Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal: 'Predicting permanency intentions among kinship caregivers'.

Denby, Ramona W.

This study examines 830 kinship caregivers' experiences and their perceptions of the 1,339 children in their care in order to predict permanency intent. Permanency intent is a caregiver's expressed intent to adopt the child in his or her care or to provide permanent, legal guardianship. The results of this study reveal that most caregivers' permanency choice is guardianship and not adoption. However, binary logistic regression results uncovered six factors--thorough explanation of case plans, decreases in caregiver emotional stress, decreases in child depression, child lack of communication with birth parent, caregiver providing care for a sibling group, decreases in run-away behaviour--that predict that a caregiver will adopt the child in his or her care. Policy, practice and research implications are noted.

28:1, February 2011, pp 113-31