Summary: GAO's survey of open foster care cases in California and Illinois found that caregivers both in kinship care (in which foster children are placed with relatives) and in other foster care settings demonstrated good parenting skills. There is more continuity in the lives of children in kinship care before and after they enter foster care than there is in other foster children's lives. GAO found no consistent relationship between kinship care and permanency goals (such as adoption or guardianship) or the time foster children had spent in the child welfare system. However, more than 80 percent of the children in kinship care in each state had been in care longer than the maximum period of time generally allowed by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 before which a state would be required to initiate procedures to terminate parental rights. Differences in permanency goals and time in foster care may depend more on state policies and practices than on foster care setting. Both states are raising standards for kinship caregivers and widening the pool of potential kinship caregivers; they have taken initiatives either to make homes with relatives a viable permanency option or to facilitate permanency planning.
