True ambivalence: Child welfare workers' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about kinship foster care

Children and Youth Services Review 27 (2005) 595 – 614 www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth

True ambivalence: Child welfare workers’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about kinship foster care Jay Peters* School of Social Work, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, United States Received 8 October 2004; received in revised form 10 November 2004; accepted 18 November 2004 Available online 19 December 2004

Abstract Despite generally positive research findings on kinship placement, rates of kinship foster care have risen only modestly. Because workers’ thoughts and attitudes may influence their placement decisions, this article presents a content analysis of child welfare workers’ responses during kinship foster care training. The analysis reveals that workers simultaneously have strong positive feelings toward kinship foster care along with negative reactions related to the greater time consumed by kinship foster care placements, the frequent difficulty of dealing with triangulation, the lack of clear and coherent policy regarding work with kin, and a resulting increased feeling of risk. These results extend and amplify prior findings. For example, prior studies have noted workers’ difficulties with the frequently complicated family dynamics of kinship foster care. In this study, workers identified triangulation as the most difficult manifestation of those dynamics. The enormous time consumed and the frequent allegations made by family members during triangulation often caused workers to distrust family members and to worry that they could not adequately protect the child. The article includes numerous recommendations for training and changes in policy that would reduce worker anxiety and thus increase their effectiveness and willingness to work with kinship foster care. D 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Child welfare; Kinship foster care; Triangulation

* Tel.: +1 207 581 2355; fax: +1 207 581 2396. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0190-7409/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2004.11.012

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1. Introduction Kinship care is often defined as the full-time, long-term care of children by relatives or other adults who have a kinship bond with the child (Child Welfare League of America, 2003). The growth in kinship care is widely reported (see, for example, Geen & Berrick, 2002) and is usually attributed to a number of causes including the increased caseloads of child welfare agencies, mandatory sentencing for drug-related offenses, as well as a decline in the number of available traditional foster care homes (Child Welfare League of America, 2003). While statistics are incomplete due to variations in how states report placement into foster care, it is estimated that 29% of all children in care are placed with relatives (Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). There exists, however, wide variation in utilization of kinship placements. States such as Mississippi, Hawaii, and California place 49%, 40%, and 37% of children with kin, respectively (Children’s Defense Fund, 2003). In contrast, states such as Alabama, South Carolina, Vermont, or New Hampshire place only 3% to 10% of children with kin (Children’s Defense Fund, 2003). Maine currently places 14.4% of children in care with kin (Matthew Ruel, Maine Department of Health and Human Services, personal communication, January 22, 2004). Despite the recent increase in kinship placements and the focus on working with kin within child welfare, little research has been conducted on child welfare workers’ attitudes towards and experience of working with kinship foster care. In their 1999 survey of 533 child welfare workers in California, Berrick, Needell, and Barth found that child welfare workers stated that when compared with traditional foster care, working with kinship families took more time, and was more difficult. Workers attributed this greater difficulty to the complicated family dynamics of kinship families which frequently include blongstanding strains between relativesQ (1999, p. 188). In addition, workers reported difficulty working with kinship families due to the family’s inability to set appropriate boundaries with the abusive family members, their inability to meet the needs of the child, and their anger or resentment toward the child (1999). In that same year, Beeman and Boisen (1999) reported the results of their survey of 261 child welfare workers in three counties in Minnesota. They found that the majority of workers held positive attitudes toward kinship placements. Interestingly, despite most workers’ reports that kinship foster parents were strongly motivated, cooperative with, and open to sharing information with the agency, fully 42.7% of the workers still thought that kin placements were more difficult to supervise (Beeman & Boisen, 1999). In response to an open-ended question about their concerns, some workers noted that working with kinship foster parents took more time and required more support from the worker to help the family negotiate the child welfare system. An even more frequent concern was expressed about kinship foster parents’ black of objectivity about the child and biological parentsQ and their bover-involvementQ with or bloyaltyQ to the biological parents (Beeman & Boisen, 1999, p. 329). Although not explicitly stated, these concerns appear related to fears that kinship foster care placements may increase the risk of re-abuse for the child. Chipman, Wells, and Johnson (2002) used focus groups with both kinship families and caseworkers. In those focus groups, caseworkers stated directly their concern that in kinship settings, children are at greater risk of re-abuse due to the increased likelihood of

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increased contact with abusive parents. These fears were confirmed by kinship caregivers who reported that btheir emotional attachment to the birth parent made it difficult to enforce rulesQ around visitation (2002, p. 519). Going yet further, Chipman et al. uncovered a fundamental divergence in the goals of caseworkers and kinship caregivers with caseworkers naturally focused on child safety while kin were primarily focused on providing the child with blove and moral and spiritual guidanceQ (p. 517). Given the results of these studies, Flynn (2002) asks: bWhat, despite generally favorable outcome studies, are the barriers to increased use of kinship foster careQ (p. 315)? The goal of the current exploratory research was to at least partially answer this question through increasing our understanding of child welfare workers’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward working with kinship foster care. In particular, the research sought to identify both the barriers and incentives perceived by workers toward kinship care. This research arose out of an effort by one of the large regional child welfare offices in Maine to increase rates of kinship foster care placement. In order to both understand and change workers’ thoughts and feelings toward kinship care, the author was asked by office administrators to design a training which would address both the difficulties of kinship work and the reasons for enduring those difficulties. An underlying assumption of the training was that workers have both positive and negative thoughts and feelings about working with kin and that these thoughts and feelings are bat playQ in every contact workers have with family members of children in care. Through helping workers articulate their positive experiences and feelings about kinship care, we sought to reaffirm and strengthen their commitment to kinship foster care. At the same time, through helping workers express their negative thoughts, feelings, and experiences related to kinship care, it was hoped that these aspects would no longer be operating unconsciously. Instead, they could be consciously examined, reevaluated, and ultimately contrasted with the many positive aspects of kin work. Through making both the positive and negative sides more cognitively accessible, we sought to help workers resolve what we conceptualized as their ambivalence regarding kinship care and therefore to work more effectively with kinship families.

2. Methodology The Kinship Training was delivered to nine units of a child welfare office in a rural state. At full staffing, these units have 7 workers per unit. With vacancies, emergencies, and sick days, attendance at the training averaged 6 people per unit, with a range from 8 to 4, including the unit supervisor who attended and participated in the training. As was previously found by Chipman et al. (2002), supervisor comments did not differ significantly from worker comments and were therefore included in the data. The staff has a mean length of employment with the department of just over three years (M=38.7 months, S.D.=24.5) according to a recent retention study (Griffith, 2002). The training lasted four hours and, based on Jackson’s (1999) recommendations, consisted primarily of experiential learning through brainstorming sessions, role-plays, and guided reminiscence (outline of training available from the author). Workers’ comments during each brainstorm session were recorded on flip charts. These charts, as

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well as my notes taken during the role-plays and general discussions were transcribed into a text file and then entered into QSR’s N5 Qualitative software. The software was used to code each line of all text entries using both theoretical and emergent coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). All text entries were coded at least three times. This repeated coding ensured that if new codes emerged during the coding process, these new codes could be applied to previously coded text during the next time through the text. Coding continued until saturation—the point at which no new understandings (or codes) emerge (Schutt, 2001). In most cases, saturation occurred after three complete iterations of coding while coding related to triangulation required four iterations. Before examining the results, some limitations of the data should be noted. Most, though not all, workers reported at least some direct experience of working with kinship foster placements. Given the methodology with which the data was gathered, it was not possible to determine whether any given worker statement was based on individual case experience, shared experience within the worker’s unit, or on preexisting attitudes, beliefs, stereotypes, or prejudices of the worker. The results should therefore be viewed as representing statements based on an admixture of direct and indirect experience with kinship care as well as workers’ predispositions toward kinship foster care. In addition, the presence of the unit supervisor may have inhibited some workers from expressing their genuine thoughts. Workers reported that being able to voice their negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes was a strength of the training, but may still have avoided giving voice to yet more radical thoughts. In qualitative research, triangulation or bgetting atQ the same information from various points of view or through differing methodologies is used to increase the trustworthiness of the results (Berg, 2001). In the present case, because I was both the person who designed and delivered the training and the person analyzing the results, triangulation was especially important. I therefore conducted a bmember checkQ (Janesick, 2000) which consisted of soliciting comments from all participants on a prior draft of this article. Specifically, I asked them to let me know if I had missed or misrepresented anything in this analysis and writing. One participant encouraged me to include more information about their endorsement of the bapple does not fall far from the treeQ belief (which I have done). All other participants who responded to my request noted that the article fully and accurately represented what they remembered of the training. This member check, while adequate for initial exploratory research, should be enhanced with greater triangulation of both data sources and methods in future research.

3. Results 3.1. Positive worker thoughts, feelings, and attitudes While the negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes expressed in the training usually filled more flip-chart pages and were expressed with greater emotion, workers also had many positive and passionately held thoughts, feelings, experiences, and beliefs about the value of placing children with kin. Foremost amongst these was the conviction that children do better in their growth and development when placed with kin than in foster

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care homes. Two themes related to this better performance emerged relating to intrapsychic and social causes. These will be examined separately below. 3.1.1. Intrapsychic reasons Among the intrapsychic benefits of kinship placement listed by workers was the decrease in what workers termed the b. . .unrealistic fantasy of a perfect familyQ which children in care so often develop concerning the nature, abilities, circumstances, and even love in their family of origin. This decrease in unrealistic fantasies (mentioned by 7 of 9 units) was seen as promoting in the child a greater grounding in reality concerning their family. This grounding in reality was seen as contributing to an increased ability by the child to realistically know the positive and negative aspects of their family which, in turn, was seen as fostering the development of healthy ambivalence rather than borderline good/ bad splits concerning their family of origin. Almost all workers considered children raised in either traditional or kinship foster care as highly likely to bmake a beelineQ back to their family of origin when they reached the age of majority and bage outQ of the system. The workers, however, saw that possibility as inversely related to the amount of contact the child had had with their biological family. Kin placement was therefore seen as increasing a child’s ability to appropriately separate (psychologically and/or physically) from their biological family. For children who return nonetheless from kin placements to their biological families, workers thought the development of appropriate ambivalence toward their family of origin would help returning children be more prepared for the reality of their family. A returning child was seen as already dealing with the bcrisisQ of leaving the foster family and being on his or her own. The child’s more realistic feelings toward the biological family was seen as helping the child in this situation avoid a bsecond crisis of being disappointed with their family.Q Three of the nine units went even further and suggested that these two crises could potentially interact to increase the risk of re-abuse of the child. Specifically, workers in those three units saw a potentially dangerous interaction between (1) a child who has suffered many losses but has hung tenaciously to the fantasy of a good and loving family now having that fantasy demolished and (2) the biological family which was almost certain to feel threatened by the return of a child who has been raised by surrogate parents for several years. Workers in the three units that pointed out this potential interaction thought it was likely to result in angry, provocative behavior by the child and rigid, controlling behavior by the threatened family unit. Because of this potential interaction, workers in those three units thought the more realistic appraisal of their family which children in kinship care may develop would serve as an important protective factor. A similar theme emerged in which workers in five units viewed kinship care as helping families not only maintain greater contact with their child but also in engaging more fully in changes which promote child safety and improved family functioning. Some workers went so far as to state that for these reasons, when contrasted with kinship care, btraditional foster care is a set-up for failure for the family.Q This topic will be explored more fully below. Returning for a moment to the intrapsychic factors related to children aging out of the DHS system, workers noted that bkids don’t age out of their familyQ and

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so, when they reach the age of majority, they do not have to contend with feeling that they have no where they truly belong, bnowhere to celebrate the holidays.Q Additional positive intrapsychic factors associated with kin placements related directly to this issue of belonging. In kin placements, children are often (though not always) able to maintain ties with extended family members, their friends, school, and community. Among workers in all units, this continuity was seen as helpful in itself through bhelping the child maintain a sense of belonging. . .[and] identity.Q In addition, the placement was seen by workers in all units as helping the child maintain transitional objects, including the familiar smells, rituals, and even the idiosyncratic language patterns, idioms, and inflections of many families. Even more importantly, all units saw this maintenance of continuity through kin placements as lessening the grief, loss, and disruption of attachments with which the child had to contend. Secondary to this benefit, several units noted that the reduction in grief and loss issues related to placement meant that children placed with kin would be more able to focus on and resolve the fundamental psychological issues related to the abuse and neglect which had brought them into care. Through this bdecreased need to work through losses in therapy, psychotherapy is [therefore] likely to be shorter and more focused.Q In fact, workers viewed kinship placement as helping the child’s psychological recovery in many ways. In particular, kinship care was seen as implicitly telling the child bthat the family is okay—the problem is with the abuser.Q This message, in turn, bdecreases child self-blameQ which helps recovery directly through bincreasing the child’s ability to come to terms with what happened.Q Whether directly linked or not, workers noted that kin placements increased the likelihood that the child would bwork on their issues.Q This aspect of kinship placement was therefore seen as bincreasing their ownership of issuesQ and a consequent move into health. On a more subtle intrapsychic level, workers noted that kinship placements decreased the bdivided loyaltiesQ between kin and foster families that some children experience. Several units thought this decrease in divided loyalties would help the child maintain affectional bonds and ultimately be able to blove people who were not good to you.Q One unit explicitly reiterated here a previous theme, that bknowing their family increases the development of [healthy] ambivalenceQ for the child. Finally, kinship placement was almost universally seen as a way of promoting normal child growth. In part, this was seen as occurring because kinship placement helped children avoid therapeutic settings in which life revolved around treatment plans. bKinship means there is less of that weird asking dis it on your treatment planT when a child wants to walk down to the corner store!Q Some workers expressed skepticism about and discomfort with the extent to which many children in care were btherapizedQ in traditional foster care. Workers voiced strong preference for the more normal living situation found in kinship placements. Workers specifically mentioned that kinship placement bDecreases internalization of therapy jargon.Q And, because blife is not lived according to a treatment plan,Q the child can have a bnormal childhood.Q On a broader level, workers noted that kin were more likely to baccept the child, as is, and not be trying to fix the kid.Q The child therefore grows up in a more normal, strengths-based environment feeling more normal. This idea of normalcy was also a major theme in the social factors in favor of kin placement and will be explored further in the next section.

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3.1.2. Social factors Perhaps the dominant social factor in favor of kin placement was the reduction in stigma. Almost all units mentioned that in this geographical area and social climate, there is little or no stigma attached to living with one or another relative for an extended period of time. In fact, in each unit and in response to a guided memory exercise, one or more workers reported having personal experience of informal (or formal) kinship care. This exercise was created and included in the training because some supervisors have noted that almost all their workers have an experience of kinship care but often do not encode it as bkinship careQ because it was such a normal, accepted part of their experience. In contrast to the widespread social acceptance of kinship foster care, workers noted a severe stigma associated with being bin foster care.Q In particular (and with particular vehemence), workers spoke of the ways in which many public school personnel viewed children in foster care as bthrow-away kidsQ or bdisposable child.Q This stigma was seen as bcrushing to the child’s spiritQ and as yet another externally imposed burden (like the abuse itself) that the child bmust fight off.Q While workers talked about the stigma of non-kinship foster care affecting many areas of the child’s life, it was in school performance where they saw the greatest effects. Specifically, workers saw evidence that the stigma of being in foster care increased the child’s anxiety, which then impacted the child’s ability to learn and participate in the social aspects of school. In contrast, workers noted several beneficial effects of kinship placement. They noted that bfamily members often provide increased encouragement for children to do better than previous generations of family.Q In addition, workers in the adolescent unit noted that in their experience bamong teens, aspirations are higher [e.g., going to college] when placed with kinQ and that children’s grades are often better when placed with kin. One worker reported a case of a child who, in contrast to her performance in several foster care families, did very well by all external measures (e.g., grades, graduation from high school, being regarded as the bstar of familyQ) although she was placed with a relative who was widely regarded as having serious mental health problems. The decrease in stigma associated with kinship placement was therefore seen as helping children psychologically and practically in their development towards healthy and well-functioning adulthood. 3.1.3. Other positive factors While the intrapsychic and social benefits of kin placement outlined above dominated much of the discussion by workers, other important reasons in favor of kin placements were also raised. Chief among these was the maintenance of family ties. This topic reoccurred three times per training for almost all units. Workers stated that kinship care bhelps the child stay familiar with the family, it’s rituals, habits, ways of operating;Q it bpreserves long-term ties;Q and, it bmaintains a child’s sense of belonging.Q Through this contact with family, the child develops a web of bshared memories and experiencesQ which bhelps weave a fabric of integrated experienceQ such that the child bknows their own storyQ with a full richness of detail which can never be achieved through a blifebook.Q

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Workers thought that all these immediate positive aspects had a long-term positive impact on the child because kinship care bincreases the value a child places on family taking care of family.Q Similarly, bkinship placement maintains connections so that the child learns value of family.Q Workers supported this observation with examples such as the fierce pride with which children talked about bmy family,Q or bmy MimiQ when referring to kin. This increased value of family was seen as important in itself and also as an important factor in stopping the intergenerational transmission of abuse by increasing the attachment between family members: Family take care of family, family don’t hurt family. Along with maintaining ties to the family, kinship placement was also seen as important in maintaining ties to the culture of the child. This discussion did not focus on issues related to race because all workers and almost all clients seen in this district are Caucasian. However, many workers were from Franco-American families and talked eloquently about how difficult, disruptive, and sad they would have been if they had been removed and placed with Anglo families. On a more subtle level, workers extended the concept of culture to include the culture of the family with bits rituals, habits, and ways of operating.Q No matter how culture was defined, workers in all units thought that children would be likely to fit in better with their family than with foster families and therefore to feel less loss, alienation, and anxiety. In addition, connection with the culture of the family insures that the child knows and is able to pass on family and cultural values, ethics, and traditions. Kinship care thus maintains the child within their culture. In contrast, workers pointed out that children, especially those who are in foster care with families from different cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds, may be bin limbo,Q belonging neither within the class/culture of their biological family nor the class/culture of the foster care family. 3.1.4. Positive responses summary By the end of the brainstorming session around the question, bWhy bother with kinship placements?Q most units had filled three flip-chart pages with reasons. With these pages lining the walls of the training room, almost all workers readily agreed that, under most circumstances, kinship placements were both congruent with and the optimal ways of enacting the three prime directives of the mission statement of the agency. These directives are to protect children; to rehabilitate and reunify families; and to provide durable family relationships for removed children. This positive attitude was not universal, however. For some workers, the most enthusiastic response to kinship care that they could muster was to damn it with faint praise: bI think kinship care is sometimes the best you have in not great situations.Q For most workers, however, their (re)commitment to kinship placement was firmly in place, allowing us to turn next to the obvious question: bIf kinship care is all that wonderful, then what is keeping us from placing more children with kin?Q Workers’ responses to this question will be examined next. 3.2. Negative worker thoughts, feelings, and attitudes Throughout the training, workers were encouraged to talk about the attitudes they held regardless of political or professional correctness. The rationale for this encouragement was explicitly stated by the trainer who reiterated that such attitudes,

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especially when left unexamined, are likely to effect workers’ behavior with kin in subtle yet profound ways. Workers took this encouragement to heart and later commented that it was one of the most positive aspects of the training because it enabled them to learn that (1) they were not alone with their negative or stereotypical attitudes and (2) that these negative attitudes were offset by their commitment to working with kin. The attitudes, feelings, and ideas below therefore should be received in the spirit in which they were given: honest disclosure of the bunprofessionalQ side of our professional selves. Given the encouragement for honest disclosure, workers in seven of the nine units explicitly stated that though they knew they should not think it, they still partially endorsed the old idea that bthe apple does not fall far from the tree.Q The two units which did not explicitly articulate this bias both stated a more refined version of the same sentiment in the form of a reluctance to place children with kin because of bdysfunctional family traditionsQ or because bkin may have poor parenting skills [or] outdated beliefs around discipline.Q Through discussion in the training, several workers realized that while the bapple/treeQ metaphor was blatant, bthe bias against kin is [also] subtle.Q Many of these biases became evident in response to the brainstorm question: bWhat do kin want from us?Q While some workers noted that kin who were interested in providing foster care wanted support and guidance through the system, more frequent answers included bThey want DHS to go away,Q bthey want DHS to stay out of their business,Q bthey want to know what we know,Q bthey want control–over the child’s placement–and over DHS,Q bthey want us to act as heavy [to say bNoQ to other family members],Q and bthey want to get the skeleton back in the closet—ASAP.Q Other common biases against kin that emerged during the training included the widespread belief that kin are likely to collude with abusers (thereby putting the child at risk of re-abuse), are difficult to work with, are not up to the task of raising the child, and will inevitably pull the worker into difficult and harmful triangulation. In addition, analysis of the feelings which workers recognized in themselves and the feelings which they attributed to kin revealed interesting areas where the two overlapped and areas of empathic failure on the part of the workers. 3.2.1. Worker feelings After a role-play of an initial contact between a worker and a family member calling to express interest in obtaining custody of the child, the workers brainstormed the feelings which they thought kin usually have during their initial contacts with CPS and the feelings workers experience most often in their work with kin. Workers had little difficulty listing their feelings about work with kin. In the brainstorm sessions, they were quick, sure, and voluminous in their responses. On average, workers were able to articulate almost 11 different worker feelings per session. The workers’ ability to empathically understand and articulate the likely feelings of the kin they interact with was not as well developed. On average, workers were able to articulate only half the number of feelings which kin might be having as they approached and interacted with workers at the agency. The overlaps, parallels, and omissions in feelings can be seen in Table 1 and were striking. For example, workers identified that both they and kin were likely to feel angry, confused, defensive, fearful, frustrated, guilty, helpless, hopeful, overwhelmed, and suspicious. At the same

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Table 1 Frequency of feelings attributed to workers and kin by child welfare workers Feeling

Kin

Worker

Anger Anxiety Confusion Defensive Fearful Frustrated Guilty Helpless Hopeful Excited Overwhelmed Scared Self-doubt Suspicious Worried

8 0 1 2 3 1 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1

6 3 2 2 2 5 3 1 1 2 3 1 2 5 1

time, workers failed to understand that kin are likely to be feeling anxiety, self-doubt, or excitement, especially in their first contacts with the agency. Some of the likely outcomes of the interaction between workers and kin who might be simultaneously (or sequentially) experiencing identical feelings were readily understood by the workers. For example, they quickly realized that their suspiciousness toward kin would (1) make it more likely that they would bpump the family member for informationQ while revealing little or nothing about the child and (2) that this approach would likely interact with the guilt, fear, and defensiveness experienced by kin to create a btoxic mixtureQ of fear and suspiciousness in the kin families. Workers then realized that much of the bangry defensivenessQ and other negative feelings which they hear from kin might have been inadvertently created through the interaction of feeling states shared by workers and kin. At the same time, we should note that workers failed to understand or comment on the anxiety, fear, and uncertainty which kin may feel in making contact with the agency (see Table 1). Only one unit listed bsuspiciousQ as a likely kin feeling. Workers thus failed to understand or to articulate some of the most basic feelings kin might have in contacting a large State agency with a reputation of btaking kids away from families.Q Similarly, while workers knew that they were both excited yet consumed with self-doubt in their interactions with kin, they never realized kin might also be filled with the same admixture of feelings. This subtle bias predisposes workers to make the fundamental attribution error (Jones, 1979; Kelley, 1967) in which they assume kinship caregivers’ behavior is driven by personality flaws while the worker’s behavior is driven by situationally induced anxiety and fear. This attribution error may incline workers to see bsomething wrongQ with the family member when, in fact the individual is responding appropriately to the stress and strain of the moment. Shulman (1993) makes a cogent argument for the importance and efficacy of worker’s btuning intoQ clients’ likely feelings before sessions in order to develop what he terms bpre-empathy.Q In the present case, such btuning intoQ likely kin feelings might help workers avoid making some of those fundamental attribution errors and thus might help

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them see family members in a more positive light. Careful examination of Table 1 indicates some specific topics/feelings that might profitably be explored in training to help workers develop pre-empathy (1993). While workers’ lack of understanding of kin feelings may be considered a personal or professional failing in need of remediation, an alternative view is that the bfailingQ actually serves one or more important underlying psychological functions for the worker. Research in other areas has demonstrated that even apparently harmful aspects of the self serve important, self-protective functions (Goodman & Peters, 1995). In the present case, it may be that not understanding the more difficult feelings facing kin may protect workers from empathic strain in which workers are pulled in contradictory directions through their empathic connections with clients. Support for this view was evident in frequent comments after the role-play of the first contact. Workers frequently reported that in part they were cold and distant with kin callers because they did not want to give them bfalse hopeQ in case the worker later decided the family was unsuitable for kinship placement. In analyzing this statement, perhaps it is not just kin whom workers wish to save from the disappointment of bfalse hope.Q Perhaps workers bfailureQ to understand the full range of kinship families’ feelings (especially their excitement and hope) also helps the worker avoid painful feelings which they might later have if compelled to inform a family they were not appropriate for kinship placement. 3.2.2. Triangles In terms of affect, workers attending this training were most energetic and eloquent about the difficulties posed by the frequent triangulation involved in kinship work. In this training, triangulation in work with kin families was normalized by the trainer as a natural result of the disruption of the family structure and family homeostasis (Minuchin, 1974) caused by the placement. Specifically, triangulation was conceptualized as the family’s attempt to enlist outside assistance (e.g., the worker) in the difficult task of realigning the power structure within the family (Rothschild, 1976) in terms of such issues as: Who does and does not have the power to make decisions regarding what the child wears to school, how much homework the child does, what they eat, what is his or her proper bedtime, etc. From this perspective, the frantic (and often frequent) calls to workers from kin about apparently trivial matters were conceptualized as arising out of the needs of family members to garner support (and power) as they renegotiated the structure and dynamics of the family in an effort to stabilize the family (Jackson, 1999). While this conceptualization was intellectually helpful to workers and supervisors, the affective impact of being bsucked intoQ family triangulation was relatively undiminished by it. Before discussing the affective impact on workers of triangulation in kinship care, I will first present what workers perceived as the factual results of the triangulation which they so universally dubbed ba nightmare.Q First, workers discussed a number of intellectualized understandings. These responses included the assessment that triangulation in kinship families may: Divide the family against itself, give children in care mixed messages, decrease the focus on the child, increase the bproliferation of secrets,Q or promote unknown agendas of unknown individuals.

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In addition, workers in every unit saw the triangulation as taking up enormous quantities of valuable time. bI know as soon as I put the phone down with one person in the family another one is going to call me to complain about what they think I said to the first one.Q In fact, the way triangulation consumed worker time was the most frequently cited difficulty. Workers stated they hated triangulation because: bI hate spending my time putting out fires.Q bAll the time they consume!Q bIt takes so much time with such trivial stuff.Q bThe constantly changing requests take so much time.Q bAlways going back to square one, I never get anything settled.Q bIt is all about petty stuff.Q bWhat a WASTE OF TIME!Q bAll the changing alliances are dizzying and a waste of time.Q As a result, all units talked with great feeling about the sheer volume of work which triangulation causes. Triangulation secondary to kinship placement was therefore seen as increasing the burden on already overburdened workers. Worse yet, workers saw resolving kinship placement triangulation as a distraction from their real work of protecting children. Thus, the waste of time was a double waste as time devoted to triangulation was seen as time taken away from protecting children. Workers’ frustration, however, went beyond the feelings of being burdened by trivial distractions. They were also frustrated because of the inherent difficulty of sifting through all the allegations. bWith triangulation, you never really know what’s really going on.Q Worse yet, b. . .you don’t have the facts and you can’t get them, by definition.Q As a result, workers reported that bWith people making things up about each other you can’t know what’s really going on—but you must know what’s going on if you are going to protect the child. It’s a mess.Q Workers in the majority of units concluded that triangulation in kinship placements increased workers’ uncertainty about the safety of the child. This uncertainty has both cognitive and affective aspects and will be explored in more detail next. 3.2.3. Triangulation feelings The bmessQ of conflicting facts inherent in triangulation obviously increases workers’ uncertainty. bWith all the different stories–all the allegations–who do you believe? You can’t know what is really going on in the house.Q This uncertainty had a direct effect of making workers anxious and uncomfortable. Workers necessarily see their role as determining the presence or absence of abuse or risk of abuse for children. In the uncertainty of allegations related to triangulation, workers clearly felt unable to fulfill this portion of their job. Related to and perhaps caused by this uncertainty, workers in almost all units reported that triangulation in kinship cases decreased their trust in family members: bThe whole dHe said/she saidT leads to bad feelings about everyone involved.Q bAfter a while I just don’t trust any of them.Q This loss of trust was seen as leading to lessened collaboration and an increase in an adversarial working relationship: bIt all makes the worker get to the point of not wanting to help the family.Q Or bit forces us to look at the family in new [not favorable] ways.Q bIt makes me question the motives of the family.Q bI feel angry with the family.Q Another set of feelings related to triangulation centered specifically on feeling manipulated. Workers reported: bI feel manipulated.Q bI feel monopolized.Q bI hate being lied to.Q bI don’t like being taken in—fooled.Q bI feel angry, and then I feel bad about feeling angry!Q bI feel used.Q bI feel frustrated but have no outlet.Q

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While feeling manipulated directly elicited negative feelings, a more complex theme emerged related to worker’s feeling professionally unprepared to handle the triangulation. Triangulation in kinship families made workers aware of the power and complexity of family dynamics. Faced with this power and complexity, workers made comments which indicated that they felt inadequate in terms of their training and skills to either handle or alter those dynamics: bI feel powerless in the face of those trianglesQ or bIt is like a train wreck; you know it’s happening but you can’t stop itQ or bThey [the triangles] make me realize that something is wrong—something that the family or I can’t handle.Q Another worker reported she felt she was expected to bsort out old family feuds without really knowing the history.Q Going yet further, workers in one unit concluded that in dealing with triangulation bwe are way out of our depth with the complex family dynamics involved; yet they [the families] turn to us saying, dfix itT.Q Worse yet, workers felt unable to employ their most basic skills because bIf you just listen it is likely to be interpreted as bagreeingQ which is likely to antagonize other family members, exacerbate the triangulation, and make yet more work for the already overburdened worker. As one worker stated of working with triangulation in kinship placements, bWe hate to be wrong—and are likely to be in this work.Q Not surprisingly, more than one worker commented that work with kinship families bleaves me feeling overwhelmed.Q One interesting exception to the negative feelings and attitudes toward triangulation emerged among workers who specialized in work with adolescents. While some workers stated: bWe expect it [triangulation] so its no big dealQ or bIt is understandable,Q others went further to talk about appreciating the skills possessed by adolescent clients who so successfully manipulated their families and the system: bLook at how good she is at this.Q It should be noted, however, that this more positive attitude toward triangulation was evidenced only related to the child’s use of or manipulation of the triangle, not the parents’. In summary, triangulation had serious negative impacts on workers, their view of the family, their willingness and ability to work with the family, and the worker’s view of their own competency to deal with the complicated factual and dynamic issues which triangulation bsucks us into.Q Thus, even when workers acknowledged that triangulation might serve important dynamic functions for the family, this awareness did little to offset the physical and emotional toll exacted by dealing with kinship families when they engaged in extensive splitting and triangulation. One interpretation of the data is that the cognitive understanding had so little effect because workers felt unskilled to deal with family dynamics that would, frankly, challenge most PhD-level family therapists. Workers’ feelings regarding their lack of skills and abilities to deal with kinship placements went, however, beyond triangulation and will be explored briefly in the next section. 3.2.4. Worker skills and abilities In addition to feeling that their skills and abilities were inadequate to handle the triangulation involved in kinship placements, workers gave voice to similar doubts regarding kinship placement in general. Workers in five of the nine units made statements indicating they felt they did not have the skill or ability to assess the likely level of dysfunction in kinship homes or to deal with unresolved family conflicts related to past

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abuse. Thus, the bapple does not fall far from the treeQ metaphor was not just a description of family members ability to appropriately care for the child, but was also a description of the dynamic issues which are likely to confront the worker. Kinship placement therefore raised serious concerns for workers who felt that their training and skills were inadequate to face the complexity and power of dealing with the family dynamics encountered in such placements. 3.3. Systemic issues While workers’ feelings that they need more training and education is certainly a systemic issue for child welfare agencies, other systemic issues emerged even more directly. Chief among these systemic issues which could be resolved in order to help workers feel more comfortable with and confident in their dealings with kin was confidentiality. 3.3.1. Confidentiality—formal and informal policies After brainstorming the factors in favor of and against kin placement, workers engaged in a brief role-play involving a worker and a family member. This role-play was altered to fit the type of work done in different units, but usually involved a first telephone call from a family member who wanted the child to stay or live with them. With a few notable exceptions, the role-play of the phone call usually devolved quickly into a tense standoff between worker and kin. Analysis of the phone call revealed conflicting, but often identical, needs and goals of the kin and workers. Kin (naturally) wanted to get information about the placement and well-being of the child. Workers, in contrast, began the conversation thinking bI have to withhold informationQ and bI want to get as much information as I can from them.Q While part of this cognitive stance may have resulted from workers’ thorough training in forensically sound interviewing techniques, workers also reported that they were unsure of the agency’s confidentiality policy with regard to kin. Workers knew well the strict, formal, agency policy which states that they can give no information at all about a child in custody, or even that the child is in custody, without a signed release from the parents. Among workers who adhered to the strict policy, this adherence created some bizarre role-play interactions with kin who often had extensive contact with the child, had been present when the child was taken into custody, and who were now frustrated beyond belief to be told repeatedly bI can neither confirm nor deny that the child you mention is in our custody.Q One worker playing a kin caller retorted, bWell, I can confirm that the child is in your custody—I was there when you took her!Q From these role-plays, workers quickly concluded that adherence to the formal confidentiality policy antagonized kin who were calling with genuine concerns about someone they considered to be bour child.Q In contrast to those who adhered to the strict agency confidentiality policy, other workers reported that there was a vaguely articulated unofficial policy in the office. This unofficial policy implies that if the worker knows of knows of the kin who is calling then the worker can, at their discretion, offer limited information such as that the child is safe and doing well.

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The disparity between formal and informal agency policy left workers feeling that they were bunsure about the boundariesQ of what they could and could not say to whom under what circumstances. As a result, workers felt vulnerable bthat I might end up the subject of the next Frontline [television] special.Q While this anxiety has some reality base [a Frontline special (Goodman, Dretzin, & Soenens, 2003) had recently been taped in this office following the death of a child in foster care], many workers also realized that they brought bagency policyQ into their conversations with kin not to clarify or educate kin but rather to shut down or terminate the discussion. bI realize now that I use talk about dPolicyT in order to not deal with kin.Q When pressed, workers realized that this was, in part, a way of avoiding all the difficult feelings related to work with kin as well as a way of dealing with their uncertainty and resulting feelings of anxiety and worry. This theme of worker uncertainty in the face of conflicting messages within the agency will be explored further in the next section of the article. For now, it is important to note that the impact of this uncertainty was to distance workers from kin callers. In their evaluation of the training, workers reported that the opportunity to look at the impact of their practice was one of the positive aspects of the training. For example, workers struggled with the disparity between the trainer’s recommended greeting of kin callers (which involved some version of, bI am so glad you called and that you are interested in the well-being of this childQ), and the greeting they felt constrained to give. As many workers pointed out, the trainer’s recommendation contains a clear violation of strictly interpreted confidentiality. Workers ultimately resolved the issue by turning to their supervisors and requesting clarification from the agency. While this issue may become clarified, worker uncertainty and anxiety related to practice with kin extended to other systemic issues which are discussed next. 3.3.2. Other systemic problems As noted previously, workers’ uncertainty about agency policy was identified repeatedly as a factor which inhibited workers from engaging with kin as warmly, collaboratively, and as productively as workers wished they could or should. Even more fundamental than workers’ confusion about confidentiality with kin was their confusion about how kin are defined. Are parents of now divorced parental partners kin? Beyond such definitional issues, workers also pointed out that different, yet unarticulated standards were applied to kin and foster home placements. While the minimum requirements for a foster home are clearly articulated in licensing guidelines, kinship homes in this State do not need to be licensed. As a result, workers observed that bIt seems to me that traditional foster care placements are held to a higher standard while kin homes are held to a lower [standard] but there is no defined standard of what is or is not good enough.Q Knowing this difference, therefore, does not answer the question asked by several workers: bHow far do we lower the bar for placement with kin, compared to foster care? And how do I know how far to lower that bar?Q These questions reflected a general theme regarding the lack of clarity and structure regarding kinship placements. bThere is less clarity in our policy and procedure regarding kin placements than regular foster care.Q Similarly, another worker struggled: bWith kin there is less structure in terms of DHS policy and procedures. It appears that there are lower standards with kin, but what are those standards, specifically?Q As a result, when

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placing children in traditional foster homes, workers also felt they were better protected by the system. Foster care helps cover your butt, if something goes wrong, then you can say, bIt’s not my fault, they were licensed.Q Because of this protection of placing children in licensed foster homes instead of unlicensed kinship homes, workers felt that bFoster care is a safer optionQor bFoster care is a cleaner option.Q Conversely, bthe worker is taking an increased chance if the child is placed with kin.Q Workers were exquisitely clear about the impact of the uncertainty and lack of protection in placing children with kin: They felt anxious, unsure, fearful, and consequently less warm and welcoming in their interactions with kin. bKinship placement increases the fears of the worker.Q Finally, workers noted that kinship placement may increase conflicts within the office. Specifically they noted that they are constantly faced with the question bIs this family good enough?Q With scarce or nonexistent foster family placements, the worker may be inclined to place the child in a kinship home that clearly does not meet licensing standards. Not only is the worker bpushed by contradictory pressures,Q but their bcallsQ in such difficult cases bmay increase the conflict within . . .[the agency] between licensing workers and caseworkers.Q Workers saw no immediate solution to this conflict or its sources but instead turned again to their supervisors with a request that the agency provide greater clarity in the policies and procedures that govern placement with kin.

4. Discussion When provided with a safe environment and an appropriate structure, workers in this study were able to clearly articulate their observations of both the social and psychological benefits of kinship care for children and families as well as their realistic appraisal of the many difficulties which incline workers to place children in the safer bdefault optionQ of licensed, non-kin foster homes. Many of the data provided by workers concerning the advantages of kinship placement conform well with previous literature. This literature indicates that children placed with kin have closer and more durable relationships with family members (Berrick, Barth, & Needell, 1994), have fewer feelings of abandonment and rejection (Crumbley, 1997a), and are more able to mourn their losses (Crumbley, 1997a; LeProhn, 1994). Consistent with the results of Beeman and Boisen (1999), workers in this study also saw the decreased stigma and increased sense of family connection as advantages of kinship foster care. Workers in this study, however, went much further in articulating a number of rather sophisticated dynamic relationships which increased the value of kinship foster care including the effects of reducing the child’s unrealistic fantasies about their biological family, and the resulting risk reduction through increasing appropriate ambivalence and mourning. The workers’ observation of the numerous ways that kinship care enhanced the school performance of children in care are especially noteworthy and deserving of empirical testing. In particular, their hypotheses about the differential effects of shame, anxiety, grief, loss, family support, and community attitudes on school performance for children in kinship and traditional foster care are noteworthy. The difficulties of working with kinship foster families cited by workers in this study are, for the most part, also consistent with reports in the literature. In fact, the topic headings in

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Crumbley’s (1977b) chapter on the benefits and challenges of kinship foster care almost perfectly match the themes articulated by workers in this training. Some specific examples include the decrease in worker power when working with kinship foster care (Marchand & Meulenbergs, 1999), frequent contact with difficult family dynamics (Berrick, Needell, & Barth, 1999) including triangulation in work with kinship foster families (Foulds, 1999), the burden of educating kin about the child welfare system (Beeman & Boisen, 1999), the increased time necessary to work with kin (Beeman & Boisen, 1999; Berrick et al., 1999), and fears about the quality of kinship parenting as represented by the bapple doesn’t fall far from the treeQ (Beeman & Boisen, 1999; Chipman et al., 2002). This latter concern is still a matter of debate in the literature, with some authors arguing that because the apple/tree phenomenon exists in many families, bcontinuity with the past and ongoing relationship with the extended family, including the birth parents are often the opposite [italics original] of what the child needsQ and are no better than leaving the child with the abusive parent (Bartholet, 1999, pp. 90–91; see also Foulds, 1999). Finally, workers identified several negative effects on their practice that arise from the lack of clear and coherent policy in the area of kinship placement, a lack which is noted and bemoaned by many authors (Flynn, 2002; Foulds, 1999; Gibbs & Muller, 2000; O’Brien, 2000). In each case, these negative effects made workers more inclined to place children in traditional foster care rather than kinship care. While the findings reported here are generally consistent with previous research, they augment those previous findings in important ways. For example, workers in the Chipman et al. (2002) study reported that work with kinship placements usually entailed work with difficult family dynamics. The present study extends that finding by indicating that those difficult family dynamics often take the form of triangulation involving not just family members but also the caseworker. More importantly, this study indicates that the difficult family dynamics have a quite negative effect on the worker by reducing the workers’ trust of family members and ultimately by reducing the workers’ willingness to engage with kinship families. Workers embroiled in difficult kinship family dynamics reported feeling unable to exercise what they saw as their prime mission of protecting the child from abuse and neglect. As a result, many workers saw kinship care as working against or interfering with child safety. Thus, this study indicates that the topic of bdifficult family dynamicsQ deserves much further exploration and study. Another dominant theme in this training is worker ambivalence toward kinship foster care. Ambivalence, in this context, refers to holding contradictory thoughts, feelings, or beliefs at the same time. While Jackson (1999) believes child welfare professionals need to be reminded of the benefits of kinship placement, the workers in this study came into the training well versed in those benefits and often passionately committed to kinship placement. They needed no encouragement. Consistent with the definition of ambivalence, however, workers also held quite negative views of kin and kinship placements. A review of the literature reveals that these ambivalent feelings toward kin and kinship foster care are not unique among front-line child welfare workers. Indeed, the theme of ambivalence regarding kinship foster care is evident in the frequent arguments for and against kinship foster care (see Flynn, 2002 or Gibbs & Muller, 2000 for reviews of the literature) and debates about financial support of kinship care, safety of children in kinship, permanency planning, and well-being (Green & Berrick, 2002, p. 4). These later authors argue that the

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ambivalence results in ba tension that is yet to be resolvedQ (p. 4) and which extends from workers to policymakers—a view supported by this study. The centrality of ambivalence is echoed by O’Brien (2000) who writes of kinship foster care occupying an bambivalent spaceQ (p. 205) in terms of policy and practice. When worker ambivalence is viewed as a reaction to systemic issues in kinship foster care, the solution may not be to exhort workers to renew their commitment to kinship care. Instead, the ambivalence about kinship foster care may have to be resolved at every level of the system. In this training, providing a forum in which they could admit to and wrestle with their ambivalence was reported to be helpful to child welfare workers. The possibility that such forums could prove to be helpful at other levels of the system should be systematically explored. It is also notable that workers repeatedly requested evidence from the agency administration of a long-term commitment to kinship foster care. At the time of this training, this particular office was in the middle of a major reform of child welfare practice. Thus, workers were being trained in motivational interviewing, family group decision making, kinship foster care, and in-depth family assessments. Workers with many years of experience tended to see these changes as simply another of the many bfadsQ they had witnessed. It is therefore possible that the request for evidence of agency commitment was simply a self-protective reaction to the overriding message of this kinship training which was a request that they reevaluate their practice. At the same time, the request for evidence of commitment from the agency may have arisen out of a conscious or unconscious recognition of the ambivalence of child welfare administrators and policymakers. Further research is needed to tease out this distinction. This interpretation of the study results indicates that increases in kinship placement may require systemic resolution of our ambivalence about kinship foster care. Finally, this research also revealed fruitful topics for future training such as working with triangles (Fogarty, 1980), increasing worker empathy and ability to btune inQ with present or potential kinship caregivers, understanding and working with family dynamics, as well as skills in working collaboratively while maintaining confidentiality. Workers’ positive response to the training was, in part, due to the format of the training which encouraged the expression of both their bgood and badQ feelings and thoughts about kinship care. The response was also due, however, to workers’ strong, even passionate commitment to kinship care. Future research and training should build on that commitment while helping workers overcome the many legitimate barriers that they identified. As previously noted, this research has a number of limitations. First, triangulation of methods and the resulting trustworthiness of the results was limited to simply checking with members who were asked if this research report accurately reflected what they thought, felt, said, and observed during the training. While members enthusiastically responded in the affirmative to this check, other forms of triangulation would increase the trustworthiness of results. In addition, the presence of the supervisor may have limited some workers comments. Finally, because of limitations in the State data regarding kinship placement, it was not possible to conduct a quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of the training in terms of actual placement of children with kin. As a result, although kinship placement rates in this office have reportedly increased by 19% since the training was delivered, there is no way assess the accuracy or significance of that report or the degree to

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which the change can be attributed to the training. The results of this exploratory study should therefore be interpreted with caution and should be used only to understand possible worker thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward kinship foster care as well as the consequences of those thoughts, feelings, and attitudes on the actual work performed.

Acknowledgements This work was supported in part by the Title IV-E Child Welfare Training grant administered through the Maine Child Welfare Training Institute, Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME. I wish to thank all the individuals who helped design the training and who encouraged the writing and submission of this article, including Francis Sweeney, Bobbi Ames, Pam Mayo-Watson, and Barbara Kates. Thank you also to all the staff who participated in the training and shared so much so freely; without you, this work would not exist. Finally, thanks to Imi Ganz, PhD, for her insight, support, and editorial comments on various drafts of this article.

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