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The increasing number and proportion of children in out-of-home care placed in the homes of relatives are among the most important child welfare trends of the decade [Berrick et al. 1994; Center for the Study of Social Policy 1990]. This article describes historical and recent developments in kinship care and discusses policy implications. It considers a range of definitions and ways of conceptualizing kinship care and applies the broadest of these when exploring the experiences of persons of color.
Overview of Kinship Care
Definitions of Kinship Care
The term kinship care has been recently used by the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) Commission on Family Foster Care, which, in cooperation with the National Foster Parent Association, developed goals and recommendations promoting relatives and friends as placement resources for children in out-of-home care [CWLA 1994; Takas 1992]. The movement toward kinship care is congruent with the earlier work of Stack [1974], who documented the importance of extended kinship networks in the African American community. The term kin usually includes any relative, by blood or marriage, or any person with close family ties [Takas 1993]. Billingsley [1992: 31] refers to the "close family ties" category as relationships of appropriation, meaning "unions without blood ties or marital ties." He writes that "people can become part of a family unit or, indeed, form a family unit simply by deciding to live and act toward each other as family." It is kinship in this broad sense that informs the statement by the Child Welfare League of America [1994: 2]: "Kinship care may be defined as the full-time nurturing and protection of children who must be separated from their parents by relatives, members of their tribes or clans, godparents, stepparents, or other adults who have a kinship bond with a child."
Some definitions of kinship caregiving concern both informal and formal child placement with relatives. Takas [1993: 3] notes that "Kinship care includes both private kinship care (entered by private family arrangement) and kinship foster care (care provided for a child who is in the legal custody of the state child welfare agency)."
Other authors prefer the terms kinship caregivers for those who provide private care and kinship foster parents for those whose care falls within the formal child welfare...