Kids from broken homes generally do better when placed with a relative rather than put in foster care, a Colorado State University researcher said Monday.
But there are drawbacks to placing children with kin, who are less likely to get kids access to services such as mental-health care, researcher Marc Winokur said.
Winokur, director of the Social Work Research Center in the School of Social Work, is lead author of a study of how well children in several nations fare when taken out of a parent’s home.
The information, Winokur said, will help guide social workers and judges in their decisions affecting more than 500,000 U.S. children in out-of-home placements.
“We do not know what type of out-of-home care is best for children,” he said. “We do know that children in out-of-home placements typically struggle with more educational, behavioral and physiological problems than do their peers, so finding the most appropriate placement options for each child is critical.”
In many countries, the number of children removed from a home and placed with relatives has rapidly increased in the past 15 years.
Winokur’s work analyzed 62 research studies, primarily from the U.S. but also from Norway, Israel, Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia, according to CSU.
“The first inclination is to keep children in their home or near their home and community,” Winokur said. “It’s usually with a grandparent or it can be an aunt or uncle or some close family member.”
Research shows these kids tend to do better in behavioral development, usually because the situations are safer and more stable.
But kinship care has its problems, he said. Mainly, a relative may decline to take advantage of certain care available to the child.
“Hopefully, this study will help get kin more access to the resources a child will need,” he said.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
