Kinship navigation: Facilitating permanency and equity for youth in child welfare

A Second Chance, Inc (ASCI) is a private kinship care agency based in Pennsylvania that assists child welfare agencies in securing kinship placements for children with a focus on promoting stability and maintaining familial connections. When a child/youth requires an out-of-home placement due to child protection concerns, child welfare agencies in Allegheny County, PA may contact ASCI for assistance to secure kinship homes. ASCI model of care prioritizes racial and cultural competencies as the agency’s emphasis on kinship care was born out of the over-presentation of African American youth in the aforementioned county.  Kinship Navigators (KN) from ASCI are assigned within hours of the referral to meet with the family and provide permanency services based on a five principled model, as follows: 1) the kinship triad (youth, biological parents and kinship families) are engaged in permanency-planning and decision-making process; 2) the value of permanency is central to interactions with kinship families; 3) individualized approaches for older youth; 4) the value of casework to promote permanency; and 5) challenges of permanency are identified and resolved. 

Using administrative data from Allegheny County Department of Human Services Office of Children, Youth, and Families, the authors completed statistical analysis using SPSS including descriptive analysis, bivariate analysis, and multiple logistic regression. 

The data analysis included all children serviced (n=471) and not serviced (n=637) by the KN program within the Alleghany County for youth (ages 0 to 17 years old) requiring out of home placements from January 2017 to March 2020. Findings show that most of the children returned home, KN group (76.4%) and the non-KN group (80.7%). For the remaining participants, the analysis showed that permanent legal custody (PLC) was more likely secured when a KN was in place, whereas adoption was more likely with a non-KN program. No differences were found between Black and White children in outcomes when receiving services from the KN. However, Black children were less likely to obtain permanency at case closure when a KN was not in place (12.1% versus 19.8% of White children). Results of the multivariate logistic regression, after controlling for gender, age, and race, highlight that when the services of a KN from ASCI were engaged, all children were 3.8 times more likely to obtain permanent legal custody when compared to children who did not receive KN services.