Kinship Care Taskforce Reports
2024 State Roundtable Report
The Kinship Care Taskforce, led by the Honorable Kevin M. Dougherty, Justice, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, provided its final report to the 2024 Pennsylvania State Roundtable.
The Taskforce began its final year with the completion of the Attorney Education session that began at the end of the previous year. The sessions were well received with an overall rating of 4.6/5.0 and a relevancy rating of 4.7/5.0. This report contains a statewide data analysis from 2021 to 2024. Since the Taskforce began, nine counties increased their kinship care use by 5-10% and fifteen counties increased their kinship care use by 10% or higher, for a combined increase of 24 counties.
This report also outlines progress made in overcoming barriers to kinship care use. Finally, this report provides details on common themes that emerged during kinship caregiver focus groups held in April and May 2024.
Reducing trauma for children and parents in the dependency system remains a high priority for Pennsylvania and one that can be accomplished, in part, by ensuring that children are placed with someone they know and love, when safety threats prevent them from remaining in their home.
Having completed the tasks assigned to them, the State Roundtable “sunsetted” the Taskforce. Even so, Taskforce members and the Office of Children and Families in the Courts will continue to support counties in utilizing the resources and practices outlined in the work of the Taskforce. To read the entire report, click the picture to the right.
2023 State Roundtable Report
At the 2023 Pennsylvania State Roundtable, the Kinship Care Taskforce’s report was unanimously approved. In the fall of 2022, Supreme Court Justice Kevin M. Dougherty became the lead chairperson of the Kinship Taskforce. The Taskforce spent most of its third year conducting quarterly data analysis.
Pennsylvania has maintained a statewide percentage rate of 44% Kinship Care use, despite an overall decrease in the number of dependent children in out-of-home care. That said, the Taskforce continued to explore strategies to increase the use of safe Kinship Care. One such strategy discussed in this report was an education session for attorneys practicing in dependency proceedings. The Taskforce created an education session that will be presented to the eastern, central, and western regions of the state to better accommodate attorneys’ attendance.
Throughout the next year, the Taskforce will conduct a deep dive into the barriers to increasing Kinship Care, gain lived experience knowledge through regional listening tours, examine best practices and resources to support Kinship Caregivers, continue to track statewide data, and examine any changes to proposed federal regulatory standards for Kinship Caregivers. (to view the report, click the picture to the right)
2022 State Roundtable Report
At the 2022 Pennsylvania State Roundtable, the Kinship Care Taskforce’s report was unanimously approved. The Taskforce spent most of its second year completing a Kinship Care Analysis in three volunteer counties. This analysis aimed to take a deeper look at factors impacting why a child was not placed in kinship care. The analysis included observing court hearings in which children were placed in non-kinship homes and conducting interviews with the judicial officer, child welfare administrator, supervisor, and caseworker for each of the observed hearings. During the interviews, County and child-specific tools created by the Taskforce were completed. The tools aimed to examine county practice and policy impacting placement decisions for a child. This year’s report also includes preliminary conclusions on the use of kinship care: Kinship Care: What Have We Learned. Upon the completion of the analysis, the Taskforce put together a presentation for the 2022 Children’s Summit, “Kinship Care: A Call to Action,” in which Supreme Court Chief Justice led a presentation panel calling for all professionals in the dependency system to elevate the urgency for safe Kinship Care use in Pennsylvania. This presentation also provided updated statewide and county data on Kinship Care use. (To view the report, click the picture to the right)
2021 State Roundtable Report
At the 2021 Pennsylvania State Roundtable, the Kinship Care Taskforce presented its first report. The Taskforce spent its first year examining Kinship Care use in Pennsylvania, including the reasons for high and low use in various counties. Contained in this report are the steps taken to gather preliminary information. To begin, statewide Kinship Care Surveys were administered to Judges, Juvenile Court Hearing Officers and Child Welfare Administrators. These surveys sought to understand strengths and barriers to Kinship Care use. Furthermore, the Taskforce examined three sets of data, including children’s first placement type upon removal, point in time data and a statewide glance at data by age, gender, race and Leadership Roundtable. After multiple meetings and further examining the surveys and data, the Taskforce created a list of Kinship Myths often impacting the increased use of Kinship Care. Finally, this report includes an extensive list of Laws, Rules and Case Law prioritizing the use of Kinship Care when a child is removed from their home.
