A large proportion of children in the foster care system experience placement instability, which works against the three national goals for children in the child welfare system: permanency, safety, and well-being. Placement instability has been linked with increased child externalizing behaviors and increased parenting stress. Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) is one intervention which combats issues associated with placement instability. The authors outline the needs of children and families in the foster care system, the benefits of relationship-focused play therapy interventions, and provide rationale for the use of CPRT among child welfare agencies.

Concurrent planning is a process by which all options for permanency are considered simultaneously for children in foster care. Children are placed with caregivers (resource parents) who are open to adoption if reunification with birth parents does not occur. This U.S.-based quantitative study explored resource parents’ perceptions of the concurrent planning process via surveys at two time points. Participants included resource parents of 77 infants assessed at 2 months and 1 year after placement.

Black and Latinx youth are more likely to be placed into foster care compared to non-Latinx white youth. Foster care placement can facilitate mental health service use, yet youth from marginalized and oppressed racial and ethnic groups in foster care are still less likely to receive mental health services compared to non-Latinx white youth. This study aims to examine this discrepancy Black and Latinx youth face by testing (a) whether mental health need moderates the relationship between race or ethnicity and foster care placement and (b) whether race or ethnicity moderates the relationship between foster care placement and mental health service use.

The purpose of this study was to examine, in a sample of residential care children, the moderating role of cognitive flexibility in the association between maltreatment and emotion regulation competencies. The sample included 69 children aged 8 to 12 and their group home educator as their primary caretaker. Educators completed questionnaires evaluating child emotion regulation competencies and cognitive flexibility.

This study provides an overview of the family reunification process of Latinx adolescents who have migrated to join their families in the United States.

This study examines the perceptions of 145 incarcerated mothers of minor children in a large Midwestern jail to understand the correlation between where their children are living during their incarceration and the mothers’ feelings about these placements and relationships with their children. Mothers were most satisfied if children lived with maternal grandparents, and least satisfied if children were in foster care. Women with higher scores for the relationship with close relatives, those having contact with their child(ren) while incarcerated, and mothers with no children in foster care reported feeling better about these placements. The findings highlight the importance of women maintaining contact with their children and their children’s caretakers while incarcerated.

Typical large-group institutions for abandoned children or orphans are known to be bad for the development of children, but what about small-group care?

This qualitative interview study assessed the pandemic’s impact on the educational experiences of foster youth in the United States from the perspectives of their caseworkers. Participant caseworkers discussed how the pandemic affected the academic progress and social/emotional development of youth in foster care and highlighted some challenges of online learning.

These two case studies focus on kinship care: one describes kinship care in the Kenya context and the other describes family-based alternative care in Guatemala, including kinship care. They are meant to help practitioners better understand the practical implications of kinship and other forms of family-based alternative care and inform similar work in other contexts. These case studies have been produced by Changing the Way We CareSM, a global initiative implemented by Catholic Relief Services and Maestral International, and other global, national and local partners working together to change the way we care for children around the world.

This review will first highlight systemic/institutional inequities accentuated by the pandemic for subgroups of vulnerable children. These include Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), Black and Latinx, Indigenous populations, refugee communities, those with disability and LGBTQIA+ youth.