An exploratory study of the impact of COVID‐19 on foster parenting

Abstract

As the COVID‐19 virus began to spread in the United States of America, states' child welfare administrators and policymakers responded differently. Some states implemented more restrictive policies, some less or did not require many restrictions (i.e., stay at home orders or masking in public spaces). Video‐based online focus groups with foster parents in four states utilized a consensual qualitative approach to identify themes relating to foster parenting during COVID‐19 and understand how policies related to COVID‐19 restrictions affected their caregiving decisions. Themes that emerged included pathways to foster parenting pre‐pandemic, the impact of COVID‐19 on both foster parents, children in care, and foster parents' ability to understand the broader importance of their caregiving. While participants in all of the states reported similar experiences relating to the need for resources and support and the challenge of managing both work and remote education for their children, those in states with restrictive policies were more likely to report pandemic‐specific concerns including a lack of agency communication or case progress, the mental health toll on foster children in their care and their concerns about accepting new placements. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

When Kinship Caregivers Became Teachers: Role Stress and Strain from Remote Learning during COVID-19

“…One of the most consistent findings throughout the literature from this time is how much caregivers struggled with figuring out how to meet the demands of their job, take care of their children, and support their learning [2,7,16,17,20,23]. Families faced difficult trade-offs, including switching off between working and teaching throughout the day [32], changing schedules to support their children, but working longer hours and potentially sacrificing sleep or time to relax [3], taking time off or reducing how much they worked [23], and deciding whether or not to seek outside care for their child, despite concerns about the virus [5]. Parents of multiple children learning from home, each with different needs, felt a heightened sense of responsibility and strain [2,20].…”

“…In addition to the role conflict and overload that caregivers working from home experienced, multiple studies noted that a significant stressor was the "non-stop, 24 h a day cycle of working and homeschooling" [4] (p. 12) that offered no opportunities for breaks-in proximity from their children or time [5,16]. A study of foster parents noted that "parents described how emotionally draining it was to both work and parent continuously without any breaks, because respite was unavailable and the health risks made childcare and/or babysitters undesirable, even if they were available" [5] (p. 377). Without time to be alone and focus on work, and with their children in the same physical space, caregivers found it especially difficult to fulfill the many tasks awaiting them [16].…”

“…CSHCNs also may have struggled to adjust to and engage with remote learning, due to difficulty attending to tasks, behavioral disruptions, and changes to routines [2,5,32,41]. Caregivers have noted that their children had different learning needs at home than they did at school [41].…”

“…The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and subsequent lockdowns had a catastrophic impact on individuals' social-emotional, mental, and economic health, an unintended consequence of efforts to protect and preserve the physical health of communities [1,2]. Families raising children across the globe during this time faced heightened fears, burdens, and service needs, with fewer options than usual for receiving necessary support [3][4][5][6][7]. In the early stages of the pandemic, government leaders mandated a short-term break from in-person schooling to prevent further transmission of the virus.…”

Parent, carer and professional views of specialist child and adolescent mental health care during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…During the pandemic, significant disruptions in daily routines coincided with parenting duties increasing, following the closure of community resources and schools and lessened in-person contact with extended family members and other sources of support (see, for example, Griffith, 2022; Huang and Ougrin, 2021; Children’s Commissioner, 2020; Children’s Society, 2020; Di Nicola and Daly, 2020; Marchetti et al , 2020). Research conducted with foster and adoptive parents in the USA has highlighted the impact of attempting to work and parent continuously (compounded by respite often being unavailable and a loss of social support), including interlinked challenges of supporting children to engage in virtual services and adverse changes in parents’ own mental health (Whitt-Woosley et al , 2022; Goldberg et al , 2021; Hanlon et al , 2022).…”