Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Research on Social Work Practice
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Barber, J. G.
Right arrow Articles by Delfabbro, P. H.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Placement Stability and the Psychosocial Well-Being of Children in Foster Care

James G. Barber

University of Toronto jim.barber{at}utoronto.ca

Paul H. Delfabbro

Flinders University of South Australia

This article assesses one of the key assumptions underlying the philosophy of permanency planning—that placement instability adversely affects the psychosocial development of children in foster care. Method: The placement movements and psychosocial well-being of foster care were assessed over an 8-month period. Results: Most of the children who remained in care throughout the period could be assigned to one of three groups: 1 (stable throughout), 2 (unstable throughout), 3 (initially unstable, then stable) Results for these 120 children were generally consistent with a linear trend toward improvement in Groups 1 and 2, whereas Group 3 children displayed improvement only while their placements were unstable. Conclusions: Although results for Group 3 permit more than one interpretation, results for Group 2 suggest that placement instability up to at least the 8-month point is not necessarily damaging to the child.

Key Words: foster care • placement instability • placement drift • psychosocial well-being

Research on Social Work Practice, Vol. 13, No. 4, 415-431 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/1049731503013004001
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Journal of Emotional and Behavioral DisordersHome page
R. P. Barth, E. C. Lloyd, R. L. Green, S. James, L. K. Leslie, and J. Landsverk
Predictors of Placement Moves Among Children With and Without Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, January 1, 2007; 15(1): 46 - 55.
[Abstract] [PDF]