The last legal and physical arrangement is the focus of this report. These children,
although living with family members, are the direct responsibility of the State child
welfare agency and generally are cared for in programs underwritten with Federal child
welfare funds. While legally and administratively these children are part of the general

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foster-care population, the family relationships involved in their placements result in
unique policy and practice issues.

The practice of placing children for whom the State is legally responsible with extended
family members is not a new one. Child welfare agencies have long used "specific"
foster homes drawn from families' informal support networks to care for children in their
legal custody.2 In such placements, adults with biological or emotional ties to children
were approved to care for only those children. Because they cared only for these
particular children, standards for approving the home were less formal, if not less
stringent, and services and financial support were based on individual case assessments
rather than entitlements through policy.

Clear policy and anecdotal evidence indicates, however, such placements were considered
as a last resort in many State child welfare systems and were actively discouraged in
others. Certainly the use of "specific" foster homes was considered less within the limits
of agency policies than more traditional placements with foster parents having no previous
relationship to the child. In some States, for example, children placed with relatives,
whatever their legal status vis-a-vis the State child welfare agency, were frequently
considered the responsibility of the Assistance Payments staff who often supervised Aid to
Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) payments to the relatives. The role of these
placements in the child welfare system was rarely clear in either policy or practice. Their
limited numbers allowed public policy makers to avoid the question on a systemic level.

Three events in the late 1970s and early 1980s pushed the States to begin rethinking these
policies:

The indian Child Welfare Act (P.L. 95-608) called for preservation of the ethnic heritage
of Native American children in foster care through a variety of protections, among them
extended family placements. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (P.L. 96-
272) required placement of children who were the legal responsibility of the State in the
least restrictive setting and in close proximity to their families. State policy makers have
interpreted the "least restrictive" requirements as prefemng placements with relatives.

Both pieces of legislation spurred States to adopt policies which used relatives as the first
level of alternative care to insure continuity for children in foster care. In some States,
the policy language adopted subsequent to the Federal legislation implies that State child
welfare agencies should look to relative care as an alternative to traditional foster care.
Suddenly, relatives were given a priority role in a foster-care system in which they
previously played only an incidental part.

The third event Miller vs. Youakim (440 US 125 (1979)) began a process of change in the

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treatment of relative foster-care providers. The Court ruled that, if relative foster home
arrangements meet the Federal eligibility standards for Federal funding, States could not
deny Federally-funded benefits based solely upon the fact that the caregiver was a relative.

Foster parents who care for children in the legal custody of the State ordinarily receive
foster-care maintenance payments on behalf of those children. States or local jurisdictions
provide the base monies, but a significant part of the funds for these payments are derived
from Federal Social Security Title IV-E and IV-B funds. Prior to Miller vs. Youakim,
many States routinely denied all foster-care maintenance payments, regardless of funding
source, to children placed with relatives even though they met Federal criteria (i.e.,
children who were adjudicated dependent, placed in a licensed or approved home, and
AFDC-eligible). The Supreme Court ruled there was no basis for denying Social Security
Act funds to eligible children placed with relatives.

This decision changed the financial arrangements between large numbers of extended
family foster parents and State child welfare agencies by making many relative foster-care
providers eligible for Federally-supported, foster-care maintenance payments. By drawing
relatives into the formal subsidy arrangement to reimburse paraprofessional foster parents,
it opened placements with relatives to increased scrutiny and formalized the roles of
relatives providing foster care in many States.

Over the last five years, relative foster care has come under increasing scrutiny for several
reasons:

Organizations such as the Child Welfare League of America, the American Public Welfare
Association, and the American Bar Association Center for Children and the Law, as well
as Departmental staff and members of Congress, recently have begun to raise concerns
about the need for policy guidance in making such foster-care placements. Child welfare
administrators and public advocacy groups raise many issues concerning relative foster
care as a practice. Undergirding many of these concerns, and most of the findings of this
report, is the central question of how to define the role of extended family members in the

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formal child welfare system. Questions and issues arise as public-agencies, charged with
caring and planning for foster children, struggle to classify care provided by a relative as
either foster care or family preservation.

While most practitioners now agree that placing children within their extended family
networks offers many benefits, the practice raises many public policy issues. A recent
report from the National Commission on Family Foster Care,4 convened by the Child
Welfare League of America and the National Foster Parent Association, presented the
major issues:


METHODOLOGY

We used a four-step process for data collection. In the first level of the investigation, we
explored the many recently initiated research and policy development efforts in this area.
This review of works in progress provided an overview of emerging issues about relative
foster-care placements.

Second, in order to describe States' policies and legal frameworks for using relative
foster-care parents and to determine current practice, we conducted telephone interviews
with public foster-care officials in each of the fifty States and the District of Columbia
(hereafter referred to as a State).

Third, in these interviews, we requested copies of written materials that give in-depth
information on unique aspects of programs. Finally, we interviewed by telephone
individuals in several States who were involved with public and private relative foster-care
programs identified by State administrators.

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