Chicago IL 60607-7134
Phone: 312-413-9458
FAX: 312-996-2770
EMail: gnaconsult@aol.com

In recent years much attention has been focused on the number of children in the custody of the child welfare system and residing with relatives in "formal kinship foster care."  Less attention has been paid to informal kinship caregiving arrangements, a more invisible family form which outnumbers formal kinship care ten to one.  The research that has been conducted on informal kinship care has relied on qualitative interviews with a small sample of kinship caregivers, or quantitative analysis of census data or surveys that do not allow for multiple perspective descriptions of the functioning of kinship caregivers, their families, and the children in their care.

The symposium summarizes three papers that report findings from the first phase of a federally funded, multi-method, longitudinal study of informal kinship care.  The first paper examines the behavioral functioning of children in informal kinship care, reporting results of logistic regression analysis of data collected through structured interviews with 125 kinship caregivers, using standardized measures of child behavior, caregiver stress, family functioning, social support, and adequacy of financial/material resources.  The second and third papers report findings of qualitative studies that used a grounded theory approach.  The second paper describes the findings of in-depth interviews with 12 birth parents of children in informal kinship care.  The interviews elicited rich descriptions of their experiences and perspectives.  The third paper examines results of interviews with 25 children that began by engaging them in drawing a family tree and continued by exploring their understanding of the kinship care arrangement and where they may be living in the future.  The symposium concludes with a discussion of what is learned by incorporating the views of multiple participants in the kinship care experience and using diverse methods to improve understanding of informal kinship care.

Methods:  This paper reports findings from interviews with 125 informal kinship caregivers conducted during the first phase of a federally funded longitudinal study of individual and social protective factors for children in informal kinship care.  Caregiver stress was measured by the Parent Domain of PSI; family functioning by the Beavers Self-report Family Instrument; social support by the Family Support Scale; and financial/material resources by the Family Resource Scale.  The dependent variable, child functioning, was measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) Parent Report Form.

Results: Using multiple imputation to handle missing data, logistic regression analysis showed that caregiver stress and family functioning demonstrated statistically significant associations with child's behavioral functioning, even after controlling for demographic variables, such as caregiver's age and income.  Children living with caregivers who were less stressed and in caregiving families that had better family functioning were less likely to display clinically significant behavior problems.

Implications for Policy and Practice: As in birth parent headed families, results of this study suggest that family functioning, caregiver stress, and child behavioral functioning are intertwined in families headed by kin.  Regardless of the causal direction of these relationships, the findings suggest the need for multiple levels of intervention and support for kinship caregivers and their families caring for children with severe behavior problems.

Methods:  This paper reports findings from interviews with 12 birth parents whose children reside in informal kinship care arrangements.  The interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Atlas.ti.  Grounded theory was the qualitative approach that guided the study.

Results:  Parents reported that their children live with kin because of a variety of reasons, most commonly the parents' drug problems.  The birth parents interviewed in this study reported that they had regular contact with their children and the kinship caregiver.  The majority of the parents saw their role in the lives of their children as important both for the children and for themselves.

Parents expressed fear of being forgotten or complained that access to the child was constrained. Positive feelings expressed by birth parents included knowing that love was in the home of the kinship caregiver, having the child in a home where the child would learn more than the parent could teach.  Parents expressed feelings of loneliness when separated from their children and feelings of joy and happiness when they were with their children.  Parents also described challenges to their ability to care for their children and shared their future dreams and goals for their children.

Implications for Policy and Practice: Results of this study reveal that at least in some kinship care situations, birth parents are involved with and care deeply for their children.  Programs that are designed to support kinship care need to assess the degree of involvement and consider incorporating parents into the assessment and service planning process.

Methods:  This paper reports findings from interviews with 25 children living in informal kinship care.  The interviews began with construction of a "family tree," were audio taped, transcribed, analyzed using Atlas.ti, and guided by grounded theory.  Children responded to open-ended questions about the way they view their families, their understanding of how they came to live with relatives, and feelings of belonging to a family.

Results: Interviews with children revealed conceptions of family held by these children, their sense of belonging and connectedness to very involved and often very large extended families, the important adults in the lives of these children, and the importance of siblings, cousins and others.  Children also revealed views of their future living arrangements and their current and desired relationships with their parents.  While most children longed to live with at least one birth parent, they expressed the desire to live in a household that also included their current kinship caregiver and several other extended family members.

Implications for Policy and Practice: While one could argue that children are most affected by the arrangements that families make to ensure that they are well cared for, policy makers and sometimes practitioners neglect to elicit their views.  There is something very important and powerful about hearing the voices of children and clearly we need to listen to these children as we formulate recommendations for programs and policies that will affect the lives of children in similar circumstances in the future.