Exploring Guardianship as a Solution for Foster Care Permanency

Since 2021, the Children and Family Research Center has been studying a little-used but promising alternative for finding permanent homes for Illinois children and youth in foster care who cannot be reunified with their parents.  The permanency option of guardianship is designed to provide children and youth with a safe and stable home with a guardian, usually a relative. Guardianship does not require terminating birthparents’ parental rights; birthparents can continue to retain rights such as visitation, but responsibility for children’s care is transferred to the guardian. Guardianship can be a welcome choice when family members want to care for their grandchild, nephew, or niece, but not adopt the child. In contrast, adoption can provide children with permanency, but it requires that parents’ rights are terminated or surrendered.

The research also examined racial equity in planning and implementing permanency for Black children in foster care. This is an important part of the context for guardianship, because Black children are disproportionately more likely to be placed in foster care and remain there once placed.

The project is a team effort among CFRC, the Translational Research Team of the Office of Research and Child Well-Being of the Illinois Department of Children and Families (DCFS), and students and volunteers from the School of Social Work. The research was supported by the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion through its Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program, and by funding by DCFS to the Translational Research Team.

The research explored:

• How professionals have experienced different permanency options, with a particular focus on guardianship, and how they perceive these options.
• How caregivers have experienced permanency planning and how they perceive different permanency options.
• Professionals’ and caregivers’ perceptions of racial issues in permanency planning and outcomes.

Part of the context of this study is a longstanding debate about the value of adoption versus guardianship. Some experts have claimed that adoption represents a greater commitment and is more stable, and a preference for adoption has been codified in Federal and Illinois law.  But recent research finds no difference in stability between adoption and guardianship.  Moreover, some experts argue that the preference for adoption can obstruct stable guardianships with kin caregivers who can provide children permanent homes with their extended family. The need to enhance permanency options in Illinois is urgent, because the state is last in the country in its rate of placing children in foster care in permanent homes.

The research team conducted interviews with 40 Illinois permanency professionals (caseworkers, casework supervisors, judges, and attorneys) and 11 kin caregivers providing or planning to provide an adoptive or guardianship home for Black children in their care.  The team also conducted a survey of permanency professionals, with 267 respondents, and a survey of caregivers, with 167 respondents.

Below is a summary of some key findings:

Adoption and Guardianship as Permanency Options

Our data suggest that most professionals involved in permanency work in Illinois are flexible and tailor their permanency decision-making to the individual child and their specific needs. A number of our professional interviewees saw no difference in the value or adoption or guardianship or said it depended on the child or youth in the case. Most of the professionals we surveyed selected “it depends on the case” or “no difference” on most criteria comparing guardianship to adoption. Some professionals in both the interviews and surveys, however, reported that they thought that adoption was more stable than guardianship. Our impression was that most participants were not familiar with the latest research showing no difference in stability between adoption and guardianship. In both the survey and interviews, permanency professionals reported a number of barriers to achieving permanency through guardianship, including lack of awareness among both workers and families about guardianship as a permanency option, the number of years that achieving guardianship can take (especially for older children), licensing requirements, and agency-court coordination.

Caregivers’ Experience of the Permanency Process

Perhaps our most important finding from the caregiver interviews was the deep love and commitment of caregivers for these children, both in adoptive and guardian homes. Those who chose adoption explained in detail how the birthparents’ behavior and relationship with the children could not support a guardianship that would benefit the child. Those who chose guardianship also carefully explained how guardianship supports familial relationships, leaves the door open for future positive reunification, and respects youths’ wishes. The caregiver survey results were consistent with the interviews, and also revealed that, in a minority of cases, the caregiver would have preferred a different permanency option, suggesting there is sometimes a mismatch between the caregiver’s goals and the court decision on permanency.

Racial Equity and Permanency

Nearly half of respondents to the survey of permanency professionals felt that not enough services are available in communities or neighborhoods with large proportions of Black families. About one-fifth felt that some professionals were less likely to respect the views of Black families about adoption and guardianship, and the same proportion felt that some professionals are biased against Black families who are seeking guardianship of a child.

On the survey of professionals, White caseworkers were:

• more than twice as likely as Black caseworkers to respond that there was no difference in permanency planning for Black families compared to White families
• almost four times as likely to perceive no differences in child welfare system supports for Black children and their families compared to White children and their families.

Black caseworkers, on the other hand, were:

• almost five times more likely to agree that “Children are reunified more quickly in White families than in comparable Black families”
• more than three times more likely to agree that “The courts give Black birth families less time than White families before moving to terminate parental rights”
• almost three times as likely to agree that “Children are more likely to be reunified in White families than in comparable Black families”

Conclusion

Guardianship is an option that could provide more children in foster care with permanent homes. Increased use of guardianship may also be one strategy for decreasing racial disparities in achieving permanency.  Most permanency professionals in our study perceived minimal difference in the outcomes of guardianship and adoption and were flexible about the permanency option best suited for the child. However, the development of permanency practice needs to consider both the persistent preference for adoption among some professionals and obstacles to permanency rooted in racial perceptions.  Illinois DCFS has recently undertaken an initiative to increase awareness of guardianship and promote its consideration as a viable preference for many families.  The research team in the School of Social Work has made a series of recommendations based on its findings and is collaborating with DCFS to communicate the results of this study broadly.  The goal is to improve practice and increase the chances for children in DCFS care to transition to loving, permanent homes.

For more information, see the CFRC website.