Fictive Kinship Care and Time to Different Permanency Outcomes

Background and Purpose: Achieving timely permanency is a central goal of the child welfare system, as it promotes stability and well-being for children. Fictive kinship refers to caregivers who are not biologically or legally related to the child but have family-like relationships. The pre-existing relationship could lend further support leading to more stable placements and ultimately more rapid permanency, but it should not be used to bypass the licensure process that leads to formal agency support. Approximately one-third of children in the United States are in kinship placements, and although we know much about kinship in general, we have a limited understanding of fictive kinship as a distinct placement type. To address this gap, this study examines how fictive kinship placement is associated with the timing of permanency.

Methods: Data were drawn from administrative child welfare records from a Mid-Atlantic state (n = 15,814). The analytic sample included children in their first foster care spell with non-temporary placement episodes of at least 8 days beginning on or after January 1, 2008, with return dates observed through April 21, 2023. The dependent variables consisted of time to permanency (overall, as well as reunification, adoption, and guardianship). The key independent variable was a binary indicator that the child experienced fictive kinship care (1 = ever experienced, 0 = never) during the spell. A total of 5,459 children (38.4%) experienced fictive kinship care during their first spell. Demographic characteristics, including gender, race, ethnicity, and age at removal differed by fictive kinship history. In addition, histories of relative care, family foster care, and other placements were indicated by similar binary variables. These variables were not mutually exclusive, as children could experience multiple placement types in an episode. Cox hazards regression models were used to examine the association between placement types and rate of achieving permanency.

Results: For overall permanency, fictive kinship care was associated with a 24% lower rate of achieving permanency. The reduction was larger for family foster care (49% lower) and other placements (47% lower). When examined by permanency type, for adoption, fictive kinship care was associated with a 25% lower rate, whereas children in family foster care were adopted more than five times faster. For reunification, fictive kinship care was also associated with a 35% lower rate. For guardianship, fictive kinship care was not associated with differences in timing, while children in formal kinship care reached guardianship nearly four times faster.

Conclusions and Implications: Fictive kinship placement was associated with a delayed rate of permanency across outcomes excluding guardianship. Notable differences with family foster care, which differs from fictive kin based only on the pre-existing relationships, were observed. These differences could imply that there are problems related to fictive kin’s connections to birth parents or could be due to delayed licensure status of fictive kin. These findings underscore the need for proper vetting, targeted interventions, licensure and formal Title IV-E support for fictive kin caregivers, and efforts to promote timely permanency among children placed in fictive kinship care.