Relative Placement in Child Protection Cases: A Judicial Perspective

Relative Placement in Child Protection Cases:
A Judicial Perspective
http://www.chhs.ca.gov/initiatives/CAChildWelfareCouncil/Documents/Relative%20Placement.pdf

By Judge Leonard Edwards (ret.)
I. INTRODUCTION
Child welfare agencies and courts place thousands of children in out-of-home care
every year.
1
This paper examines whether the state should give relatives preference over
non-relatives when placing children—and, if so, how to accomplish that goal. In the
1980s, state and federal government policies shifted toward favoring relatives (so-called
“kinship care”), but significant problems arise when delays occur in implementing these
policies. For example, relatives do not always know that child protection proceedings
are pending, and delays in the child protection and court systems often exclude them
from consideration for placement even when they have notice. When relatives request
placement long after a child has entered foster care, child welfare agencies and courts
struggle with the competing placement interests of relatives, foster parents, and the
child. To implement relative preference policies effectively, child protection agencies
and courts must modify their practices and procedures. The stakes are high because
placement will have a lifelong impact on the families involved and, most significantly,
on the child.
Section II briefly describes child placement history in the United States. The third
section addresses the emergence of relative preference as a goal within the child protection system. This discussion includes reasons why policy makers prefer relative placements to non-relative placements, and when and why states and the federal government
began passing legislation reinforcing this preference. The fourth section examines the
1 As of November 2008, there were 508,446 children in out-of-home care according to the
Children’s Defense Fund, Children in the United States (2009).