We Are Family: Children Fare Better in Kinship Care Than in Foster Care

We know little about the growing number of children being raised by relatives. Investigators prospectively compared support services and 3-year mental health outcomes among 1308 randomly selected children (age, <14 years) in the U.S. child protective services system who were placed in kinship or nonrelative foster care after reported maltreatment. The distribution of race or ethnicity and age were similar in the groups.

Kinship caregivers were older and significantly more likely to be female, single, and unemployed and to have less formal education and lower socioeconomic status than foster caregivers. Foster caregivers were significantly more likely to have peer or respite support than were kinship caregivers (35% vs. 5%) and to receive fin…