Placement disruption in foster care: Children's behavior, foster parent support, and parenting experiences

Background: The majority of children in foster care 24 months or longer experience three or more placements. Children's behavior problems are a primary contributor to multiple moves, but little is known about how behavior problems and other stressors lead to disruptions. This study focused on foster parents' experiences of parenting a child at risk for moves using the determinants of parenting model (Belsky, 1984) to identify potential correlates of difficult parenting experiences and placement disruption. Objective: To identify factors associated with difficult parenting experiences and placement disruption. Participants: Foster parents (N = 139) caring for children age 8-14 in long term foster care with a history of two or more moves were randomly selected in a large Midwestern state in the U.S. Methods: Participants completed a 90-minute telephone interview (86% response rate). Placement moves were tracked prospectively for two years. Parenting experiences and disruption were analyzed using multiple and logistic regression. Results: Results support aspects of the determinants of parenting model. Behavior problems, children's risk to others, low support, and stress were significantly associated with more difficult parenting experiences (beta s = .28, .22, .18, .19, respectively, ps < .05), and more difficult parenting experiences strongly predicted placement disruption (p < .01). Risk to others also predicted disruption before including parenting experiences, with this association becoming non-significant after including parenting experiences. Unexpectedly, African American foster parents had a higher risk for disruption, despite more positive parenting experiences. Conclusions: These findings support attending to foster parents' parenting experiences, children's risk to others, social support and stress to better support placements of children at risk for disruption.