An exploration of the motivations and barriers to being a foster parent in Florida

Nicole Davi, Jennifer Jones and Martie Gillen

Children and Youth Services Review, 2021, vol. 131, issue C

Abstract: Many states in the U.S. face increasing numbers of children in foster care, with high turnover and low foster parent retention rates. There is a large body of research that discusses the methods for successful foster parenting and effective foster parent retention; however, there is not much literature on perceived motivations and barriers to being a foster parent. This research adds to the literature by providing an understanding of why most families do not foster, as well as the average public knowledge and exposure to foster care issues. This study specifically identifies adult Floridian’s interest in being a foster parent, general knowledge level about fostering, exposure to fostering, and perceived motivations and barriers to fostering. The data collection was conducted using MTurk to recruit survey participants which gauged participants’ general knowledge about fostering, average exposure to fostering, and perceived motivations and barriers to fostering. Statistically significant relationships were identified between individual’s interest in fostering and respondent demographics, general knowledge, average exposure, and perceived motivations and barriers to fostering. Specifically, demographics including gender, religion, religiousness, marital status, children, and education each revealed statistically significant relationships between two or more indicators of average exposure to fostering. In addition, respondents; religious affiliations was associated with a higher self-perceived knowledge of foster care issues. These results can inform future research and guide targeted foster parent recruitment efforts that adapt education and recruitment to specific demographic characteristics. The researchers also recommend that future research explore treatments that may influence interest in fostering based on the general exposure, knowledge, motivations, and barriers identified.

Keywords: Fostering; Recruitment; Retention; Motivations for fostering; Barriers to fostering; Foster parent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740921003376
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:131:y:2021:i:c:s0190740921003376

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106261

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().