Kinship care is the fastest
growing placement in the foster care system today. It provides a safety
net for about 3.2 million children living either in formal,
voluntary, or informal kinship care in the United States. Although
kinship care is an ancient concept that has provided support for
family units across the globe for many centuries, it became more prominent
in the United States since the 1970s. There have been many
studies done concerning the pros and cons of kinship care and
the benefits it provides for children. These studies have become an ongoing
debate among advocates and opponents. The purpose of this blog is to allow the readers to weigh in on the
debate and state their opinions concerning kinship care.
According to several studies,
kinship care offers stable living conditions for children in the absence of
their parents. While this is a proven fact, some opponents of kinship care argue
that although living conditions are stable, they are not permanent. Children in
kinship care seldom got adopted by their family members. Therefore children tend to remain under state
guardianship until they are emancipated or reunified with parents. Another
crucial fact that researchers tend to disagree on is children being placed with
familiar people and environments. Whereas
some researchers claim that kinship care offers children familiar faces, homes
and neighborhoods, which enhances the smoothness of transitioning; conversely,
other researchers disagree and argue that children are exposed to overcrowded
homes, poverty
and similar negative situations to the homes they were initially removed from. Lastly, according to several researchers,
kinship care provides more frequent contact with parents and siblings than that
of non- kinship care. Advocates of kinship care believe that allowing children
to maintain contact with their parents or siblings is an excellent way to give
children a sense of hope and remove the stigma of abandonment. However, some
opponents feel, visitations are not as stringently supervised as they should,
therefore causing children to become vulnerable to negative influences.
Now, that you have read some facts
from both sides of the debate concerning kinship care, what is your verdict?
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